12 Comments
User's avatar
Terra M's avatar

I have small red leather journal I call my memory poems. I started it in 1993 with The Coat by W. B. Yeats. My daughter and I memorized this poem together around the campfire on a camping trip on Vancouver Island.

Also in it are He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven, also by Yeats, The Secret by Denise Levertov, The Grecian Urn by Keats, The Rapture by Mary Oliver, The Tyger by William Blake, The Red Wheelbarrow by you know who, Let the Darkness be a Bell by Rilke (2016), Turning by Lucille Clifton (2018), Lines for Winter by Mark Strand (2019) and Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s Farm by James Wright (2019).

I think it’s time to practice these again as it always takes some work get them right when I haven’t said them for awhile and it has been awhile.

I have one I want to add to my memory book by British Columbia poet Hilary Peach called The Anvils are Restless. If you haven’t read it please look it up it’s a favorite of mine.

Expand full comment
Christopher Frizzelle's avatar

Wow, I have a lot of things to look up -- what a good list, thank you! And what a brilliant idea to keep a small leather journal for poems like these.

Expand full comment
Suzie Baunsgard's avatar

I thought I knew Music when soft voices die by Shelley but I think I have the lines all gummed up in my head. They're all in there though. I learned it as a song in chorus, and it's not this one but i this one's nice https://youtu.be/U0cabDWSU8I

My dad had the Walrus and the Carpenter memorized ♥️ miss him.

Expand full comment
Christopher Frizzelle's avatar

I love choral music like this. Gives me religious feelings. Sending love your way while you're thinking about your dad.

Expand full comment
Terra M's avatar

I have half of the Walrus down but have never been able to get the entire poem down

Expand full comment
Grant Cogswell's avatar

Dickinson, ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ ; Jarrell, ‘The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner’, Jeffers, ‘The Eye’; Yeats, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’

Expand full comment
Christopher Frizzelle's avatar

Wow, you’ve got a lot! That’s impressive. I love your taste.

Expand full comment
Claire Ramsey's avatar

Theodore Roethke The Sloth ... In moving slow he has no Peer. . .

Expand full comment
Christopher Frizzelle's avatar

Ooooh, I’ve heard you recite that in book club before. That’s a fun one. I’m adding it to my list.

Expand full comment
Suzie Baunsgard's avatar

I feel like I should recommit to Lermontov's 'From Goethe' in Russian https://www.randianderson.com/lermontov-translation-goethe-wandrers-nachtlied/

Expand full comment
Christopher Frizzelle's avatar

Ahhh Suzie, this is beautiful.

Above all summits

it is calm.

In all the tree-tops

you feel

scarcely a breath;

The birds in the forest are silent.

Just wait, soon

you will rest as well.

Mountain peaks

Sleep in the dark of night;

Quiet valleys

Fill with cool mist;

No dust rises on the road,

No leaves tremble…

Wait a little,

You, too, will rest.

Expand full comment
Claire Ramsey's avatar

it's kind of sweet too. . .

Expand full comment