Another forgotten writer and this one is unfathomable to me: W.S. Merwin. I spent quite a bit of time with him back in 1994, when he came to Columbia — MD not U. of — for a lecture. In the time I spent with him, I seemed to remember every line of poetry I had ever studied — and even some I hadn’t. I found myself quoting Villon — where are the snows of yesteryear — when I was usually more apt to think that was a lyric written by the “I Do, I Do” team.
Then this weekend, I read that Tony Kushner could recite many poems by memory. I can recite only two — the beginning of “Paul Revere’s Ride” and bits of some poem about Columbus, both forced on me in grade school. Here’s what I can recall, with no Internet cheating.
Listen my children and you shall hear/Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere/on the 18th of April in ’75*/Hardly a man is now alive/Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend: if the British march tonight/Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch/One if by land, two if by sea/And I on the opposite shore will be/Ready to ride and spread the alarm/Through every Middlesex village and farm.
He said goodnight and with muffled oar — and that’s all I’ve got, folks.
(My father always maintained that it was rhyming ease of Revere’s name that established his somewhat undeserved rep via Longfellow. After all, dad wrote, if Longfellow had honored the guy who finished the ride, it would have been: Listen my children and smack your jaws/At the midnight ride of William Dawes.)
As for the Columbus poem, I can still hear Ms. Burke’s class droning: Behind him lay the gray Azores/Behind the ghost of Hercules/Before him not the ghost of shores/Before him only shoreless seas.
And I can see, and could even name if I were cruel, the poor lisping girl forced to recite: “The words lept like a leaping thword! Thail on, thail on, and on and on.” Ms. Burke was not nice. Also, she wore slippers in class. And she put me in the stupid math group when it was clear that I knew how to do long division, I just couldn’t see a damn thing, so I copied all the problems wrong.
I wish I could recite reams of poetry off the top of my head. Jean Kerr — a favorite of mine in childhood, although I’ve not quite recovered from the unflattering portrait of her in Secrest’s biography of Stephen Sondheim — wrote about her family’s culture hour, in which her sons were required to learn and recite poems. So, in my usual second-hand way, I learned this Robert Burns poem from Jean Kerr:
John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent;
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a cantie day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
And hand in hand we’ll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
(I double-checked this one, but only because I couldn’t bear to mangle it. I had most of it right. Couldn’t remember what was blessed or what kind of day they had “wi’ane anither.” Otherwise, I pretty much had it down.)
So — what do you know by heart? And, sure, theme songs count. (Let’s go/to the drive-in down the street/Through the/courtesy of Fred’s two feet.)
Honor system holds for this, of course.
*Hey, that’s today!
You don’t want to get me started on theme songs. That would be too scary. Basically figure on any of the 70s sitcoms, Of course now I have the theme from Gilligan’s Island stuck in my head. And any minute now Welcome Back Kotter will rear its head
I don’t think I know too many poems by heart. The ones I do know are mostly Shakespeare but also a couple by YB Yates, William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Frost, and a few others.
One of the poems I remember from high school is by John Masefield. Its the one everyone learns – I must go down to the sea again, to the loney sea and the sky. And all I has is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. Ane the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking. And a gray mist on the sea’s face and a gray dwan breaking……
The one I’ve always wanted to learn is Jabberwocky. Just never got around to it.
Mary
I had to recite The Little Crocodile for my 3rd grade recital.
I was a very little girl, smaller then anyone else in my class, and they had to adjust the microphone for me. I took one big breath and said “How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail, and pour water of the Nile on every golden scale, How cheerfully he seems to grin, and neatly spread his claws, and let’s little fishes in with gently smiling jaws.”
Not exactly how it was meant to be recited, but good enough for Central Elementary .
Unfortunately, my performance has not improved with time, to this day I say it as fast as I can, all in one big breath.
What I remember most was the illustration in my book. It was all green and brown, only the little crocodile’s eyes were big, yellow, and mean. The croc was smiling, and there were these little fish swimming by him, and I just knew that they thought he was a friendly sort, because of his grin, they could not see the evil in his eyes.
I thought the croc was pretty darn cool.
<i>You can’t take three from two,
Two is less than three,
So you look at the four in the tens place.
Now, that’s really four tens,
So you make it three tens,
Regroup, and you change the ten to ten ones
And you add ‘em to the two to make twelve
And take away three, that’s nine.
Is that clear?</i>
I’ve apparently forgotten the part where he does it in base eight, but when I was a kid, I knew the whole thing, along with <i>Poisoning Pigeons in the Park</i> and <i>The Vatican Rag</i>.
Besides lyrics I learned entirely when I was a kid (Tom Lehrer songs, Thomas Dolby songs, Bill Cosby routines), I mostly know bits and pieces. Some shards of the mezzo and soprano rep, like <i>Carmen</i> and <i>Pace</i>; Bob Marley songs; bits of P-Funk…
Lots of wordless melodies, though. The horn lines from <I>You Can Feel It All Over</i>, <i>Jungle Boogie</i>, and <i>Southwick</i>; the basslines from <i>Walking on the Moon</i> and <i>Flashlight</i>; the guitar parts from <i>Sequencer</i> and <I>Panama</i>…
A few lines of poetry, that’s it. <i>Which in our case we have not got</i> and <i>That which we are, we are.</i> I have <i>The Lice,</i> but I only tried a couple of times and didn’t quite get there with it.
Oh, and lately <i>The Inchworm</i>. Which, now that I’m thinking of it, bookends nicely with <i>New Math</i>:
<i>Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds.
You and your arithmetic,
Will probably go far.
Inchworm, inchworm,
Measuring the marigolds.
Seems to me you’d stop and see,
How beautiful they are.</i>
I’m lucky on the days I can remember my name, ATM pin number, student ID number, and computer passwords. That and when I was younger in AWANA (the protestant version of the Boy Scouts) I memorized so many Bible verses I can’t memorize anything else. Though since I did memorize most of it from the King James Version it’s very poetic. My favorites are all of King David’s Psalms and Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastese.
“Now let’s not always see the same hands”. Thank you Keith, I ADORE Tom Lehrer, just so ADORE him. “Base eight is just like base 10 if you have 2 fingers missing.”
My friend Debbie and I walked into a McD’s in Albany years ago, singing “Vatican Rag” turned and walked out (sort of like singing Alice’s Restaurant but shorter). And “genuflect, genuflect, genuflect”. Similarly, I grew up in a generation for whom DOZENS of songs are permanently WRECKED because I learned the Allan Sherman parody before learning the true song. Or it overtook it – “In Sherwood Forest there dwelt a knight who was known as the righteous Sir GreenBAUM….”
Putit to music, I seem to remember just about anything. Which is why I can still do “What a Piece of work is Man” which i had to memorize for Senior English class (ok it was something like 15 or 25 lines of Hamlet. And it was about a year or s after the musical HAIR was out. And I had the album.
without question, the poem i know best is
Whose woods these are I think I know, his house is in the village though….” but that’s aided to a great extent by being able to sing it to “Hernando’s Hideaway”. Ole!
My mother and i used to scout poetry anthologies and read to each other; I remember “The Children’s Hour” as one we liked. Many bits stick in my head: just read “home is the sailor, home from the sea” in a book the other day and had to stop – that really gets to me. And i need to read more Auden since finding one of his – recited for godsake in “Four Weddings and a Funeral” to have touched me.
And then there’s my mother’s favorite BAD line of poetry “Smiling, the boy fell dead.” Euuuuuuuu.
Sail On sail on Oh ship of state Sail on oh Union
strong and great Humanity with allits fears. With all the hopes of future years……etc and My favorite
Four score and seven years ago Our four (fore) fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation also etc Both of these go back to 1940 or so to fifth grade in Atlantic City My home town believe it or not. That was a l-o-n-g time ago/ This is El Syd of Kvetch fame.
“Tyger, tyger burning bright/in the forests of the night/What immortal hand or eye/can frame thy fearful symmetry”
Back in sixth grade, in the annual poetry-reciting competition at school, I made it to the schoolwide run-off with this poem….even though it bothered me then, and still bothers me now, that “eye” doesn’t rhyme with “symmetry.”
The next year I did a smash-up version of Jabberwocky, but didn’t even emerge from the classwide competition. Apparently, the judges couldn’t tell how well I’d recited the poem, because who knew HOW you were supposed to pronounce words like “slithy” and “frumious.”
Aside from my adult sons’ favorites from decades ago, including many poems and limericks by Edward Lear, especially The Pobble who has no toes/Had once as many as we… and Dr Seuss’s “Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?” (.. Mr. Brown can whisper/very soft/ very high/like the soft, soft whisper/ of a butterfly… dibble, dibble, dibble, dop, dop, dop.), the only poems I can always recall near perfectly by heart are two by WB Yeats, “The Song of the Wandering Aengus” and “The Lake Isle of Inisfree”. First learned them on a visit to Lough Gill in Sligo, Ireland, where this tiny Isle is located. I’m a bit more confident with the latter (..this poem’s a wondrous, magical mind-place to escape into, btw) Goes…
I will arise and go now/and go to Inisfree/ and a small cabin build there/of clay and wattles made.
Nine bean rows will I have there/ a hive for the honey bee/and live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there/ for peace comes dropping slow/ dropping from the veils of morning/ to where the cricket sings.
There midnight’s all a glimmer/and noon a purple glow/ and evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now/for always night and day/ I hear lake waters lapping with low sounds by the shore.
While I stand on the roadway/ or on the pavements gray/ I hear it in the deep heart’s core.
The Aengus, just a few lines…
Though I am old with wandering/ through hollow lands and hilly lands/I will find out where she has gone/ And kiss her lips/ and take her hands/ And walk among long dappled grass/and pluck til time and times are done/ The silver apples of the moon/ The golden apples of the sun.
Curious how you can remember pieces like these and yet be hopeless at recalling the names of people introduced to you three minutes ago, unless they’re sporting name badges.
Hope Keith was taking notes about the Lear and this particular Seuss! Reading to your boys will be fun for them, and they’ll never forget, but it’ll be even better for you. You have this mom’s word on that.
Y’all are so lucky that you covered Tom Lehrer before I got here or else you might have been subjected to an amazing recitation of the Masochism Tango. Lehrer’s great big cd set, including some never before released material, came to live at our house this weekend. There’s even a mini-book with all the lyrics. Smile.
Oh and I almost forgot Schoolhouse Rock. That’s the only way I know the preamble to the constitution. And who could forget interplanet Janet, the contraction song, and I’m only a bill?
I just wish they had done more of them. I’m with Andi – put it to music and I’m halfway there.
Laura,
My father’s family is actually from Sligo near Lissadell, only a few miles from the Lough Gill and Inisfree. Many generations of my ancestors are in the Drumcliff Cemetery, which I’m sure you would have been to on any Yeats tour. Some family members actually worked for the Gore-Booths who owned most of the land there, and leased it out to the locals. A kind of tenant farmer arrangement..
At Drumcliff Churchyard, did you realize that the left side, where Yeats is buried, is the Protestant/Ch of Ireland-only side and all the Catholics are buried (some in layers, many were quite poor, including mine) off to the right, even beyond the stone wall? Many unmarked graves are there.
For years, I’ve longed to return and attend the Yeats Summer School held there in Sligo … maybe one day. All of that area felt like hallowed ground to me. BenBulben (the dominant mountain) is such a mystical place.. where the landscape seems to change constantly. I grew up hearing all these poems and fantastic traditional stories from my grandmother. It made me a dreamer and I’ve quite an affinity for Sligo places. It feels like home.
I only know “Innisfree” because, again, it was put to music. The second I saw Annie’s post, the voice came into my head; it’s on vinyl, by Judy Collins. WHY I remember lyrics like that and I can’t remember where i put my library card….
Andi,
And it was Hamilton Camp who set ‘Inisfree’ to that music.. (Yeah, I’m an olde ‘folkie’
Judy Collins and Dave VanRonk wrote the music for ‘Wandering Aengus’. It’s simply gorgeous, and even more poignant than Inisfree. It’s on her album ‘Maids and Golden Apples’, and also on an earlier one, iirc. Look for track ‘The Golden Apples of the Sun’.. Listen here: http://tinyurl.com/9xlq8
Oh. And don’t know if remembering song lyrics count here, but it’s very scary how many I know. Hundreds, including so many folk songs, including most anything by Tom Paxton, Stan Rogers, Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, Judy C, J Prine, Stevie Goodman, et. al. Too bad I cannot carry a tune better, but hey, I sing anyway. ;o)
By heart two things I quoted today, the beginning of “The Raven” “Once upon a midnight dreary as I pondered weak and weary.” And they last line of Gatsby “And so we beat on, boats against the current…borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Annie,
I saw Innisfree two summers ago, following the “Yeats’ Trail” through Sligo. But I could summon up only one line or two.
Annie – I spent MANY hours sitting next to my friend Debbie at Paxton concerts singing along. I CAN carry a tune; she can’t. It’s the folk process… (“folk music, let’s dance” . Thank you rim shot please)
We’ve got a lot of the same taste, i can see (Paxton, Ochs, Prine) . I still have my Collins albums on vinyl though I quit buying when she made some sort of choice to go from “folk singer” to “chanteuse”. I don’t dare listen to stuff on line – our aging operating system barely lets me use browsers and we’re still on dial-up. Whimper.
Mary said it … Schoolhouse Rock rocked. My favorite was always INTERJECTIONS/SHOW EXCITEMENT/OR EMOTION…
My daughter was obsessed with Yertle the Turtle for some time and I can still remember the end:
And today the great Yertle that marvelous he, is king of the mud. That is all he can see. And the turtles, of course, all the turtles are free, as turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.
Besides that, there are smatterings of Macbeth and Yeats and all the words to all the Partridge Family songs. And my very first Spanish dialog in seventh grade, which I am sure to be reciting as I sit in the chair at the nursing home when I’m 90.
Conjunction, junction, what’s your function?
I think I used a Schoolhouse Rock allusion in my forthcoming book — but only after checking and findind out that the songs had been released so boomer parents could buy the CDs for their utterly baffled children, who do NOT get the charm.
Brusha, brusha, brusha/here’s the new Ipana/with a brand new flavor/It’s dandy for your te-e-e-e-eth.
Bucky Beaver
http://www.mouseranch.com/buckybeaver/ipana-toothpaste-bucky-beaver.wav
[Not exactly Keats!]
I learned everything I know about government from Schoolhouse Rock.
“I’m just a bill up here on Capital Hill…”
There’s a whole boxes set of all the songs that comes in a metal Schoolhouse Rock lunchbox. One of my wisest friends who knows how much I love lunchboxes bought it for me!
I think the easiest and best poems to memorize are those by Shel Silverstien. Rarely are they forced upon you to memorize, but somehow, they just stick. My favorite (though I know a few, including the ‘Lazy Jane’ one) is:
I will not play a tug-o-war
I’d rather play a hug-o-war
Where everyone hugs
Instead of tugs
Where everyone giggles
and rolls on the rug
Where everyone kisses
and everyone grins
Where everyone cuddles
and everyone wins.
>>>I think the easiest and best poems to memorize are those by Shel Silverstein<<<
My daughter’s fourth-grade school play was based on “A Light in the Attic.” Seeing all those cute kids reciting that cute poetry was a blast. My favorites of Silverstein’s have always been the darker, grosser ones.
In the early days of book-related bbs, I was tangentially involved in a weeks-long, ferocious battle over whether “The Giving Tree” was a touching story of unconditional love, or a revolting tale of uncontrollable narcissism.
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
-the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
–e.e. cummings
+++++++++++++++
Okay, I admit I looked it up for line breaks and punctuation, but I only misremembered two words. So there.
And yes, Schoolhouse Rock does indeed rock.
-Sean