i started reciting poetry to my kids when they were babies before they’d go to bed at night. i figured it was liek reading to them, but i could do it in the rocking chair with the lights out and help lull them to sleep. i’ve got some dickenson, frost, blake and wordsworth memorized, along with a bunch of shakespeare, and now that my kids are bigger, we read from poetry books together, but i think it’s good brain exercise to be able to recite from memory, too. (and no, i didn’t recite macbeth to my sleeping babes…)
when i was a freshman in high school, we had a guy come into my class and recite ‘rime of the ancient mariner’ from memory. the guy was as old as dirt, and i imagine that exercising the brain like that helps. i think my english teacher knew him from a bar, but we’ll just let that slide..
