{"id":4614,"date":"2011-08-10T06:48:14","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T10:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4614"},"modified":"2011-08-10T12:25:01","modified_gmt":"2011-08-10T16:25:01","slug":"three-years-of-memorizing-poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=4614","title":{"rendered":"Three Years of Memorizing Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month I’m celebrating an anniversary all my own.\u00a0 Three years ago in August, I started memorizing poems. When I first heard about the idea<\/a>, it hit me immediately like the right one, something I was primed for.\u00a0 Sometimes when you are shopping for clothes, you try on a garment that amazingly, almost miraculously fits precisely and looks just right.\u00a0 That’s exactly what this idea was for me.<\/p>\n

I have enriched myself in so many ways by memorizing poems.\u00a0 After committing even one to memory and for sure after 66, I have a wealth of beautiful words and images ready at a moment’s notice to comfort, to entertain, to move.\u00a0 Poems, I have discovered, are often a welcome addition to a conversation among friends, especially later in the evening over port or around a campfire.\u00a0 Memorized poems recited have been a gift to my family, my wife and children and others, who enjoy hearing them and are moved by them.\u00a0 I have even experienced emotional and psychological benefits from memorizing poetry.<\/p>\n

Memorizing poems led to literary events over the past three years such as my wife’s fiftieth birthday party in which all the gifts were poems.\u00a0 Four hours of good food, good conversation, and 50 poems, classic and original, recited from memory and read, is a powerful and memorable way to celebrate such a milestone.\u00a0 Of course, memorizing poems played a role in my decision to host Burns Suppers<\/a> for the last three years.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In three years I have memorized 66 poems, though one, the Gettysburg Address, is poetic prose.\u00a0 I have memorized 17 poems by Robert Burns, my favorite poet.\u00a0 I have three Shakespeare sonnets under my belt, two I learned\u00a0to recite for my bride on our wedding anniversary, and one I spoke at dinner after our daughter’s wedding<\/a>.\u00a0 I’ve learned many familiar, well-loved poems, such as “The Road Less Traveled” by Robert Frost, because that’s what people enjoy listening to (and for good reason: I also enjoy reciting them).\u00a0 I’ve also learned less-known poems by Dylan Thomas, William Butler Yeats, Walt Whitman and others.\u00a0 I’ve learned four poems about autumn, three about spring, and two about winter.\u00a0 My repertoire includes nine on the subject of love and two about death.<\/p>\n

I’m celebrating this anniversary by reviewing some of the poems I’ve let slip a bit.\u00a0 I have found that I have to keep up the ones I’ve already committed to memory while continuing to learn the new.\u00a0 Ironically and humorously, I have a hard time remembering what I’ve memorized.\u00a0 Do I need to memorize the list of what I’ve memorized<\/a>?\u00a0 I have posted the list in The Life Literary<\/em> and will keep it up-to-date, adding new poems as I learn them.<\/p>\n

With all the writing I’m doing these days, I have less time to memorize poems.\u00a0 That’s o.k.\u00a0 I still add new ones to my repertoire.\u00a0 When I first started, I was learning one a month or even more.\u00a0 Now, it’s one every two or three months.<\/p>\n

I am a poem memory advocate.\u00a0 I suggest that anyone, possibly even everyone, can benefit from memorizing a poem.\u00a0 It doesn’t have to be a long one.\u00a0 Another reason I have posted my list is to give others examples of poems\u00a0they could memorize.\u00a0 I urge you to make the decision to memorize a poem, then set aside a little time each day, maybe while taking a walk, maybe early in the morning while you’re drinking your coffee, and learn it, one word, one phrase, one little bit at a time.\u00a0 You’ll be surprised at what you’ll get from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This month I’m celebrating an anniversary all my own.\u00a0 Three years ago in August, I started memorizing poems. When I first heard about the idea, it hit me immediately like the right one, something I was primed for.\u00a0 Sometimes when … 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":[692,691,567,32,33,693],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614"}],"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=4614"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4633,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4614\/revisions\/4633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}