Saturday, January 22, 2011
Jim Holt on Memorizing Poetry
I just ran across a piece by Jim Holt (from April 2009) in the NY TIMES about memorizing poetry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/review/Holt-t.html
It is indeed nice to have at least a few poems up there in the noggin. (Now I have to investigate the etymology of noggin.) If you're stuck in line or in a waiting-room, for instance, it's nice to withdraw to the pantry and take a poem off the shelf.
Aside from childrens' rhymes, "Stopping By Woods . . ." (by Frost, of course) was the first poem I memorized. We were asked to memorize it in the third grade, back when Frost was something of THE national poet. It's actually a bit of a tricky poem because of that wonderful interlocking rhyme-scheme, although I didn't notice that til later. I think I liked the poem in part because there we were at 4,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Images about snow, the woods, and the dark--and even horses--were familiar to us. Frost's choice simply to repeat a line at the end is one of those simple but perfect moves that helps make a good poem great. It "seals" the poem, it reinforces a sense of weary duty, and it just sounds great, like a blues refrain.
Anyway, thanks to Mr. Holt for the essay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/books/review/Holt-t.html
It is indeed nice to have at least a few poems up there in the noggin. (Now I have to investigate the etymology of noggin.) If you're stuck in line or in a waiting-room, for instance, it's nice to withdraw to the pantry and take a poem off the shelf.
Aside from childrens' rhymes, "Stopping By Woods . . ." (by Frost, of course) was the first poem I memorized. We were asked to memorize it in the third grade, back when Frost was something of THE national poet. It's actually a bit of a tricky poem because of that wonderful interlocking rhyme-scheme, although I didn't notice that til later. I think I liked the poem in part because there we were at 4,000 feet in the Sierra Nevada. Images about snow, the woods, and the dark--and even horses--were familiar to us. Frost's choice simply to repeat a line at the end is one of those simple but perfect moves that helps make a good poem great. It "seals" the poem, it reinforces a sense of weary duty, and it just sounds great, like a blues refrain.
Anyway, thanks to Mr. Holt for the essay.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Know/Don't Know
*
&
*
&
Know/Don't Know
I know
pretty much what you know
but I
also don't know anything like
you know
about the specific secret flow
of your
life--the essential realities of what you
and only
you can know. So here we are, same frame
of references
but different essences.
How do
you do? You may say how
you do
but also cannot come close to
saying how
and what you do, how precisely it is to
be you,
to me. Still we must proceed with introductions.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
&
*
&
Know/Don't Know
I know
pretty much what you know
but I
also don't know anything like
you know
about the specific secret flow
of your
life--the essential realities of what you
and only
you can know. So here we are, same frame
of references
but different essences.
How do
you do? You may say how
you do
but also cannot come close to
saying how
and what you do, how precisely it is to
be you,
to me. Still we must proceed with introductions.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
Yoga Poem #7
^
()
/
{
Yoga Poem #7
Among the willows
beside
the creek I am a
boulder.
Yoga Creek flows.
Willows,
full of its water,
flex.
They bow, stretch.
Hey,
the boulder participates
in
its own way. Its
molecules
expand, contract.
(Sigh).
The boulder's mat
envies
the willows' mats,
but
the boulder is
fine
with being a rock among
willows.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
()
/
{
Yoga Poem #7
Among the willows
beside
the creek I am a
boulder.
Yoga Creek flows.
Willows,
full of its water,
flex.
They bow, stretch.
Hey,
the boulder participates
in
its own way. Its
molecules
expand, contract.
(Sigh).
The boulder's mat
envies
the willows' mats,
but
the boulder is
fine
with being a rock among
willows.
Copyright 2011 Hans Ostrom
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