By Heart

[poliphilo]

The only time that I can think of that I actually sat down and committed verse to memory was when my grandmother offered me a reward if I did so. The poem was Kipling's "Sussex" and the reward was a copy of one of his books with his signature in it. I don't know why she chose "Sussex" when she'd done most of her living in Kent and Surrey- but there it is: and I'm grateful not only for the reward but also for the verse which has got itself embedded in my synapses and keeps coming to mind- especially when we're driving down the A21 towards the "blunt, bow-headed, whale-backed Downs"- and will probably be one of the last things I lose my grip on if and when dementia takes hold.

But, even though it may be the only thing I've ever made myself learn by heart, "Sussex" is just a tiny fragment of the cache of verse that I've got squirreled away in memory. I've never properly taken stock of it all but I imagine it would fill a sizeable anthology. There are few complete poems- probably because few poems are wonderful all the way through- though I surprised myself yesterday by being able to reel off a complete lyric by de la Mare. There's a lot of Shakespeare- much of it in the form of isolated lines- and something for every mood from "the long light shakes across the lakes" to "They fuck you up, your mum and dad." There's a lot of Kipling, a lot of Yeats, a lot of de la Mare (who is particularly memorable because he's so musical), a fair bit of Auden and Eliot and Betjeman and Larkin. I can recite most of Kubla Khan without stumbling and chunks of Keats and Shelley and Browning and Arnold. I know several of the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The oldest item in the collection is "I sing of a maiden that is makeless" and the most recent? I'd love to come up with something by a living poet but I don't seem to be able to- which may be a judgement on our current poetic culture or- more likely- on myself for being out of touch.

Comments

[shewhomust]

Did you never have to learn a poem as homework, at school? Or are you only counting poems learned voluntarily?

I learned a number of poems that way, and retain approximations of many of them.

As for poems by living poets, I have a fair amount of Wendy Cope, some of which may actually add up to complete poems (a sonnet here, a limerick there...)

[poliphilo]

I don't remember having to learn poems in school- but then my childhood memories- and especially my memories of school- are highly selective.

[cmcmck]

That Philip Larkin line also remains with me as nothing but the truth.

He has local connections as he was librarian here for a time.

[poliphilo]

Larkin was the last English poet to be widely read and widely popular. Something died with him, I think.

[cmcmck]

But there's Thom Gunn who is also a huge favourite of mine.

[poliphilo]

There have been other good poets, but I don't think any of them have been as widely known as Larkin. Heaney comes close, but people don't quote him to one another the way they quote certain lines of Larkin's. Larkin enjoyed a degree of popularity- and recognition- that very few poets have ever had.

[sovay]

(who is particularly memorable because he's so musical)

I learned a lot of poems as songs.

[poliphilo]

Song and poetry started off as the same thing. Homer had his lyre and Sappho had hers. And then somewhere down the line some heretic declared that mere words on a page could also be called a "poem".