Memorising Poetry

Let us go the you and I
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
Let us go through certain half deserted streets
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster shells
Streets that wind like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
That lead you to an overwhelming question.
Oh do no ask "what is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

The women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs it back upon the window panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening
Lingered on pools that stand on drains
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys
Slipped through the terrace, made a sudden leap
And finding it was a soft October night
Curled once a round the house and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window panes.
There will be time, there will be time
To create a face to meet the faces that you meet
Time to murder and create
Time for all the works of days and hands
That drop a question on your plate
That's the most I have memorized

There are plenty of reasons to memorize poetry. I know dozens of poems and I love having them always with me.

I memorized this poem a couple months ago. I find that having Eliot by heart makes it much easier to think about his poems and everything they entail. It's difficult to pick it all up from the page.

I used to do this at my crappy retail job. It increased my appreciation for the poem a little, but I could've gleaned as much from a few thorough readings.

Reciting Cummings got me laid once. I've since forgotten them all.

So what are some good ways to memorize poetry? Try to memorize one line at a time, or just re-read the whole poem over and over?

I typically start by reading the whole thing several times and the. Start memorizing it a stanza at a time. Once I have a stanza down, I recite the full poem up to that point to make sure I didn't forget the earlier ones.

Of course, for shorter poems it's easier to just do it all in one go.

From memory:
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row
That mark their place, and in the sky
A lark, still bravely singing, flies
Scarce heard amid the guns below

We are the dead, short days ago
we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields

I forgot the last verse.

I think it's pretty fun to memorize them. Always had to memorize them in elementary school, but I don't remember any from then.

Thought it would be fun to memorize some of Beowulf in its original form, but that would be a lot of work.

Memorized this several months ago:

I am the god Thor
I am the war god
I am the thundered
Here in my northland
Fastness and fortress
Reign I forever
Here amid icebergs
Rule I the nations
This is my hammer
Mjolnir the mighty
Giants and sorcerers
Cannot withstand it

These are the gauntlets
Wherewith I wield it
And hurl it afar off
This is my girdle
Whenever I brace it
Strength is redoubled

Light thou beholdest
Stream through the heavens
In flashes of crimson
Is but my redbeard
Blown by the night wind
Afrighting the nations
Jove is my brother
Mine eyes are the lightning
The wheels of my chariot
Roll in the thunder
The blows of my hammer
Ring in the earthquake

Force rules the world still
Has ruled it, shall rule it
Meekness is weakness
Strength is triumphant
Over the whole earth
Still it is Thor's day

Thou are a god too
O, Galilean
And thus single handed
Unto the combat
Gauntlet or gospel
Here I defy thee

we love eachother very dearly more than raindrops need sunbeams or snowflakes make possible mayflowers

no doing shall undo nor madness nor mere death nor both who is la guerre your me or simplfy my you, darling

Just short poems like Yeats Politics:

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or on Russian
Or on Spanish politics
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about
And there's a politician
That has both read and thought
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.

Whats your mother tongue?

Yeah its much easier to cut the poem and reflect about one verse or two in your mind than it is on the page.

>poetry in English

ugh

At one point I had The Hollow Men memorized, but that was a decade ago.

Invictus, from memory (I'm going to get the punctuation wrong):

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance,
My head is bloody but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade.
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

I started on The Litany Against Fear yesterday, I'll give it a shot.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind killer.
Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Déjeuner du matin" by Jacques Prévert
It is so simple and repetitive yet carries itself so nicely to it's end that I think it's perfect to memorize and recite. Here is my translation for you all.

Il a mis le café - He put the coffee
Dans la tasse - In the cup
Il a mis le lait - He put the milk
Dans la tasse de café - In the cup of coffee
Il a mis le sucre - He put the sugar
Dans le café au lait - In the coffee with milk
Avec la petite cuiller - With the little spoon
Il a tourné - He turned
Il a bu le café au lait - He drank the coffee
Et il a reposé la tasse - And he put down the cup
Sans me parler - Without speaking to me

Il a allumé - He lit
Une cigarette - A cigarette
Il a fait des ronds - He made rings
Avec la fumée - With the smoke
Il a mis les cendres - He put the ashes
Dans le cendrier - In the ash tray
Sans me parler - Without speaking to me
Sans me regarder - Without looking at me

Il s'est levé - He got up
Il a mis - He put
Son chapeau sur sa tête - His hat on his head
Il a mis son manteau de pluie - He put on his raincoat
Parce qu'il pleuvait - Because it was raining
Et il est parti - And he left
Sous la pluie - In the rain
Sans une parole - Without a word
Sans me regarder - Without looking at me

Et moi j'ai pris - And me I took
Ma tête dans ma main - My head in my hands
Et j'ai pleuré. - And I cried.

Do you enjoy that poetry? Was it chosen to be memorized because you enjoyed it so much?

There are many stanzas I can do from memory of various poems, but rarely whole poems

I can recite everything after "And this prayer I make" in Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. it's been a while since I tried so there might be a mistake somewhere. I never bothered to memorize the punctuation so it's all my guesswork

. . . And this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege
Through all the years of this our life to lead
From joy to joy, for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty forms, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life
Can e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our chearful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk,
And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee; and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies, O! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance,
If I shall be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence, wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service—rather say,
With warmer love. O! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves, and for thy sake!

with lofty thoughts* I think it actually went, I'm reading over it now and I think I was rushing through that part

>If I shall be
should*, I fuck up this part all the time

Peter Peter pumpkin eater
is trochaic tetrameter

—Pete Winslow

Long ago
we looked upon a foreboding sky

the memory of the star that threatened all
burns eternal in our hearts

In its wake
came an age of silence

yet with each fond rememberance we knew,
those encountered were not forgotten

that someday, we would see them again
perhaps it was no more than wishful thinking

but after the long calm
there are now the beginnings of a stir

the reunion at hand may bring joy,
it may bring fear

but let us embrace whatever it brings
for they are coming back

At last, the promise has been made.

>I'll give a free internet for anyone who recognizes it right off since you're gonna wanna kill me anyways

Brrrrrruuuumchigga
I am a Nigger
My lips are big
But my butt is bigger

first poem I ever memorised

I only do it when I see a Fates Warning (usually written by Jim Matheos) song that I really like. It has merit to me because poetry is an expression of overlooked themes and opinions in a very creative way.

Time for you and time for me
and time yet for a hundred indecisions
and for a hundred visions and revisions
before the taking of a toast and tea.

That whole middle part with the universe rolled into a ball, the marmalade and the gate, novels, teacups, always gets confused in my mind. I remember I memorized it after my college professor read it aloud to us on a bright, warm, autumnal afternoon in late August. Years later, thousands of miles away, I still chant these lines to myself. Of course the beginning and end are imprinted in my memory.

Grow old along with me
The best is yet to be
The last of life for which the first was made...

Esmeralda! Now we rest,
here in the bewitched and blessed
mountain forests of the west.

Here the very air is stranger:
damzel, anchoret and ranger
share the woodland's dream and danger.

And to think I deemed you dead!
(In a dungeon, it was said:
tortured, strangled)—but instead

Bluebirds from the bluest fable,
bear and hare in coats of sable,
peacock moth on picnic table.

Up the turf, along the burn
latin lillies twist and turn
into Gothic fir and fern.

Do you remember that clover,
dandelion, l'or du pauvre?
(Europe, nonetheless, is over)

Huddled roadsigns softly speak
of Lake Merlin, Castle Creek
And (obliterated) Peak.

Cornfields have overtaken the prairies
but these canyons laugh, and there is
still the forest with its faeries.

And I rest where I awoke,
in the sea shade, l'ombre glauque,
of a legendary oak:

Where the woods grow ever dimmer,
where the phantom orchids glimmer:
Esmeralda, immer, immer.

Ma pauvre Muse, helas! ¿qu'a-tu donc ce matin?
Tes yeux cres sont peuplès de visions nocturnes.
Et je le voir, tour à tour, s'étaler sur ton teint,
la folie et l'horreur, froides et taciturnes.
(it's late, and I haven't typed french on a computer in years, so I can't be assed to remember the shortcuts for the foreign characters).

Good effort, man. That's one of my favourite poems, though I've never attempted to commit it to memory.

A mente:

Solo e pensoso i più deseri campi
vo' mesurando a passi tardi et lenti
e gl'occhi porto per fuggire intenti
ove vestigi'human l'arena stampi.

Altro schermo non trovo che mi scampi
dal manifesto accorger delle genti
e negl'atti d'allegrezza spenti
di fuor si vede com'io dentro avvampi

E io mi credo omai che monti et piagge
et fiumi et selve sappian di che tempre
sia la mia vita, ch'è celata altrui

Ma pur sì aspre vie nè si selvagge
cercar non so, ch'amor non venga sempre
ragionando con meco, et io collui

what do I win?

Of course. Why would I memorize bad poetry? It was a conscious decision to memorize all of it though, I didn't just pick it up from reading them a thousand times.

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest
The seagulls wings shall dip and pivot him
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters, Liberty

Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross,
Some pages of figures to file away
Till elevators drop us from our day

I think of cinemas, of panoramic sleights
With multitudes bent toward some flashing screen
Never disclosed, yet hastened to again
Foretold to other eyes on the same screen

And thee across the harbor, silvery-paced
As though the sun took step of thee, yet left
Some motion ever unspent in thy stride
Implicitly, thy freedom staying thee.

Out of some subway, scuttle, cell or loft
A bedlamite speeds to thy parapets
Tilting momently, shrill shirt ballooning
A jest falls from the speechless caravan.

Down Wall, from girder into street noon leaks
A rip-tooth of the sky's acetylene
All afternoon the cloud flown derricks turn
Thy cables breathe the North Atlantic still

And as obscure as that heaven of the Jews
Thy guerdon, accolade thou dost bestow
of Anonymity time cannot raise
Vibrant reprieve and pardon thou dost show

O harp and alter of the fury fused!
How could mere toil align thy choiring strings?
Terrific threshold of the prophet's pledge
Prayer of pariah and the lover's cry

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars
Beeding thy path, condense eternity
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms

The city's fiery parcels all undone
Already snow submerges an iron year
Under thy shadow, by the piers I waited
Only in darkness is thy shadow clear

O sleepless as the river under thee
Vaulting the sea, the praries' dreaming sod
Unto us lowliest sometimes sweep, descend
And of the curveship lend a myth to God

Started memorizing poetry and the problem is I just can't memorize it unless it rimes, anyone got good suggestions?

I really like Ozymandias by Shelley.

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said two vast and trunkless
Legs of stone stand in the desert
Near them, on the sand, half-sunk
A shattered visage lies
Whose frown, and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things
And on the pedestal these words appear
My name is Ozymandias, king of kings
Look on my works ye mighty and despair
Nothing beside remains, round the colossal wreck
Boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away

...

Last of the dragons
There are no more
Slow beats his heart
On the dancing floor...

Cant remember the rest