Mesmerizing Memorizing

Poetry is love or death, anything in between is a lesser form of one of these two extremes.  At the risk of sounding grotesquely pretentious I am letting that first sentence be, for now.  For me, the best poetry is self-aware, but it is not shy or closed off.  It wears its individual emotions on its sleeves.  Maybe they are golden bracelets shinning in the afternoon sun. Perhaps they are the sleeves of a tattered woolen sweater, soggy from the storms of life.  Whatever its condition, it is true to itself.  There is no need to be melodramatic, because it understands true drama.  There is no need for the poem to contain uninspiring diction, because it is communicating an uncontrollable feeling which flows from the fountain of the human heart.

Enough preaching to the choir.

I have successfully memorized the modernist villanelle Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas and the Victorian era Petrarchan Sonnet How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count The Ways by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  I had talked about learning these two poems in a previous post.  There has been a lot of talk about slam poetry going around these days.  I cannot say that I find this particular style of poetry reading very entertaining, but as I recited aloud these two poems to myself again and again I found that their power grew.  My understanding was enriched.  My mind was enlightened.  Not only did I appreciate these two magnificent poems more, but I learned to appreciate,a little bit more, the rewards one can find in audible poetry.