memorize some poetry

More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns in another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs—all this resinous, unretractable earth.

Jane Hirshfield

I realize I have to put off some of my goals for now…I am so busy with learning the ropes at my job, trying to do more art, work out, see friends, read…that this one will have to wait. I still know “Morning on the Lievre” by heart and that makes me feel good!

i memorized “the road back” by anne sexton. eeeeeeeeasy.

but will i want to memorize when i don’t have to do it for clase?

i have to memorize a poem (with meter) for my midterm. i chose ee cummings “in time of daffodils(who know.” should be a piece o’ cake.

I used to know Archibald Lampman’s “Morning on the Lievre” by heart since grade 7 (it’s one of my favourites) but I’ve forgotten some of it. I want to memorize some Neruda and Thomas Hardy, and Whitman of course!

I always wanted to know “the Highwayman” like Anne Shirley. I also want to memorize “Birches” by Robert Frost and “The walrus and the carpenter” from Alice in Wonderland.

i used to have alot memorized but havent in a long time. we live in a society that quotes movies and has no idea what Sonnet begins with “shall i compare thee to a summers day” and i am contributing to this. im gonna get on this goal SOON!

I’ve memorized some poetry in the past and it’s been very rewarding. I used to have a group of friends that would sit up late and at a certain point in the wee hours, and at a certain point of intoxication, we’d start sharing the poems we’d memorized. Those who didn’t know any poems would run to the bookshelves and page through volumes to find their favorites to recite. Good times.

I’d like to know “To a mousie” (or whatever its title) by Robert Burns; a couple more of the Psalms of David (already know 1 and 23); “Batter my Heart” by John Donne; “Power” by Adrienne Rich; re-memorize the first 40 lines of Canterbury Tales; “My Mistress’ eyes are nothing like the Sun” by Shakespeare; “Archaic torso of Apollo” by Rilke (maybe); that “Black milk” poem by Paul Celan maybe some others.

Seems like that could easily be done about one per week, right? And by memorizing, I’d have to read and re-read so I could understand the structure of these pieces too, right? That’s my goal then; one poem memorized every week or so.

Done! Memorized in Con Law, and now I can’t get it out of my head. Of course, this’ll hurt some of my law school related goals, since I didn’t pay much attention in class.

I’m not marking this as done because I want to memorize some more.