My favorite place on the Web is Poetry Daily. Every day it gives me a new poem, from one of hundreds of literary journals and books. When I find a poem I like, I put it in a fat, three-ring binder, my own anthology. click

Louis Untermeyer’s  A Treasury of Great Poems, English and American, introduced me to poetry in ninth grade.  All the scattered bits that remain in my memory come from that year and that book. “Whoso list to hunt, I know where is an hind…”  “I like it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart…”  “Love at the lips was touch as sweet as I could bear…”  I loved that book, but I left all my books (and my first husband) behind when I was twenty-three.

                               
LEFT BEHIND

I found the Treasury again at our library’s semi-annual used book sale. I paid two dollars and was reunited with hundreds of old friends. click

At 94 my father astonished a dinner party by reciting Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn, all fifty lines.  He glowed with pride, and deserved to.  Doris, my sister-in-law, once recited the preamble to Intimations of Immortality. She seemed to do it for the sheer pleasure of hearing the words.  My sister followed with Jabberwocky.

I have always wished I had a big collection of poetry in my head.  It would entertain me when I have to wait in line, or when I am imprisoned in a small cell for my courageous political actions, or, perhaps more likely, in a hospital bed for one or another ailment of age.

When I retired I decided to memorize poetry.  I started with Elinor Wylie, “Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones, there’s something in this richness that I hate.”  I struggled to remember the poet’s exact words, as she no doubt struggled to choose them, though some, I hope, came as a gift.  Over and over I repeated the whole sonnet, until it seemed to be firmly planted.  An hour later it was gone. 

In my computer I have a file of the ten poems I managed to memorize.  I wish I had such a file in my brain.  Each poem I added drove out the previous one.

download my ten poems

Years ago, I paid my two foster children to memorize short poems.  I believe I paid them a quarter. The first poem was

                                        I never saw a purple cow
                                        I never hope to see one
                                        But I can tell you anyhow
                                        I’d rather see than be one.

 
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Like many other plans from our early days together, when I thought I could achieve perfection, this one soon fell by the wayside and our path descended into the mucky quotidian. 

I would like to try the same thing with Amanda.  She already knows the pleasure of rhyme and rhythm.  But Joe believes it is wrong to pay for learning, which should be its own reward.  He is adamant, so I concede, though I still believe it’s a good idea.

I read poetry for months at a time, and then I let it go.  Every time I come back to it I am renewed.  Thank you, Poetry Daily, for the daily gift.