POETRY MEMORIZATION

Sara SánchezHope College

Good Poetry Teachers:0 Like poetry and are enthusiastic about it; take it seriously0 Emphasize the pleasure of poetry0 Provide more amusing and varied activities (poetry

memorization!)0 Allow conversational and informal discussion0 Seek out students’ views, listen to their interpretations, and

treat them with respect and seriousness0 Encourage exploration of pupils’ personal experiences in

relation to poems0 Support the feeling that the emotional experience of poetry is

real

Taken from “The Poetry Teacher: Behavior and Attitudes” by Molly Travers

A Case for Poetry Memorization

0For pure pleasure0Reciprocated devotion0Deepens understanding of the

work’s structure and poetic devices0A form of ownership

“The relations among reading, listening, and understanding become more significant. Nowhere are these relations more intensely embodied than in the matter of spoken verse. And nowhere does one learn better how to read either verse or prose aloud than by recitation from memory.” —John Hollander, “Committed to Memory”

“The future of the humanities as a common possession depends on the restoration of a simple, single ideal: getting poetry by heart.”—Clive James, Cultural Amnesia

“If we do not learn by heart, the heart does not feel the rhythms of poetry as echoes or variations of its own insistent beat.”—Catherine Robson, “Heart Beats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem”

ACTIVITY

We Real Cool

THE POOL PLAYERS. SEVEN AT THE GOLDEN SHOVEL.

We real cool. We Left school. We

Lurk late. We Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We Die soon. Gwendolyn Brooks

Unit Plan: American Poetry

0 Day 1: Review of literary devices; choose poem and getting acquainted with it

0 Day 2: Watching performances or hearing readings0 Day 3: Memorization

0 Poem By Heart0 Verse by Verse0 Old school Line by line

0 Day 4: Research on Authors0 Day 5: Writing Day about experience—how it sheds light on your

interpretation of the poem0 Days 6-12: Presentations0 Bonus: In-Class Open Mic

Memorizing 0 Poem by Heart by Penguin Classics

Memorization

0 Verse by Heart0 SYK (So You Know)0 Recording it as a video or voice memo

Tips

0 Offer options on poems0 Poems in other languages for your ESL students0 Teach contemporary poetry first and then go

backwards in time0 Do memorization sparingly, so you don’t burden

students0 Teach poems you don’t fully understand—students

will gain confidence by journeying with you to understand the poem

Recommended Poems0 We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks0 The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot0 Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson0 One Art by Elizabeth Bishop0 Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley0 Metaphor by Sylvia Plath0 Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas0 Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith0 Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter by Robert Bly0 Phenomenal Woman by Maya Angelou0 Slowly by Donna Masini