Although I’ve forgotten a lot about my high school years, I do recall a fear of poetry, and letting my eyes roam around the room or stare at my book while I mentally begged the teacher not to call on me in class. Yet if I really was so scared, why did I torture […]
Commit Poetry: Prufrock Complete And Worth It All
I grow old . . . I grow old . . . Who starts memorizing poetry at my age? If someone had told me a year ago that I’d be memorizing swaths of poetry now—on purpose—starting with a 131-line T.S. Eliot poem, I might have rolled up the bottoms of my white girlfriend jeans and […]
Commit Poetry: Ten Reasons Why To Memorize
It remains a mystery why Tweetspeak Poetry chose Prufrock for me to memorize. If they didn’t feel like I was done with Thomas E, or he with me, and they wanted me to extend my brainy pathways with something long, they could have chosen a more sing-songy piece—like maybe something from the Old Possum’s […]
Commit Poetry: Prufrock – Part 7
Continuing to complete the dare issued by Tweetspeak Poetry in the fall–to memorize T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To […]
Commit Poetry: The Stolen Child – Second Stanza
Today I recite the second stanza of W.B. Yeats’ “The Stolen Child,” that many of us are memorizing for National Poetry Month. Here’s the first. And yes, I’m still working on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I’m almost there. Oh, and about those Surinam cherries. You can read about them here. The writer tells […]
6 R’s of Poetry Memorization
I finally settled on six weapons to finish off Prufrock—I mean, to complete this dare—and they each begin with the letter “R.”
How in the Universe am I Going to Do This Thing?
After Tweetspeak pinned me down to memorize “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (all of it) and after I stopped hyperventilating, I decided to take a bite of the peach with a smile. I rolled up my sleeves and the bottoms of my jeans (I can do that in November in South Florida) and asked […]
a poetry dare with t.s. eliot
Remember that poetry dare issued by Tweetspeak Poetry I mentioned earlier this month? Well, it’s begun . . “We’d like you to read not just a poem a day but a poem from one particular poet a day. (That is, the same poet every day.) And that poet, for reasons we have yet to discover, […]
