Just dropping in here today briefly to say that "This Be The Verse" is the Poem-of-the-Day at the Poetry Foundation. I have four vivid memories associated with the poem that I’d like to share with you:
learning about Philip Larkin in college and memorizing this poem for an introductory poetry workshop (side note/q: Why don’t we read Larkin in high school, here?)
repeating the poem some twenty years later in unison with a forever poet friend I made in that class: I really love the way that a poem can weave throughout a lifelong friendship like this, changing the energy of a room on command.
revisiting the poem on the balcony of another friend’s apartment, in London: Her partner had just died, and I felt so connected to him as she described his love of Larkin, particularly his wry commentaries on life. I also felt, for a fleeting moment, that poems can resurrect someone’s heart— if you utter them at the right place and at the right time, and with enough urgency. They can’t, of course. But that almost is incredible.
smiling with the glee of recognition when Mae/Annette Badland performs the poem in a scene of Ted Lasso: How often is it that you get a poem in its entirety on an episode of television?
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I think that poems you memorize play a particular role in your understanding of your past and how different versions of you fit together. Sort of like songs — though perhaps with more introspection? So I’m curious: What’s a poem that you’ve memorized, and what associated memories do you have with it? Inquiring minds want to know.
It deepens like a coastal shelf,
Sara