Although Michael and I wrote from different worlds, mine entirely rural and his urban, we saw eye to eye on memory. The only other poets I know who really recite an entire program are Dana Gioia and Kay Ryan, and they keep a book in front of them and "pretend" to look at it. I just carry a notecard with the list of poems, and Mikey didn't even do that.
One of the few times I read with another poet, very well known, a little girl asked her mother in my hearing "Mommy, why was that lady reading from a book?" From the mouths of babes... I think one reason Mikey wanted me to recite to his students in London was so they would know he wasn't a freak of nature. As I wrote in the adjacent thread:
"She watched you springing for the microphone
to read without a text,
master of pacing, phrasing, pitch and tone.
Pity the poor bastard who went next,
yet even he is grieving
your prematurely leaving
a stage so few could ever wholly own."
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