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Op-Ed: You can recite more poems than you realize

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How many poems do you know by heart? Not nursery rhymes or limericks, but poems of subtle structure and nuance, written in iambic pentameter, dactylic hexameter, AABB, or blank verse. If you are like most people, you may say, “None,” or “Maybe one or two … why?” If you’re a romantic, you may blushingly admit to having committed a few sonnets to memory, then start reciting (for instance) Browning’s, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…” only to break off in embarrassment, as you realize you can’t recall the rest. On the other hand, if you’re hostile to poetry, you may retort, “Of course I haven’t memorized any poems, people stopped doing that a century ago. Besides, I can look up any poem I want online, if I ever feel like it…which I wouldn’t.” I get it; poetry, in the abstract, can feel more 1916 than 2016; 2-D and black and white; not 3-D and living color.

But I’ve always loved to hear poetry, as well as read it. When I was young, I assumed poetry recitation would be a regular part of adult life, because it plays such a prominent role in childhood. Everyone grows up with Mother Goose and Dr. Seuss, and so did my brothers and I; but my mother’s gift for elocution and her wide-ranging tastes meant we got a broader sampling. She would whimsically declaim the poems of A.A. Milne in a fake British accent that convulsed us. My favorite was “The King’s Breakfast”: “The King asked/ The Queen, and/ The Queen asked/ The Dairymaid: “Could we have some but-tah for/ The Royal slice of bread?” Then she’d shift gears and give a sonorous rendition of “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” or Alfred Noyes’ “The Highwayman.” “I like a poem that can be read on horseback,” she would say, and then we would notice the clip-clop of the poem’s rhythm. Her spirited, emotional delivery hooked me on the incantatory power of recitation. Only gradually did I discover that this power was only supposed to be unleashed in private.

Early on, emulating the heroines of my favorite childhood books (Laura Ingalls Wilder, Marianne Dashwood, Jane Eyre), I set myself the task of memorizing poems — a little Andrew Marvell, a little W.B. Yeats. But the only time I ever recited a classic poem out loud, for fun, on impulse, I learned that this was a terrible gaffe.

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I was at my parents’ house on a languid summer afternoon, and my mother and I were walking in the garden with a girlfriend of one of my brothers. The muse struck, and I began, “Had we but world enough and time…” When I came to the end of Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” my mother looked at me levelly. “That’s nice,” she said. “Now, don’t ever do that again.” Snapping out of the trance, I realized that my uninvited declamation was not only unwelcome, it was impolite. There might be niche environments where poetry could be heard, not seen — like at bedtime for the preschool set, or at a spoken-word poetry slam. But ordinary people committing poems to memory to draw upon in quiet moments, or to orate? As Poe would say: Nevermore. We are in a post-recitation age.

Or are we?

People who say they don’t need poetry, or don’t know poetry, or don’t like poetry, don’t realize that they probably can recite hundreds of poems verbatim.

Recently I saw the 2015 Amy Winehouse documentary, “Amy,” which follows the singer from her youth in North London to her death at age 27. Her first manager, Nick Shymansky, explained that Winehouse wrote poetry before she wrote songs. As Winehouse’s voice began to growl and croon in the audio, the poems that created that music appeared on the screen, handwritten, on yellow paper ruled with teal lines. Written, they were poems. Sung, they were lyrics. It was a difference only of category. With a visceral thrill, I understood: the songs we know by heart are also poems.

The act of singing “Rehab” at karaoke grows out of a tradition that leads all the way back to the campfires of ancient Greece, where a bard with a lyre sang stories of the people, and the people, hearing his songs, knew themselves in a richer, more connected way. Maybe nobody today could get away with chanting a poem to a group, but any of us can recite the poems we classify as songs, given the appropriate context. For instance, when a group of vacationing family members and friends sing “Hey, Jude,” “American Pie,” or hits by Billy Joel as they roast s’mores, they are sharing in the same bonding aural poetry tradition I treasured in childhood, only, of course, set to music.

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People who say they don’t need poetry, or don’t know poetry, or don’t like poetry, don’t realize that they probably can recite hundreds of poems verbatim — poems set to music by Bob Dylan, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, David Bowie, Lorde, Kanye West, the Rolling Stones, Blondie, Adele or Bruno Mars — blues poems, R&B poems, rock poems, rap poems. Arrangements and accompaniment can change; but for the song to have its sense, the words must stay the same.

A poem, like a song, has two creators; the person who writes it, and the person who remakes it in her own voice, by saying it aloud or singing it, whether a cappella or accompanied by guitar, piano, karaoke, or a legion of backup singers. If you reject the notion that an old-fashioned (or contemporary) poem on paper could be as relevant to you as one of the popular songs you know word-for-word, then say it out loud to test it. Just as you can’t like every song, you can’t like every poem; but you will know the ones that speak to you when you hear them, once they’ve been brought to life by the sound and texture of your voice. And if your delivery lacks luster, have a listen to Taylor Swift’s boyfriend Tom Hiddleston’s take on Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” to see how it’s done.

Liesl Schillinger is a writer, translator and author of the book “Wordbirds.”

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