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December 15, 2005
A Curmudgeon I Like
The other day I was discussing memorizing things with a friend who noted that I have an exceptionally good memory. This is a gift that has served me well throughout my life: it helped me become "scripture chase champion" (meaning that I could identify a passage of scripture based on one or two key words, then recite it verbatim, more swiftly and more accurately than anyone--what an accomplishment!) when I was in high school; it helped me memorize the discussions in Chinese as a missionary; it helped me get through a bachelor's degree with really great grades and a minimum of studying.
Some things are especially easy to memorize--certain poems or songs, for instances. One of the easiest poems to memorize is This Be the Verse, a bitterly funny poem in iambic tetrameter with simple diction and a straightforward ABAB rhyme scheme. TBtV is one of my favorite poems ever, and my very favorite poem by Philip Larkin, a curmudgeonly British poet whose attention to the intracacies of rhyme and form contrast nicely with a very earthy vocabulary and a sensibility keenly aware of loss. (As Robert Hass writes in Meditation at Lagunitas, "All the new thinking is about loss./ In this it resembles all the old thinking.")
Consider, for intance, Larkin's poem "Sad Steps." It begins with the line, "Groping back to bed after a piss," an occasion that provides the speaker with a view of a brilliant moon. The poem becomes a meditation on the fact that the moon's "wide stare"
Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again
But is for other undiminished somewhere.
Larkin doesn't seem like a particularly nice person but he wrote wonderful poetry, even if he is known as the poet of dirty words. If you aren't familiar with his work, check it out.
Posted by holly at December 15, 2005 9:28 AM
I have always admired your memory and have more than once told you things I knew I would inevitably forget because I knew you would remember.
Memory is weird. When I was acting, I was able to memorize huge sections of material with very little effort. It always amazed me when other actors struggled to learn their lines. But I forget all kinds of important things all the time. Thanks for reminding me when I need it. You're the best.
Sleeplessness has robbed me of my short term memory recently. My mind is teflon: ideas go in but they do not stick. However, I understand that the moon is now nearer to the Earth than at any time in the last 3 decades, which made last night's full moon especially spectacular. I hope it's not overcast there.