The poetry memorization has been going along fairly well, though I think I’m cheating in spirit–memorizing only long enough to recite but not really retaining much. I think that will change once this book is finished and I can spend more time.

I’ve picked a shorter poem this week because of my time constraints.

To His Heart, Bidding It Have No Fear

by William Butler Yeats

Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude.

How about you? What are you reading this week?

I really enjoyed memorizing my poem last week. As I said, my knowledge of poetry is embarrassingly small, so it’s been fun to dive into this challenge. It’s actually been even more fun to read enough poetry to select the poem I want to focus on. Who knew poetry was great? CRAZY!

Last week I memorized Spring to Fall, a beautiful and heartbreaking poem about sorrow and mortality, so I set out to choose something a little lighter this week. And, I failed. This poem was too great not to choose (and it met my length requirements–I’m not going to have a lot of time this week).

My poem is below. Post yours in the comments, or, if you’re on Twitter, use the #PoetrySummer hashtag. And be sure to follow Dan Wells’ blogs about this poetry challenge, since he started this whole thing.

Fast Rode the Knight, by Stephen Crane

Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
“To save my lady!”
Fast rode the knight,
And leaped from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of silver lights,
And the gold of the knight’s good banner
Still waved on a castle wall.
. . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall.

My brother, Dan Wells (author of the excellent I Am Not a Serial Killer series), is an avid reader of poetry. Because he’s a year older than me, I grew up wanting to be the exact opposite of him—he always loved English, so I always loved math. He loved drama, I loved sports. He loved poetry, I didn’t. (This is an oversimplification, but it’ll do for a Friday morning blog.)

Although I eventually overcame my dislike of English (though it wasn’t until after high school that I even self-identified as a reader, let alone a writer!) I never really got into poetry. I think that the casual, reluctant reader can get into fiction, but poetry is another beast entirely. It requires more effort, more analysis, and it’s harder a newbie to dive right in. (I realize this is another oversimplification. I guess Friday is the day for sweeping generalizations.)

Anyway, Dan recently started a summer poetry challenge. The goal is to memorize one new poem each week, all summer. His rules are these:

1. It must be a poem you don’t already have fully memorized, but it’s okay if you already have some of it memorized.
2. You must recite the entire poem, out loud, from memory, for at least one other person, on Sunday. That gives you slightly less than a full week for the first one, so pick something easy.
3. There are no length restrictions, but if all your poems are little quatrains or tiny nursery rhymes you’re cheating in spirit. Throw a few multi-stanza poems in there; you can do it.
4. No William Carlos Williams allowed. There will be zero tolerance on this point.
5. Everything is done completely on the honors system. If you say you did it, we believe you.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

I’ve decided to join in this challenge, since I could definitely afford to read and know more poetry. I encourage you to join in as well, because it will be more fun that way. If you’d like to play, leave a comment here or there, or not. (It’s not like this is official in any way.) But every week I’ll be posting the poem I’m working on, and I’d love to hear yours.

My poem this week is one that is near and dear to my heart. I have a line from this one tacked to my wall, but I’ve never memorized the whole thing. (I’ve seen the title phrased two different ways, either as “Spring and Fall” or “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” I’m not sure which is correct.) The text is below:

Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1880)

To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.