Poetic Recitation Assignment: why i'm gonna fail English class

[Slammer1337]

So yesterday I got a poetic recitation assignment, I must return a copy of the poem by Friday the 19th. Problem is, during the week of the 22nd when you turn that poem in, you need to read the poem infront of the class by memory. This ain't no Dr. Suess either, because the poem needs to have atleast 65 words. I'm graded for the following:

• Knowing the poem (help me)
• Speaking clearly
• Posture and eye contact
• Volume Voice
• Acting/Dialoge

Now, I don't have stage frights or anything, but I have memory problems. When I read the poem I decided to use, I keep forgetting major parts of the stanza. This isn't new at all because I had memory loss in the past, and it did screw me up multiple times. Here's the poem:

Across the Bay
Donald Davie

A queer thing about those waters:
There are no Birds there, or hardly any.
I did not miss them, I do not remember missing them,
or thinking it uncanny.

The beach so-called was a blinding splinter of limestone,
A quarry outraged by hulls.
We took pleasure in that: the emptiness,
The hardness
Of the light, the silence, and the water's stillness.

But this was the setting for one of our
Murderous scenes.
This hurt, and goes on hurting:
The venomous soft jelly, the undersides.
We could stand the world if it were hard all
Over.

The reason why this thread exists is because I need advice for remembering the poem, that's pretty much it.
Any suggestions?

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[dorkdotdan]

I had to do this with the Balcony Scene in Romeo and Juliet.

There was a whole set made in the class and everything. Scariest stuff ever.

Also there were far more boys than girls in that class so calling a guy Juliet was just more awkward.

[Slammer1337]

bump before page loss

[Nonnel]

You're Maxwell Smart, go down to CONTROL and see if they have anything that can help you remember.

[Slammer1337]

another bump
come on guys :c

[Igloos]

You are graded for posture? That's idiotic and unheard of. Jesus. I feel for you, I hope you do well though.

[ResonKinetic]

You are graded for posture? That's idiotic and unheard of. Jesus. I feel for you, I hope you do well though.

Posture can do a lot. I usually pay attention to someone who isn't slouching.

[Dracpot]

Write it down on a piece of paper, and just stand in your room reciting it over and over. Or recite a stanza until you know you have memorized it, and then try the whole thing.

[ResonKinetic]

Ad-lib!

[sir dooble]

Keep practicing the poem, again and again and again and again.
Practice how you'll act while reading it aloud.
Then try without reading, but have the paper in hand. Get stuck, read it out.
Try again and again, until you remember more and more each time.
Once you get it all, keep practicing. Do it every day and you'll have it.


If you have trouble, then consider coming up with some hand-actions or movements.
If you have these match the poem, they can help you learn it too.
It'll be like learning a dance, and you'll know that alongside the dance come the words.
Keep practicing with this and you'll remember it too.
Don't go over the top with hand-actions, but they're good to include.
That way you'll appear as if you know your lines off by heart (which you will), but you'll also be appearing to perform the poem.
That will cover your Monologue aspect (A dialogue with 1 person is a monologue), aswell as your posture and eye contact.

Also, get a friend or family member to help you with the lines.
Get them to have you recite to them, say, before and after dinner, or first thing in the morning.

Have them learn a couple of lines, say the first lines of some of the stanza's.
Ask them to recite their line when you walk in a room. Your job is to carry on with the rest of that stanza from their line.
If you can get multiple family members to do this, they can do the start of each stanza. As you come across them in your house, you'll get to practice all the stanzas.
If there are multiple people in the room, then recite all the stanza's you need to.
If you have trouble remembering with this, then go and re-read and recite it there from memory again.


You could also try printing the poem off, and maybe sticking copies of it around the house.
Say, one on the back of the bathroom door, or one on the fridge for when you go to get something to eat, or next to your computer or bed or what have you.


The secret to performing anything is lots of practice. It really does make perfect.

[Kaphonaits²]

Pfft this isn't that bad. Last year I had to memorize all of Romeo's lines in Act 5 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet over the course of a day and a half. That stuff was awful.

What you should do is cut up the poem into segments and memorize it piece by piece, then string it all together. That's what I did for the aforementioned scene.

All of my lines in that scene, for those who are interested:

   If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
    My dreams presage some joyful news at hand:
    My bosom's lord sits lightly in his throne;
    And all this day an unaccustom'd spirit
    Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.
    I dreamt my lady came and found me dead--
    Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave
    to think!--
    And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,
    That I revived, and was an emperor.
    Ah me! how sweet is love itself possess'd,
    When but love's shadows are so rich in joy!

    News from Verona!--How now, Balthasar!
    Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?
    How doth my lady? Is my father well?
    How fares my Juliet? that I ask again;
    For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

    Is it even so? then I defy you, stars!
    Thou know'st my lodging: get me ink and paper,
    And hire post-horses; I will hence to-night.

    Tush, thou art deceived:
    Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.
    Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

    No matter: get thee gone,
    And hire those horses; I'll be with thee straight.
    Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee to-night.
    Let's see for means: O mischief, thou art swift
    To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!
    I do remember an apothecary,--
    And hereabouts he dwells,--which late I noted
    In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
    Culling of simples; meagre were his looks,
    Sharp misery had worn him to the bones:
    And in his needy shop a tortoise hung,
    An alligator stuff'd, and other skins
    Of ill-shaped fishes; and about his shelves
    A beggarly account of empty boxes,
    Green earthen pots, bladders and musty seeds,
    Remnants of packthread and old cakes of roses,
    Were thinly scatter'd, to make up a show.
    Noting this penury, to myself I said
    'An if a man did need a poison now,
    Whose sale is present death in Mantua,
    Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.'
    O, this same thought did but forerun my need;
    And this same needy man must sell it me.
    As I remember, this should be the house.
    Being holiday, the beggar's shop is shut.
    What, ho! apothecary!

    Come hither, man. I see that thou art poor:
    Hold, there is forty ducats: let me have
    A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear
    As will disperse itself through all the veins
    That the life-weary taker may fall dead
    And that the trunk may be discharged of breath
    As violently as hasty powder fired
    Doth hurry from the fatal cannon's womb.

    Art thou so bare and full of wretchedness,
    And fear'st to die? famine is in thy cheeks,
    Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
    Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back;
    The world is not thy friend nor the world's law;
    The world affords no law to make thee rich;
    Then be not poor, but break it, and take this.

    I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

    There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls,
    Doing more murders in this loathsome world,
    Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell.
    I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none.
    Farewell: buy food, and get thyself in flesh.
    Come, cordial and not poison, go with me
    To Juliet's grave; for there must I use thee.

[dorkdotdan]

English teachers are such starfishs.

[Dracpot]

Pfft this isn't that bad. Last year I had to memorize all of Romeo's lines in Act 5 Scene 1 of Romeo and Juliet over the course of a day and a half. That stuff was awful.

What you should do is cut up the poem into segments and memorize it piece by piece, then string it all together. That's what I did for the aforementioned scene.

All of my lines in that scene, for those who are interested:

I've done plays where I've had less lines than that.

[Kaphonaits²]

I've done plays where I've had less lines than that.

i want to go back in time and kill Shakespeare so i can spare me the pain of ever having to memorize his work again.

[Slammer1337]

I'll start using your suggestions on Thursday. I have the poem in my iPod.