/lit/ - Literature

>>8996361
absolutely pointless

the only people who would be "impressed" by this are the kinds of people you do not want to associate with

In any normal circumstance, virtually any poem is only a google search away.

>>8996361
>Whats /lit/s stance on memorizing poetry?

Acceptable only if the poem memorized is one you wrote.

>>8996370
>committing beautiful things to your memory is pointless

>>8996370
if you go to prison ever, it would be good to have them memorized. It would be like reading them in your memories

>>8996361
I memorize them because I read them often, I don't read them to memorize though.

I think its great, reading them out loud by memory, by myself, adds a beauty and vigour to the poem I could never get from reading it off a paper

>>8996361
i can recite 3 poems, one from ezra pound, one from a greek i can't remember the name (maybe its pindar, not sure) and one from an english poet i don't remember the name

>>8996361
I did this when I was younger, primarily as I thought it would impress the ladies.

Anyway, one night I managed to get my autistic self to a nightclub, and after spending a few hours walking around the dancefloor without interacting with any women, I became sufficiently drunk enough to muster up the courage to speak to a far more inebriated girl who was half sprawled out across the bar stalls.

"Hi, can I just tell you something?" I asked, the alcohol having numbed my anxiety.

I proceeded to recite a W.B Yeats poem.

>"I KNOW that I shall meet my fate"
>"Somewhere among the clouds above"

"Whuut?" was her slurred reaction.

>"Those that I fight I do not hate"
>"Those that I guard I do not love"
>"My country is Kiltartan Cross-"

"Oh FUCK OFF you weirdo" was her justified response.

I've never been more humiliated in my fucking life. I thought I was being an aloof dandy, reciting a poem I had committed to memory, which had absolutely no relation to the situation I was in at that moment. I thought she would find it quirky but she was right, I was being fucking weird. The alcohol had removed my social anxiety and I sperged.

Sometimes this random moment creeps up in my memory and makes me physically jolt from the sheer excruciating embarrassment.

I can recite the first 14 or so lines from Sor Juana's Primero sueño, almost all pf Kubla Kahn, almost all the first stanza of Tintern Abbey, and 4 or 5 of Shakespeare's monologues, although not perfectly. Also some lines I really liked from many different poets and poems.

>>8996446
We had to do this for a workshop, and I thought I was hot shit for getting through The Ice Cream Return with only two missed words, then this mousy little quiet girl in the corner whips out Fern Hill and nailed it. She turned out to be a force to reckon with.

i like the idea of having a beautiful work of art permanently etched into my mind. so far i've memorized a short housman poem and a few prosaic excerpts from various authors. think i'm gonna memorize a couple of shakespeare sonnets.

>>8996504
>i like the idea of having a beautiful work of art permanently etched into my mind.

just get a tattoo on the brain lol

we had to memorize "the sorcerer's apprentice", "the erl-king" and "john maynard" in school. maybe more but those i remember

it's pretty unnecessary but a good way to train your lazy brain

>>8996606
isn't that what memories are?

>>8996361
I never go about intentionally memorizing poems but I can recite all my favorite ones because I read them so often.

>>8996446
Post them. If not all, then the Greek one. From memory, of course. Go on.

If you don't memorize the entirety of the Homeric corpus you don't deserve to live.
If you don't also memorize all Vedas and all regional Mahabharatta & Ramayana traditions you deserve to be the lowliest peasant.

>>8996870
>he can't do Fourier transforms in his head
>he can't do Hamilton products in his head

>>8996467
I like this story a lot

>>8996656
no

>>8996467
Isn't that a war poem? Seems like an odd choice to recite to someone at a club.

That being said, something pretty similar to this has happened to me, but it's worked in a few situations.

>>8996467

I got second-hand PTSD from the embarrassment of simply reading this. Fucking hell, man. I just want you to make it in life now because you have been through too much. I mean fucking hell what were you thinking...

>>8997340
>Isn't that a war poem?

It's a poem about an Irishman fighting for Britain.