>The poetry of the last half-century has - often for very good reasons,
>tended to avoid these devices. So how much of it is actually memorable? I'd
>be interested to know if anyone on the list has a free verse poem of
>appreciable length learnt by heart. I know I haven't, though there are
>plenty of rhyming poems that stick in my memory whether I want them to or
>not
I guess it's a bit like acting. For the purpose of performance I memorised
one of Berryman's dreamsongs. if someone gives me cues I can probably
recite Plath's 'Lady Lazarus', the first section of the Wasteland and most
of Roethke's 'The Lost Son'. I know it all sounds too much like theatre,
but poetry has always been liked with performance. I think it all depends
on how often someone reads a poem more so than it does on meter or form. In
fact, for example, the rhyme of Dylan's 'Do not go gentle' confuses me when
I try to remember it. Two Persian poems that I've always known by heart ( a
ghazelle by Hafiz and a rubayat - or however you spell that in English - by
Rumi) are fromed, but I'd find it silly if someone said the reason i've
read over them so many times over so many years has been their structures.
They are, with or without the rhymes, incredible, as is anything that's
remotely memorable.
Ali
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