{"id":1245,"date":"2011-02-24T19:12:33","date_gmt":"2011-02-25T00:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=1245"},"modified":"2011-06-01T06:29:02","modified_gmt":"2011-06-01T10:29:02","slug":"poem-memorization-tip-number-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=1245","title":{"rendered":"Poem Memorization Tip Number Nine"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m working on the poem, To A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing<\/em><\/a> by William Butler Yeats.\u00a0 Here’s what I’ve memorized so far:<\/p>\n

Now all the truth is out,
\nBe secret and take defeat
\nFrom any brazen throat,
\nFor how can you compete,
\nBeing honor bred, with one
\nWho were it proved he lies…<\/p>\n

Look at the line that starts with “being honor bred.”\u00a0 The first letters of the words in that line and into the next make a pattern: B,H,B,W,O,W.\u00a0 Bhb? Wow!\u00a0 It’s so useful for me to find an anchor, like alliteration or patterns, to moor me to a particular passage.\u00a0 At first I just memorize the pattern.\u00a0 Then, when I’m working on the actual words, repeating them again and again, I’ll invariably forget one or two.\u00a0 That’s when I give the anchor rope a tug.\u00a0 It pulls me back to the text.\u00a0 The memorable pattern gives me a clue about what I’m missing.<\/p>\n

This is me memorizing: being honor something, being honor something, being honor….(oh brother, thought I had it)…um…bhb, bhb, ahh, right, bred!\u00a0 Being honor bred, being honor bred. \u00a0 Whew!\u00a0 O.K.\u00a0 For how can you compete, being honor BRED<\/span>!\u00a0 Yes! <\/p>\n

Here’s another treasure you get from finding memorable patterns.\u00a0 Looking at a line like this helps me appreciate the actual genius of the poet, the structure of the line, especially in the latter half.\u00a0 The W,O,W part of the sentence are the words “with one who,” but the actual W sounds are with the first two words, one of which starts with W but the other with O.\u00a0 The word Who is breathy, not a plainly W-esque sound.\u00a0 And humorously, the word after the breathy Who is Were, another W word but that does start with the W sound.<\/p>\n

Call me weird and wacky (or wheird and whacky) but I love noticing these things, and I’ve gotta say, they help me memorize poems.\u00a0 They also help me appreciate the poem’s structure and the poet’s craft in writing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m working on the poem, To A Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing by William Butler Yeats.\u00a0 Here’s what I’ve memorized so far: Now all the truth is out, Be secret and take defeat From any brazen throat, For … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[55,132,32,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1245"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3669,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1245\/revisions\/3669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}