I have a fetish for memorization. For example, I’ve memorized all the national capital cities in the world. I also believe that knowledge is a part of intelligence, and that memorizing can be beneficial.
So here’s my challenge to you, The Dope: which poem should I memorize? Two things to consider:
I like narrative.
I might like to recite the poem at an open mic.
FWIW, I recently read the first 140 pages of The Best Poems of the English Language (edited by Harold Bloom) and I particularly liked Epithalamion by Spenser. Maybe too long?
My 9th Grade English teacher introduced us to poetry and he read this one aloud to us. Knocked us out. I had it memorized soon after. I still love the rhythm and have written some funny shit in that same rhyme scheme.
There are strange things done
In the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold.
The arctic trails, have their secret tails
That would make your blood run cold.
The northern lights have seen queer sights
But the queerest they ever did see,
Was that night on the marge of Lake Labarge,
I cremated Sam McGee.
And so on. The Jungle (I think that’s the name of it) Don’t know the author’s name.
Fat black bucks in a wine barrel room
Barrelhouse kings with feet unstable
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table.
Pounded on the table!
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom
Hard as they were able
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom
Hard as they were able,
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Then along that riverbank a thousand miles,
Tattooed cannibals danced in files.
Danced to the tune of a blood lust song
And a thighbone beating on a tin pan gong.
There’s a lot more of this, and you can get both of these and more onlline.
Good luck!
Oh, come on. Poetry? That’s hardly a challenge. Here’s a task for you: memorize the first thousand digits of pi. There’s a test of your memorization talents. (speaking as one who has done it.)
Anything by Lewis Carroll. If you can nail The Hunting of the Snark, kudos. I tried and failed. However, I do know several by heart. Some people might find this ability threatening, though. Somebody once told me that the fact that I can recite Jabberwocky means I’m gay. I told him to give me an hour with his girlfriend and I’d prove that I wasn’t (standard retort that I stole from somebody years ago). But my sophomore English professor was quite impressed with my repertoire, and told me that everybody should know Jabberwocky. So there. She also gave me an ‘A’ in advanced composition.
Thanks for the suggestions everybody. I can’t decide yet, but if I do Old Possum, it will just be 1 or 2 of my favorite ones. I don’t really want to memorize digits, Captain Carrot, but congrats on 1000.
I call bullshit. Well, OK, I call highly dubious. Never mind—I’m cowed and humbled and just won’t admit it. I can do 29 places, though—3.14159265358979323846265338327—at least I think that’s right. It’s been a while. And no, I did not just go and look that up right now, if that’s what you’re thinking.
The really fun thing about “Jabberwocky” is that you can sing it to the tune of “Greensleeves” and it works perfectly… I used to have all of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” memorized but I’ve forgotten bits from the middle.
Wow. I saw a guy did 100 digits at a talent show once, and that blew most people’s minds.
On that note, because why on earth would you memorize a poem if it wasn’t to show off, I third Sam McGee, as I’ve had great success with that one. Someone I know won a talent show for reciting the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A bit more literary value, as well.
It may not seem that exciting but I had to memorize and recite this in grade school and still remember some of it to this day. I think what helped is that Bullwinkle once recited it as well, so I always hear it in my head in Bullwinkle’s voice. So if you can do a decent impersonation of Bullwinkle, I’d say “go for it!” at your next open mic.
Well, bear in mind that it was basically all I did with my free time for a couple of weeks several years ago, and it took me three tries over a few years to get to 1100, most of which I forgot afterwards. Let’s see what I can still recall: 3.
1415926535 8979323846 2643383279 5028841971 6939937510 5820974944 5923078164 0628620899 8628034825 3421170679 8214808651 3282306647 0938446095
Hmm. Only 130 places. But I’m sure I could get a lot more than that with a little practice.
Oh, I see—you did it the same way I did it—by breaking it up into blocks. When you play it in your head, does the completion of each block trigger the next block? In other words, could you start at the fiftieth place and go from there? I can’t. I can say the whole thing as one long run-on sentence, but I can’t just start anywhere.
To some extent. The last time I worked on it, I memorized one row of ten blocks of ten digits at a time, and after the first hundred or so, I recited Row 2, Row 3, Row 4, and so on. I never particularly tried starting anywhere but the beginning, except when I knew that I had a weak transition or entire block somewhere, and had to say those several times over. I could, however, come up with any individual digit on command, mostly by visualizing the table ("Digit 279? Hmm, that’s between 200 and 300, so it’s the third row, between 70 and 80 so it’s 8 groups along, and the second-to-last digit there is 8).
I third Sam McGee, as I’ve had great success with that one. Someone I know won a talent show for reciting the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. A bit more literary value, as well.