Memorizing a poem a week
Filling my brain with beautiful things
Messing about in the darkroom. Experimenting with my as yet untouched sumi set. Sewing that dress I bought a pattern for last year. Finishing a damn drawing in one sitting. Reading an entire chapter without interruption. Playing a piece, of any length, on the piano. Writing a complete scene?!
All these have one very boisterous thing in common. Well, two actually. I call them thing one and thing two, but really their names are Oliver and Annabel. Oh how I love them, but they sure make me feel as unproductive as shit.
I have this vague list, more of a conceptual heap really, of things I want to do. There are these half finished crochet projects that get half unraveled every time I pull them out. The philosophy books I want to read, the websites I want to make. There’s that children’s book I’m writing and illustrating. Except my son takes such great pleasure helping that it never actually progresses. Painting is more of a frantic scramble than anything meditative. And even when he does get occupied with his lego, that’s when the baby starts crying.
Right now, even these few precious minutes are eked out between bouncing the baby hammock and singing soothing nonsense rhymes, catching my son before he comes screaming into the room and thoroughly wakes the baby, and being driven completely insane by this fucking fly. Sometimes… sometimes I really sympathize with Walter White.
So why am I spending this free time, such as it is, writing a Medium post? (Which, by the way, will probably be read by ten people tops.) Because sometimes, even mothers need a purge. I don’t want to explode my frustration on my children. So you get it. I hope you don’t mind.
That, and I’ve decided that something must be done.
For what it’s worth, here’s my answer. Poetry.
Interlude while I go ballistic at the fly.
Alright. Composure has marginally been regained. Poetry, as I said. I could go on about how much I love it, about the way it can twist your mind, or your heart, depending. The way just normal words formed into a a few short sentences (or not so short) can kick the shit out of you or blast you with euphoria. I could go on, but I’m just not in the mood right now. Anyway, it’s a pretty handy drug.
I find a good poem to be like good music, it gets better with repeated exposure. To get the most out of either you need to hear it/read it/live it/feel it so much that it becomes imprinted in your brain. Everyone has music like that, the first bar and your body is singing. You know you can press play and you’ll instantly feel however that music makes you feel. If you hear a cover, you know if the slightest note is off. That music is part of you. Poetry is like that too, if you take the effort to memorize it.
I don’t mean the bare minimum, I mean imprinting it so it flows without thought. That way, when you sit outside and look at the stars the lines swim into your head.
The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance. The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
And instantly you feel the poignant stab of a love lost, and a time forever gone. If you’re into that sort of thing, I mean. Right now it’s more, the murmurous haunt of flies on summer’s eve. But even Keats can’t make me appreciate that sound.
Anyway. That’s my answer to two children and never getting to do anything. I’m memorizing poetry. One per week, as a minimum. It requires no hands, no feet. Not even my mouth. And the reward is both soul lifting and mind expanding. If I get really talented I might even be able to sing lullabies while reciting Neruda in my head.
I started a few weeks ago and it’s been fantastic, and there’s the added benefit of all the questions it’s inspired in my three year old from the weird and wonderful word combinations. I can recite them anywhere and anytime, in my head or out loud. They’re a soothing litany that gives peace to my frazzled brain and a note of pleasure to the 2 am wake ups. Here’s my list of memorized poems so far:
- Tonight I can write the saddest lines — Pablo Neruda
- Ode to a Nightingale — John Keats
- Dream Within a Dream — Edgar Allan Poe
- Jabberwocky — Lewis Carroll
With no time for careful selection, these are just whatever happened to catch my liking at the moment. Not sure what I’ll do next. Maybe Madly Singing in the Mountains by Po Chu-i (772-846). I had this idea of making a bit of art to go with each poem, as a memorization aid, and just for the hell of it. But you know, time.
I’ll be posting on twitter, to try and keep me straight. Suggestions, comments, recommends are all very welcome and will probably make me so ridiculously happy that I’ll burst out with something silly like, O frabjous day! Callooh Callay! And then my three year old will giggle, and the baby will smile. And you’ll generally have made our day.
