I never have really, fully understood about poetry, the rhythms and timing and proper ways to write a poem out on paper.
But since I was a child, I have loved poetry. If I hear someone read or recite a poem, and they just bring it to life in all the right ways, a poem that was nothing very exciting to me on paper can suddenly become something wonderful!
The way a poem is spoken, for me, is everything.
Now don't laugh.
My first memory of this for me is when I was probably no more than about 7 or 8 years old.
The person that brought a poem alive for me was John Boy Walton.
I just love the Walton's.
Yet and still.
In an episode where John Boy reads a poem to his mother for her birthday, I was introduced to "The Windhover" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
My 7 year old self didn't understand half of the words in the poem, but I knew I wanted to hear him read it again.
Not that long ago, I set out to commit this favorite poem of mine to memory.
And I succeeded! Now I am actually memorizing a second Hopkin's poem called "Pied Beauty".
What a pleasure to be able to sit anywhere at all and recite this poem to myself.
And I do!
The Windhover
To Christ Our Lord
I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing.
Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!
No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.
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