[Jayne Osborn]

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,

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

[John Whitworth]

It's not so difficult, Jayne. When I was eighteen I played Iago, which was 700 lines to learn, even in our cut version. It was a bloody sight easier than learning all those Chemistry thingies, because what iago says is interesting and chemistry is terminally boring. Thank God there are geeks who will do it for us.

Oddly enough, after damn near fifty years I can remember Othello's speeches better.

[Lance Levens]

I have my kids (9th and 10th graders) memorize a sonnet's length every two weeks. Here we are in April and we started in August, so about 240 lines for the year so far. That's including Chaucer's "Your eyen two wol sley me sodeinly" and Donne's "Go and catch a falling star, get with child a mandrake root..."

One point: I let them do the poems in accents. British, German, French,
Unidentifiable. I do them, too. Stereotypes: dumb jock, pampered mamma's boy. I speed them up and slow them down. We say them in unison as if marching off to war. Drunk. Dying. The Russian formalists would have given what I do some name like foregrounding or impounding or rebounding. Occasionally, I find someone who wants to do it straight up, no chaser.

[Tim Murphy]

God bless Lance Levins.

[Gail White]

Tim, haven't you always sworn that Warren made you memorize the first book of "Paradise Lost"?

Edna Millay claimed to have memorized Keats' "Lamia" & "Eve of Saint Agnes".

(I'm still working on Macbeth's speech that begins "Now o'er the one half world Nature seems dead...")

[Jayne Osborn]

Can I be in your class please, Mr Levens, sir?

Jayne

[Lance Levens]

You're all invited, St. John's Episcopal Church, Cranmer Hall, Savannah GA, every Tues and Thurs, 10-11:30. Just listen for "The Ancient Mariner" sounding arr--gh!, suspiciously like Long John Silver.

[Lance Levens]

Just heard the link of "O'Driscoll." Terrific! Thanks, John.

[Tim Murphy]

Yes, Gail. Mr Warren had me memorize 90 lines of Milton the first week, then the rest of the first book, the second week, then five more books in the succeeding weeks. Then he switched me to Chaucer and Shakespeare. What a teacher!

[David Anthony]

Originally Posted by Lance Levens

I have my kids (9th and 10th graders) memorize a sonnet's length every two weeks. Here we are in April and we started in August, so about 240 lines for the year so far. That's including Chaucer's "Your eyen two wol sley me sodeinly" and Donne's "Go and catch a falling star, get with child a mandrake root..."

One point: I let them do the poems in accents. British, German, French,
Unidentifiable. I do them, too. Stereotypes: dumb jock, pampered mamma's boy. I speed them up and slow them down. We say them in unison as if marching off to war. Drunk. Dying. The Russian formalists would have given what I do some name like foregrounding or impounding or rebounding. Occasionally, I find someone who wants to do it straight up, no chaser.

I admire that, Lance.
But doesn't it violate the US Constitution? (I'm thinking cruel and unusual punishments.)

Best,

David