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I’ve been toying with the idea of memorising poetry.
To do so wouldn’t merely be some sort of brain training to mitigate my advancing years. I’ve always admired the reciter, the true storyteller who can cast a line back through their mind and draw a performance to the surface. One of the many reasons to listen to podcast appearances from David Whyte is his ability to recall not only his own poetry but the work of others. Memory wielded like this is so powerful.
When I was young, one of my grandparents had a stroke. It’s one of my earliest memories, the blue lights outside our living room window blending with the white ones on our Christmas tree as he was taken away in an ambulance.
Strokes kill a part of your brain. Abilities, words and memories can disappear from your grasp in a moment. What remains can be a beautiful and brutal surprise. One might lose the ability to speak but retain the ability to play the piano more or less perfectly. I was perhaps too young to recognise just how powerful and strange that irony is.
Last weekend, someone told me they’d read my book. They asked how did I remember all those things? Sometimes I’m not sure but I know I didn’t remember it all in order, or even in the right time.
Remembering is a skill like any other. It needs practising but not only that. It needs rejoicing in. If you can do it, you should celebrate it, call it forth. One day it might not hear you.
For the moment, I’m building a little bank of poems to try and commit to memory down the road. Below you can hear me read a few that I’ve picked so far. Reply or leave a comment if you have a suggestion for me.