Writer David Kern tells us that memorization is about love and memory – love for the things we remember the most. My eight-year-old grandson can rattle off sports scores and statistics like the most experienced sports analyst, but then, he loves sports. My wife knows the lyrics to virtually every song from the British Invasion of the 1960s. I can remember daily itineraries for six visits to England, including the first one in 1983. Our own Sandra Heska King even memorized the 131-line “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
My 12th grade English teacher had a slightly different view. She required that each of us in a class of 30 boys had to memorize at least one soliloquy by Shakespeare, because “you’re not educated unless you can recite a soliloquy by Shakespeare.” I chose the dagger scene from Macbeth, and I dutifully (as required) memorized it and recited it before the class. I still remember it today: “Is this a dagger which I see before me, / the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. / I have thee not, and yet I still thee still…”
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
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