Creating a Memory Circle

Memory Circles are a wonderful, low-cost (or no-cost!) way to help poetry live in your library.

In the spring of 1999, Poets House instituted a monthly Memory Circle at its SoHo loft space, led by the poet Carol Conroy.  The Memory Circle celebrates the art and joy of memorization, providing an opportunity for people to gather and share the poems they love. 

The format is simple:  the public is invited to meet monthly to recite a poem they have memorized.  They are invited to say a few words about their relationship to the poem, and perhaps how the poem works on a technical level.  The only stipulation is that the poems recited cannot be written by the person reciting. The Memory Circle encourages people to celebrate other people's poems, to go back to the masterworks that continue to speak to us.

When the Memory Circle is held regularly, a rich sense of community can be developed among the regular attendees. But the Memory Circle can also work well as a one-time event. The people who return over and over again to the Poets House Memorization Circle feel they are giving themselves a new treasure each month. Many feel they own the poem they have memorized, and are able to transmit their love of the work to the other participants.

Poetry on the page is fairly new. In many cultures, recitation of poetry is part of religious incantation and the transmission of history. But until recently, even in our own culture the poems of Tennyson and Shakespeare were often shared out loud from memory. Recitation was part of a family and community tradition, as commonplace as singing songs. It was a group entertainment and thrived in music halls, churches and family parlors.

The poet Patricia Spears Jones has written, "I grew up in a community where children had to learn and publicly recite their piece at the Easter or Christmas pageants or Negro History Week celebrations. The poems were short, strictly metered and rhymed...I am convinced that my love of the American popular song form and of its greatest lyricists results from these childhood exercises." The idea of the Memory Circle is to revive recitation of poetry as a form of fun and as a community event in which we share words that have meaning to us. Often, as an additional perk, participants discover literary forms new to them.

To start, if you are unsure of the interest in your community, reach out to a local high school and get a class of "memorizers" to host your event (at the very least their friends and family will come, and the circle may grow from there).

Here are some basic tips:

• The Memory Circle should be between 1 and 1 1/2 hours long.
• Get a facilitator to host the Circle, or try it yourself. Having one facilitator at each session helps to build confidence, trust and dialogue. At the first session, have the facilitator talk about why we memorize poems and how it can be meaningful to have poems available to us in our minds.
• Facilitators may also want to share tips about converting short-term memories into long-term memories (repetition after 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 20 minutes, 2 hours).
• The Facilitator should always memorize a new poem and recite it as he or she introduces the new session. It may require two recitations for people in the circle to "hear" a new poem.
• Go around in a circle. Have each person recite his or her poem. Afterwards, you may want to ask why they chose the poem, what they liked, and what they think about it now that they have memorized it.
• Create an atmosphere of patience. Memorization is not a contest, but a context in which to give to ourselves. If people struggle with what they have memorized, let them read the poem aloud and try again.
• Be prepared to encourage those who want to recite a poem of their own to return next time having memorized a poem by a different poet.
• Make sure you have done your work: publicize. Try to make connections with local teachers who will encourage their classes to attend for the fun of it (or for extra credit). Memorization and recitation are familiar to many older people. Reach out to the retirement communities in your area. Make sure everyone signs in so that you have a complete set of addresses and phone numbers.
• Ask everyone to bring a copy of the poem(s) they plan to recite. This will allow you to make copies and give participants a packet of all the poems recited by the group as a keepsake.

For more information about the PITB Sourcebook, call or email Marsha Howard, Poetry in the Branches Coordinator, at (212) 431-7920 x2213, or marsha@poetshouse.org