How To Memorize Poetry
Hi, guys! Thanks for checking out this video.
One of the most common questions that I get asked as a spoken word poet is, "How do youmemorize all that?" Well, today we're going over just that: My own personal memorizationprocess.
And stick around because at the end of this video I'm going to have one tip thatI think can benefit all spoken word poets.
So thanks for watching, and please let meknow what you think in the comments below.
Thanks again for checking this out.
Now, letme offer a disclaimer before I continue: There are no rules when it comes to poetry, spokenword or otherwise.
There are no rules; there's no right and wrong; there are just guidelines.
So this particular video is going to talk about my own personal memorization process.
One of the first things that I tell people when it comes to memorizing poetry is thatit has a lot to do with how I write it.
I'm going to put this up on the screen so thatyou can check it out.
The poem that I chose to use for this example is called, "It's NotThat Simple," and I'll leave a link in the description so you can check it out if you'dlike.
One of the first things you'll notice upon looking at this poem is that it's brokenup into chunks.
Each separated by these ellipses marks.
The reason for that is that I can makethese nice bit-sized chunks, as you can see here and here.
Now, if we zoom in a littlebit here, you'll notice that every line ends with a punctuation mark, and I do that onpurpose, so that the chunks that we've already made I can break those down even further intoindividual lines.
Now, once I've gotten it written out, it's all about rote memory atthis point.
It's about reading over and over and over and over again.
And let me put itup on the screen so you can check out really quick exactly what I mean.
Don't worry; it'snot as daunting as it sounds.
Now the key here is that I'm going to focus on this linehere.
I'm going to forget about all over this.
I do not need it.
I'm going to focus on justthis line until I have it memorized and can do it with my eyes closed.
Then, once I'vegot this one memorized, then I can move on to the next one.
And, again, forget all aboutthis; I want to focus on this one line.
Keep repeating it until I get it down and can doit with my eyes closed.
And then, once I have this line memorized, then I can go ahead andadd it to the first line.
The key is not to move on to the next line until you have theone before it completely memorized 100%.
And, again, don't worry about this stuff down here;it's not going to effect you right now.
And then once I have the top two memorized, thenI can go ahead and start working on the third line; memorizing that.
And, again, don't worryabout any of the stuff below it or above it; work on memorizing that specific line.
Now,once I have the third line, then I can go ahead and add it to the two lines that I'vealready memorized.
Boom.
Now I have three lines already down; didn't take that long.
By this point, you should have the top two lines memorized.
Do not–and I'll repeat itand I'm sounding like a broken record–DO NOT move on until you have the previous linesmemorized.
Once you have those three lines or those two lines, then focus on memorizingthem as a whole, one after the other.
And just keep repeating those two lines, or thosethree lines, over and over and over again until you have them as their own individualmemorized chunk.
Hopefully now you can understand what I mean when I say that my own personalmemorization process has a lot to do with how I write it.
And, like I said before, it'snot as daunting as it sounds.
We're breaking it up into small, little, digestible chunks.
So you go ahead and repeat that and repeat that and repeat that, and you'll get thatand then add it on to the next; it's just like anything that we've learned in school:We built a foundation, we built up on top of that.
Just like with that, as far as memorizingmy spoken word poetry it's building a foundation of those first few lines.
Once you get that,then you can start building on top of it.
One of the biggest tips that I can offer tospoken word poets is that they should remember poetry in general is a display of masteryof the language; SPOKEN WORD poetry is not only the display of mastery of the language,but mastery of the SPOKEN language.
That's important to remember because what will setyou apart from other spoken word poets is your delivery.
That means your tone of voice,your inflection, your dynamics; everything that you have within you, you need to bringthat out.
If you've ever taken a communication course or speech course, then you'll knowthat there is a lot that goes into speaking a language.
There's dynamics, there's toneof voice, there's inflection, there's body language.
All of these different things we,as spoken word poets, we have to master those things before we go out on that stage.
So,if there's any tip that I can offer to anyone, it's to remember that poetry is the masteryof the language, spoken word poetry is a mastery of the SPOKEN language.
Think about it, becausethat means A LOT.
I hope this was informative; I hope that you were able to learn somethingand take something away from this video with you.
If you were, please let me know whatit was in the comments below.
If you weren't, please let me know what you'd like to seein the next video.
Thanks again for watching; I really appreciate it.
Source: Youtube
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