Sunday, October 05, 2008
Poetry
There must be some extra arts council funding sloshing about in the media at the moment. I've just finished reading my seocnd article about how learning poems by heart will make you cleverer/kinder/better.Good for them and all, but can anyone ever really learn anything off by heart? Last time this what the hot topic (2006 actually) I lapped it up and tried to learn to Wordsworth's We Are Seven. And I did. For about two weeks before it evaporated again and I could vaguely remember the title and that it was creepy for him to call her a little maid. Am I alone in having a weak, sieve-like memory? 'Cos apparently Jeanette Winterson doesn't need to take books on train journeys because she can just recite to herself. Freak.
I guess I need to train up and step up to the plate. The Sunday Times have given me some steps to follow:
How to learn verse
1 Read the poem to yourself
2 Now read the first line of the poem out loud. Take your eyes from the page and immediately say the line again. Glance back to make sure you got it right. If you made a mistake, try again. Now do the same with the second line. Repeat the procedure for every line in the poem.
3 Go back to the beginning. This time, read the first two lines out loud, look away and repeat them aloud. Check. If you made a mistake, try again. Now move on to the next two lines, going through the whole poem two lines at a time.
4 Repeat the process three lines at a time, then four lines at a time, then five and then six. By the sixth pass, no matter how long the poem, you will have it memorised.
5 Recite the whole poem just before you go to bed at night.
6 Crucial: stop thinking about the poem. Your sleeping mind is very important for memory.
7 The next day, you should find (after a glance at the first line to bump-start your memory) that you can recite the whole poem
Having some good all pupose poetry off by heart does sound like an excellent idea. I like the image of me rearing up in Ted Hughes-like to recite Chaucer at cows from rowing boats (watch 'Sylvia' if you haven't). So my new good intention is to learn a poem every fortnight. First two are below, wonder which one will prove to be most useful for spontaneous recitals.
the boys i mean are not refined- e e cummings
the boys i mean are not refined
they go with girls who buck and bite
they do not give a fuck for luck
they hump them thirteen times a night
one hangs a hat upon her tit
one carves a cross on her behind
they do not give a shit for wit
the boys i mean are not refined
they come with girls who bite and buck
who cannot read and cannot write
who laugh like they would fall apart
and masturbate with dynamite
the boys i mean are not refined
they cannot chat of that and this
they do not give a fart for art
they kill like you would take a piss
they speak whatever's on their mind
they do whatever's in their pants
the boys i mean are not refined
they shake the mountains when they dance
I Had a Hippopotamus- Patrick Barrington
I had a hippopotamus; I kept him in a shed
And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread.
I made him my companion on many cheery walks,
And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalks.
His charming eccentricities were known on every side.
The creature's popularity was wonderfully wide.
He frolicked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles,
Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles.
If he should be affected by depression or the dumps
By hippopotameasles or hippopotamumps
I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain
He was hippopotamasticating properly again.
I had a hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend
But beautiful relationships are bound to end.
Time takes, alas! our joys from us and robs us of our blisses.
My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamissus.
My housekeeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye.
She did not want a colony of hippopotami.
She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier-nephew, Percy
And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy.
My house now lacks the glamour that the charming creature gave.
The garage where I kept him is as silent as a grave.
No longer he displays among the motor-tires and spanners
His hippopotamastery of hippopotamanners.
No longer now he gambols in the orchard in the Spring;
No longer do I lead him through the village on a string;
No longer in the mornings does the neighborhood rejoice
To his hippopotamusically-modulated voice.
I had a hippopotamus, but nothing upon the earth
Is constant in its happiness or lasting in its mirth.
No life that's joyful can be strong enough to smother
My sorrow for what might have been a hippopotamother.
-- Patrick Barrington
Labels: books, famous person makes me like stuff, poetry, wikipedia is my oyster
ThePoliteArt at 4:00 PM