Welcome to a Radical Process!

We are here to memorize poetry.

I’m so glad you are here.

Welcome! I’m Nancy Rawlinson, a freelance developmental editor and writing coach. I work with fiction and nonfiction writers to help them complete projects and say what they want to say and I’m a big fan of poetry. This substack exists to help you memorize poetry. That is its sole purpose. We will gather together online to memorize poetry in community.

But why should I, a normal and busy human, spent my precious time doing something so arcane, so unpractical?

Because memorizing poetry is one of the best things you can do. It is, as the name of this Substack suggests, a radical process. Without presenting a shred of evidence (though it’s out there), I make the following bold claims:

• Memorizing poetry will make you a better writer and thinker.

• Memorizing poetry connects you to truth and beauty.

• Memorizing poetry helps you to become a more integrated and whole person in the world.

• Memorizing poetry increases your capacity for curiosity and wonder.

• Memorizing poetry is good for your brain.

• Memorizing poetry is an act of resistance.

• Memorizing poetry makes you better in bed.

That last one is almost definitely true and I hope to explore all these ideas in more depth in future posts. But for right now, bottom line, please believe me when I say that you will never regret installing beautiful language in your brain and heart. It’s like having a built-in source of power and wonder. Inner incantations. It will change your life for the better.

I am far from the only person to hold these opinions: Garth Greenwell wrote recently, on this platform, that memorizing poetry “…will improve how you inhabit your own existence.” He calls it an “enrichment of reality” and an “expansion of self.”

And writing for the Times, Charley Locke expressed something similar about her own ritual of poetry memorization:

“…these morning poems have changed how I live. They’ve altered my mental rhythm, made me more comfortable with the idiosyncrasies of my own mind, which in turn makes me more confident in my voice and taste. Mostly, they’ve made me better at noticing: The particularity of a poem, rolling around in the back of my head, reminds me how to look for repetition and snags elsewhere, to hear both text and subtext. I think I’m more perceptive, a better observer of both art and the people I love.”

In The New Yorker, Brad Leithauser said:

“The best argument for verse memorization may be that it provides us with knowledge of a qualitatively and physiologically different variety: you take the poem inside you, into your brain chemistry if not your blood, and you know it at a deeper, bodily level than if you simply read it off a screen.”

That’s what we are here to do: take poetry into our blood. Our bodies. Envelop it. Be enveloped by it. It’s a beautiful, radical act.

So how is this going to work?

I’m glad you asked, read on.

1. You select a poem you’d like to memorize.

Your heart, your choice. There are links to some amazing poetic resources, below, so you can start there, but the selection is up to you. And I invite a very expansive idea of what poetry is and can be. Are Cardi B lyrics poetry to you? Are you working on a portion of the Torah, Bible, Koran, or Guru Granth Sahib? Does a section of prose from your favorite author strike your ear (and heart) as being worthy of memorization? Go for it.

(The one thing precluded: any text that spreads hate. Don’t memorize that.)

Places to find poetry:

• Go to poets.org to sign up for an artful curated poem-a-day that will land in your inbox like a gift, or browse the many other offerings on the site.

• The Poetry Foundation also has a poem-a-day email and a wealth of poetry riches for you to explore.

• LitHub publishes poetry regularly. So does Guernica, much of it in translation. So do many other literary magazines.

• Follow poets on social media. They are always posting incredible poems! Here are some of the people I follow, but there are many others.

• Hit up your local library or independent bookstore and see what they have. This is an extremely cute date to have with yourself, a friend, or your sweetie.

If you need help with your first selection, might I suggest this poem? Or this one? Or this one? Stone cold classics (though don’t forget that poetry can also be short and funny.)

I will send out poems occasionally too. Leave your favorite sources for poetry in the comments.

2. We meet via Zoom for 15 minutes.

To start with we will hold two Zoom sessions a week. Come to one, come to both, come occasionally, come when you can. Up to you.

Each session is exactly fifteen minutes. They will start and end on time and I’ll open the waiting room about ten minutes early. If you are not in the Zoom waiting room by the time the session starts — on the hour, sharp — you will not be in the Zoom. I’m structuring it this way because clean boundaries create sacred containers and this is a sacred act, however you want to define that. Also, I want to participate, and I can’t focus on memorization if I’m keeping an eye on the Zoom waiting room.

The session times:

Mondays, 9-9:15 AM ET / 6-6:15 AM PT / 2-2:15 PM GMT (Zoom link) Waiting room will open at 8:50 AM ET

Fridays, 10-10:15 AM ET / 7-7:15 AM PT / 3-3:15 PM GMT (Zoom link) Waiting room will open at 9.50 AM ET

I hope there’s something that works for you here. If you want in, just click on those links at the relevant times. I’ll add more sessions if there’s enough interest.

Sessions are free and always will be. Paid subscriptions are available if you want to show your support and I’d deeply appreciate that.

3. In the Zoom sessions, you memorize your poem.

These sessions are, very simply, time dedicated to working on memorization, in community. Each session will start with one minute (or less) of a reminder of why we are here. Maybe a line or two of poetry. Or a teeny-tiny ritual to create room for the radical act we are about to commit. A breath can be a ritual. No preparation, props, or physical skills required.

Then we sit together, in silence, muted, cameras on or off (your choice), and memorize poems.

4. How do you memorize a poem?

I’ll dive into techniques in future posts but what works for me is following a few simple steps.

• I read the poem in my head all the way through, slowly and steadily.

• Taking one or two lines at a time, I recite the whole poem out loud, really listening to the sounds of the words and feeling through the shapes my mouth makes when I say them and thinking, at the same time, about the meaning of the words. (If you are at work or in a public place when you do this, it’s OK to whisper or just mouth the words.)

• Then I take a blank piece of paper and write the poem down, without looking at the original, again working with just one or two lines at a time.

• I will get it wrong — very wrong — very often. But I loop on lines: say them out loud, write them down. Say them, write them. Over and over, it’s a kind of call and answer. And this way, the poem works its way deeper and deeper into me.

Attempting to write the lines out by hand is crucial and I have only truly memorized a poem when I can write it all, start to finish, without errors. Then I say it aloud from start to finish, hopefully without errors, but if I stumble, I have found a place that needs more attention. And so I loop again. It might take many, many sessions and many loops on certain lines to get to the point of being able to say it all without mistakes. But that’s no problem because we are not on a capitalist timeframe here and this is holy work. Engaging with words in this way is never wasted.

If you have other techniques for memorization, please share in the comments.

5. Attend a Zoom Poetry Party

Once every few months, we will have a Zoom recitation party where, in small breakout rooms, we will recite our poems (or a section, if it’s a very long poem) for our poetry-loving comrades. A poetry party, if you will. These sessions will be completely optional but a nice way to share your work, and the poems you love, with others. These parties will also be short, no more than 30 minutes in duration. Stay subscribed for the info.

Down the line: maybe poetry flash mobs? Or actual in-person recitation parties? Let’s see what becomes possible.

In Conclusion:

Memorizing poetry cultivates truth, beauty, and dedication, all qualities I want in my life. I want them for you, too. I want them for everyone. I want to be surrounded by other people who value these things. As Hamilton Nolan said:

“Our collective ability to make it through the Trump era without being crushed depends on all of us doing something to directly counter the forces that tend to drag us into the dark place.”

Showing up physically to protest and protect your neighbors is righteous and cool and I support it. Strikes, making calls, building community: awesome, awesome, awesome. And poetry memorization is also a simple, contained way of moving towards the light. Subscribe, show up for just 15 minutes, feel better, notice more, love harder, evolve as a writer, and dwell with others. It’s an act of resistance and an inoculation against darkness. A vaccine of truth and beauty. Please join us.