I was looking at this thread again and, in particular, at Maryann's post #16, which refers to Tom Clancy's recitation of "The Host of the Air" by Yeats.

YouTube now has a recording of this Carnegie Hall performance. (It starts at the 2-minute mark.)

I was comparing it to the text of the poem, which you can find, with interpretive notes, here. Other similar sites have the same text of the poem. The result was quite a surprise.

Not only does Clancy change several lines, he omits stanza 7 completely. (Actually, he starts with S7L3, moves to S8L2, and continues from there on.) Stanza 7 refers to the title theme of the poem and seems to contain its central revelation. The notes explain it further.

Could this have been deliberate? Or might it be that Clancy went in front of a capacity Carnegie Hall audience ill-prepared and got it quite wrong?

The sleeve notes to the recording say:
This doesn't read like a description of a non-standard "version". And Clancy recited only ten quatrains.

Memorized delivery has its risks. And I suppose this is a good example of how poems in the oral tradition can change over time.

John

Thank you , John. You can bet I will be listening to Liam's Fallon poem many times.

I've discovered that showing the students that I myself know by heart many of the poems I teach is in itself an effective teaching tool. Obviously there's an element of showing off in this (well, teaching is also performing, let's admit it), but mainly it works to show the students that I have consided it worth my while to devote a good amount of my time to these poems and that works - with the better students at least - as an incitement.

I hear you, Maryann. I teach high school students--many of them currently not native speakers. In the past, when I taught mainly white, affluent, well-educated students, I tried several times to have them memorize a poem, but it was never very successful. Maybe that was my fault! I think you do have learn poems on a regular basis and enjoy them for it to work.

I barely remember the poems I had to recite at school--except for "Adlestrop," which I still love. But the one thing that stays with me from my days in high school (grammar school in England) is performing in Shakespeare plays. I could roll out huge chunks of blank verse, no problem--and I found it enormously pleasurable. But then I was doing it every day for a couple of months at least.

I just started teaching Othello to 9th graders and had them reading aloud immediately--taking turns in front of the class. They didn’t really understand the text very well, but they really enjoyed performing. And some of them had an ear for the lines instantly--even when they didn’t understand them! Also I once had a 12th grade class who wanted to read the WHOLE of Hamlet aloud, they enjoyed it so much. It had to do with the themes of the play, of course, but also the sound of the words in their own mouths. It's all been very instructive.

Charlotte

PS: Gregory, we cross-posted. How wonderful! Wish I could do that, but my memory seems to be shot....

A pleasant surprise to see this thread going again. Thanks, John, for the information about the incompleteness of Clancy's recitation of Yeats. Alas! My mind is so satisfied with that aural memory that I hate to think of the performance as flawed, but I guess in terms of the poet's intention it is.

Charlotte, thanks for the corroboration, and also for the counterexamples, the students who loved recitation.

I have to say that after coming back to poetry as a grown-up I've made fewer, rather than more, attempts to memorize other people's poems, though some poems or lines stick whether I will or no. The only one of my own that I have absolutely cold is one that I've recorded on a CD and that plays in our little player beside the bed as the wake-up alarm every blessed morning. The rolling dac-hex is a definite help.

I think Tom Clancy's personal version of 'The Host of the Air' is a rare tribute to Yeats' craftsmanship.

A popular turn in Welsh Twmpathau (Ceilidh / Fok Evenings) is the traditional ballad 'William Price' about the eccentric Welsh New Age Prophet whose antics largely led to the decriminalisation of cremation as a means of disposing of the dead:

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiDRP...tWHENIYNG.html

There are multiple versions of the words; sometimes you can even identify the area where the song was collected by the form the lyric takes.

I remember the original publication of this traditional ballad (in a small press magazine). Quite a few years later, I got to know its author fairly well - and heard the sem-legendary story of how you write a folksong.

As soon as he realised that William Price was being reported as a traditional folksong, the author carefully removed as many traces that linked him to it as he was able. He has published a Collected Poems - there is no trace of "William Price" in it.

You would need to be at least my age to be aware of the real backstory to the words (it would help to be quite a bit older); so in a generation or so, 'William Price' will have become a true folksong.

Just saw this thread--and remembering in high school eons ago the English teacher who had some of us form a voice choir -- and memorize and recite poetry together and present at assemblies...a good technique I think for teachers... I can still recite a number of them at least in part but don't remember any memorized solo

The kids quit complaining about having to memorize a sonnet when they see me get up and speak for fifty minutes from memory. Jonno, what an unspeakably great poem by Padraic Fallon! And how sad it is that Liam Clancy is no longer with the living. It was great to grow up with him.

We grow up with our teachers. I have had many. Robert Penn Warren, Richard Wilbur, RS Gwynn, Rhina Espaillat. But I think the finest teacher I have ever had is my junior, Dave Mason. He just strides into a class and knocks the kids out. It must be seen to be believed.

I'm still smiling at Christopher's post. The good Dr. Price was, however, following in the tradition of one of our Southwalian saints, Gwynllw Farfog (Woolos the Beardy) who bathed nude in the Usk with his good lady Gwladys and walked home hand in hand with her in a state of nature. Allegedly.

Does anyone else have strong views on my own bugbear - the person who attends a poetry reading with the published volume in hand and follows the text with a finger?

Ann's bugbear
 

Ann,

I've only ever done it once, but the circumstances were exceptional. Do you remember Steve Bucknell's long-running, wonderful thread about R P Lister? Here it is

I went to the recitation - not a reading - of this amazing gentleman's poems (he's nearly 100 and he was there). The actor Donald Pelmear, who recited the poems from The Idle Demon, was marvellous; he remembered almost every poem in it, word for word.

I simply had to follow him with the book in my hands, I was so astounded. (But it's what actors do; how in the world does anyone learn every word of a Shakespeare play?) I know I couldn't. Just as well that I never aspired to become an actress!

Jayne