The Poem That Took Over My Life

A month ago, my Poetry professor handed the class a month-long assignment. We were all to choose a poem from a short, predetermined list, that we would recite for the class near the beginning of November. First, we would have to memorize the words. Then we would delve into a deeper exploration of what the words on the page meant before perfecting our performances with these meanings in mind.

It was an assignment that required daily work, and to help us track our progress, we were instructed to keep a daily journal that chronicled our experiences. The poem I chose was “The Garden of Love” by William Blake (click here to see my poem for yourself!), a relatively short work with deeper implications than one who reads it just once might expect. In order to share my experiences with you, the reader, I’ve selected a few of my journal entries that I think encapsulate what I went through over the past month. Enjoy.

October 15 – I had my top four choices picked when I went to sign up at exactly 2:00 pm, and somehow, numbers one, two, and three were already chosen when I got there. A little disheartened, I scribbled my name on my fourth pick, “The Garden of Love”. When I got back I re-read the poem and decided that for #4, it shouldn’t be too bad.

October 19 – Today I was able to find a solid chunk of time to work on my poem so I decided to raise the workload and really get a move on the memorization. The faster I have the words memorized, the more I’ll be able to focus on each word’s meaning and the better I’ll be able to refine my oral technique.

November 2 – Today is my birthday. Day off.

November 4 – This morning I woke up to the daunting reality that recitations lay just a day away. Suddenly, a month’s worth of preparations seemed inadequate, and I imagined myself in the worst possible scenarios.

I was relatively sure I wouldn’t wet my pants, but I could realistically imagine a forgotten word or a jumbled line. What if the other person reciting my poem (each poem had one or two students) was a super thespian and made me look like the opening act in amateur hour? Or, I thought, what if I got up there and started reciting the poem I had memorized for a similar assignment in high school? Basically, anything that could go wrong during my recitation crossed my mind this morning. Deep down I knew I had the poem memorized, but another hour’s practice couldn’t hurt, so I spent the time between work and bed to practicing out loud.

The first time I tried it I stumbled on the transition between the second and third stanzas. After a brief pause to curse at myself I resumed and started over. The second time around was smoother. I remembered all the words in the proper order, but I could hear the hesitation in my voice.

Attempt number three was better, and the emotion that I had been working on the last few days seemed to come out of hiding. Before my fourth attempt I checked the hallway outside my room. Once I saw it was empty I told myself to go way over the top and exaggerate my performance. I nearly shouted the poem, and made sure to open my mouth as wide as possible to spew the clearest pronunciations possible. I even tried to make my voice waver at the end to reflect the pain experienced by the speaker when his “joys and desires” were bound.

When I finished this performance I glanced around my suddenly silent room. My Celtics poster seemed to nod in approval; my desk chair smiled at me; even the dirty laundry looked pleased. I could never imagine myself being so dramatic in the classroom, but it felt good for the time being to let loose. I’ve continued to practice up until this moment, and I’ve finally decided its time for bed. Back at it in the morning for a quick review session.

November 5 – Well, today was it. The big day. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. Of course, my poem was first on the list. Nothing like getting the ball rolling right?

I woke up feeling like Rocky, ready to take down anything that stood in my path. This poem? Nothing to it! I ran through it in my head in the shower – flawless. I came back to my room, said it aloud – perfect. I jotted down some final notes – they made sense. When I got dressed I grabbed my baseball “State Champions” t-shirt from high school. Why not? After all, I was feeling like a champ. Not knowing what else to do with myself until class, I flicked on ESPN and saw that the Celtics had won. It truly had been a good day to that point.

I walked into class around ten-of and listened to the excited/nervous chatter of my peers. A lot of them had their poems out and were mouthing the words to themselves then checking the paper for reassurance. I left my paper in my backpack. There was no time to change things at that point.

As I mentioned, my poem was first on the list, and I could feel my heart pound as I centered myself in front of the class. Off I went. After the first stanza I gave myself an imaginary high five in my head – I hadn’t forgotten anything. No time to lose focus though, the hardest parts lied ahead. I swept through the second stanza with relative ease, and even managed to accent the harsh “t” sound in line six. The third and final stanza was by far the most challenging, but I somehow survived, despite the fact that my heart had crept up into my throat. The last two lines came out slightly choked, but luckily for me these lines had emotional implications for the speaker too, so my breathlessness didn’t seem too out of place (I hope).

After the recitation, my classmates asked a few questions about the poem and my experience with the memorization. I was impressed with their high level of thinking, especially since this had been the first poem and the expectations had not yet been established. Several questions touched on areas that I hadn’t yet considered, while others were on points that I had dwelled on for an entire day or two during my month of preparation. Before I knew it, I was back in my seat, watching the next round of recitations.

Overall, this is what I can say about my experience:

First, performing in front of twenty-something peers and one professor is a lot different from performing for a dorm room. I feel like I could have practiced for a year but I still would have gotten butterflies when it came time for the real thing. I accomplished several of my aural goals like the accented “t” in line 6 and the fact that I didn’t forget or omit any words or lines. Even so, my performance wasn’t flawless.

At the end of the day though, what matters most is that I’ve spent a month with this poem. We got to know and understand each other. But, as my peers’ questions showed me, poems are a lot like humans: you can know one for a very long time, but you will never know everything about it; you can always dig deeper and you can always find more.

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