[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

[S. A. Wyatt]

Originally Posted by David Anthony

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

No, but it does violate their right to pursue happiness.

In all seriousness, I hope my daughter will memorize and recite poetry with me some day. But 5 is probably too young to start. . .that might be cruel and unusual.

[Tim Murphy]

Oh get going SA. Three is the right age to start.

[John Whitworth]

I seem to remember memorising a lot of De la Mare. And 'Ducks'. Who wrote that? Anyone else remember'Ducks'? I also memorised 'Wee Jock Todd' whenI lived in Edinburgh and I can still say it. I don't know how it is I can do about the first fifty lines of 'Tam O' Shanter' because I'm sure we never memorised THAT. It just sort of slipped in.

I pursued happiness like anything and arranged to meet a girl called Sally by the swings when I was six or so. She never came. That was happiness all shot to hell. 'Useful to get that learned' as Larkin said. She had dark hair and an Alice band and she sat in the next desk but one..

[Ann Drysdale]

Perhaps, in the context of your post, you meant Kenneth Grahame's "Ducks' Ditty", wherein they are to be seen a-dabbling, up-tails all.

However, my own remembered ducks are those of F.W. Harvey, who turned to them "from troubles of the world".

[Shaun J. Russell]

Rhyming poetry really lends itself to memorization though, given the amount of "cues" one gets. I have a really abysmal memory for verbatim, but am able to memorize medium-length poems like "As I Walked Out One Evening" by the sounds and images, more so than the words per se. "Kubla Khan" as well.

The best memorization technique for me is an oldie but a goodie: flash cards. Writing each line on a card and reciting it ten times before moving to the next line/card tends to work quite well.