Does anyone have any tips, usefull techniques, for memorising poems?

I'd like to commit some of mine to memory for when I perform them.

I am always impressed by performance poets who memorise their pieces ... even when I don't care for their poems (which is quite often, especially the ranty types).

Of course, some of the best performance poets I've seen are those who read their poems from a print-out / book / laminate etc.

Still, I would really like to have a stab at doing mine from memory, but the trouble is I don't have good memory and my attempts so far haven't been successful.

So any ideas anyone?

PS I had hoped and did make a (failed) effort to go to the NW slam thing in Manchester last night. How many of those who took part memorised their stuff? Did the winners do that?

I got as far as racing home from work to Wallasey, and then my beautiful girlfriend was going to drive me to Liverpool to get the train. But let's face it, a rail trip from Liverpool to Manchester on a strinking, slow, cattletruck, well it was just too fatiguing a prospect... So I went to the pub (beer garden) in Wallasey instead and drank wine with my mates and smoked liqourice roll-ups.

Bliss it was to be alive last night between 8pm and 11pm.. I'm just not dedicated enough for the poetry scene.

I was told that I lost a pint, point for not memorising, so it seems to be especially important once moving in the higher echelons of the slam heats.

I have no technique and NOT A SINGLE POEM COMMITTED TO MEMORY

why? because if I spend time trying to memorise I will produce no new materiel.I can only do so much.
However I have found Steve that by performing the same poem year in year out you will eventually inevitably recall it. I am an advocate of fresh new work, a thing that slightly miffed me at the slam was that I saw the poems and I had heard them like 3 years ago. Usual suspects with usual poems. Anyway the best person to ask is Tony Walsh.

He has good output and always commits the new poems to memory.
We need to ask him how to do it.

there must be techniques

I would say that at least one person I heard at the slam last night lost something for me by memorising the words. It was as if the effort of the poet went into memorising the flow of the words instead of the meaning behind them. I also found words being clipped and lost to my ear in the effort to speed up the rant - or maybe that was just me. I think it is great if poets can memorise but only if they deliver a performance that really comes naturally.

Exactly, Pete, there must be some techniques. Actually, I haven’t even tried Googling “memory techniques” or owt like that yet. There must be something actors do to learn their lines.

I’ve memorised one of my poems, but only imperfectly, and haven’t “performed” it yet. Maybe I will at the next Bards or Wigan Tudor.

Isobel, interesting that one person LOST impact for you by performing from memory at the recent slam, somewhat hesitantly I guess. I can understand how that might happen.

But someone like Pete, and yourself, can command attention, and show great passion, without memorising, so it does seem unfair to lose points over this.

Still, I do wanna commit some of my stuff to memory. Degsy does this seemingly effortlessly. But maybe he puts a lot of effort into it, actually.

And I’d be interested in what Tony Walsh has to say.

PS I do think it's a bit of a con for poets to do a VERY old poem in a slam, especially if the said poet has already tarted the same old thing around everywhere!!

... as someone who has to do this sometimes for his job, and is frankly a bit rubbish at doing it! I can really recommend the technique of reading, re-reading and then trying to recall for 10mins and then going off and doing something completely different... listen to music, look at a painting... meditate (anything not to do with words) for 5mins. then go back and see what you can recall... then do the same again until you have done about an hour and a half of this... you will get a good lot of your poem done like this...

... the second thing to do might be harder for your own work as you have created the imagery yourself and there for will already have an association with it... but it is to convert the line into the most absurd image groups that you can...

...for example the Line 'My Mistress eyes are nothing like the sun...' might conjure up a picture of a floozily dressed red headed woman with he eyes as great big zeros then pan down mentally to a lad by her side with the same red hair and his eyes also zeros" That's how my mind works yours will work with different images. If you put it into your images then you will be recalling those rather than the words, which usually removes the 'recall wall' that sometimes gets in the way of performance.

I can heartily recommend Derren Brown's book 'Tricks of the Mind' for more wonderful tips on this kind of thing (and much more besides) it's now available in paperback and even might still be discounted in the larger supermarkets.

Thanks Ian. I'm gonna try what you suggest. And I'm gonna truy get hold of Derren Brown's book. I need a bit of light reading, having just finished two Rupert Thomson novels!

Hi folks

I'm busy tonight but I'm happy to post up my thoughts on memorising asap.

Assuming I don't forget of course ;-)

Tony

Thanks in anticipation, Tony.

Chunking

It is a technique called many different things but is all the same. You break what you need to learn down into manageable chunks. When learning a script, speech, poem or almost anything else you break it down into 5 lines or so.

Read the poem 3 times before on the 4th time you don't look at the first chunk and recite it from memory. As you read each additional time try reciting another chunk, and then another and so on. Once you can say it without looking at the paper, try to act it out or perform how you would normally. Keep the written copy near but try not to look at it. Ignore the doubt that creeps into the back of your mind....it's often groundless.

Try and repeat from memory the poem with your physical actions 5 times. That number is the beginning of maximum learning potential (according to a memory course I did a while back anyway), 5.

Of course there's no guarantee it'll work out on the night but the mistake I often make is giving into that little nagging doubt in the back of my mind saying 'you don't know this'. It is what causes me to blank and that can lead to disasterous performances like the one I gave at the Wirral Slam.

i can definately see where pete is coming from- what to do? memorise your work or write more work? i've only got about 4 poems to memory and they're not really amazingly performance ready- the nerves still show through. to be no nerves/ i know these without thinking and can concentrate on the performance- you have to rehearse rehearse rehearse- with a proper audience. your mum, your cat and other drivers on the motorway are only so good as a temporary audience.

so we use the open mic nights as rehearsal and as a result all of the northwest have heard the work over and over before it's really ready. if i was an actress in a play i could rehearse before the other cast members, director, techies, etc etc. poor lonely performance poets have no director or much feedback to shape them before they get on the stage. *sob*

but for me- a top class performance poet doesn't use the words, is confident and engaging and can pick a poem to match the mood of the audience on the night- rather than plan too much in advance.

hmm, interesting. there are two threads here: whether to, and how to.

I don't think that it makes an 'aporth of difference whether you learn or you don't learn, except insofar as it works for YOU. What I mean is, if you can deliver your poem better by reading it - do so. If you are distracted by looking down all the time at your page, memorise.

Last night, at the slam, look at Lynda Morgan's poem about her special needs pupil's swimming class. She read it out, as she always does, and in my view it was superbly done.

I have seen those who seem dedicated to learning by heart undone by forgetting their lines, or nearly doing so. It is as if it is more important to them to demonstrate their ability to memorise than it is to convey their meaning to the audience.

On the other hand, it is true that when you can learn your lines well, as an actor does (and I don't mean delivering poetry in an actorly fashion, like Brian Blessed or something), there is a special magic, as with Michael Wilson's last poem of the night last night, which transported me.

With the ones I have learned by heart I can only think of two things that matter to me: learning in chunks, and rhythm.

I learn two lines at a time, repeating and repeating until I am bored (i.e. when I have memorised them) then I move on to the next two lines.

But I seem only to be able to do that when there is a clear rhythm to those lines. I feel rhythm is vital to poetry, and is something that is appreciated by an audience as well as being a great aid to memorising them, as you at least have a clue to the words as you know what the rhythm of the next line is going to be.

i find i can remember the start of what i want to say but ...erm...i cant...i mean..erm...oh....i cant,,erm... never mind.

I like to remember but I tend to forget. Like playing darts or pool the optimum perfomance comes after a couple of drinks, the later it gets the worse the performance becomes. Painful. Anything I do tends to be in the head for a long time before it's written down and repeated aloud as I do my daily commute round the M60. I rarely do anything in front of family or loved ones, if I do they just look at me strange :)

In The Hebden Slam last night, 3 out of the top 4 poets read (or partly read) from their notes so surely it is notsoimportant. I would also like to hope that this is true as I can't remember a bloody haiku! Win

Sophie, Youtube "Mandi Lowe" or see her video on my space she is absolutally brilliant, how she memorises her poems is amazing and if our looking for inspirational drive she is it,,,she is quite rude but in an artistic way

Hi all

Sorry for my delayed response. I wrote half of this once and lost it. So a quicker version goes something like:

Don't worry about performing from memory if it's going to stress you or if you don't feel the need. If you're presenting your work at open mics and read-arounds then that's great. Good for you for getting up there in the first place.

Is a good poem read well better than a bad poem performed? Yes!
Are there some performance poets operating at a pro level who always read from the page? Yes!
Do pro poets sometimes forget their lines? Oh yes!

So if you are going to keep reading your poems rather then memorising them, then work on doing so in the most engaging way you can with the maximum eye contact and the minimum need to look at the page. Adjust your volume, tone, timings etc. The spaces between the words are as important as the words themselves.

But take a look at the various styles, techniques and skill levels on display at the next poetry night, look at the many pictures on this site of people looking down at their papers and decide where you'd like to get to.

If then you find that you're questioning what is meant by “performance poetry” and have begun to see how performing and looking the audience in the eye can strengthen how your message comes across then take a staged approach to it as outlined below.

It's reputed that what you actually say is only a small percentage of total communication. Again, for me, if you're denying yourself – and your audience – those other forms of communication then you're really limiting what I think we look for as writers and performers which is..... connection.

For me therefore, I'm much happier performing from memory than reading. I find it liberating and it allows me to engage with the audience much more and put more into getting my message across in other ways – facial expression, gesture, etc. That said, I still read new pieces or older pieces and, if I've had little time to prepare for a gig, it can sometimes feel like a relief to have papers to rely on! I've a long list of pieces that I must find the time to memorise at some point.

So assuming that you want to begin performing from memory, then what's the big secret, Tony? Well, sorry to disappoint, but other than a few specific tips below, the main tip is to work hard at it! Then work at it some more.

The first thing I'd say is to begin learning it as soon as the writing's finished. If you've spent long enough crafting the piece then that should make things easier. I say “finished writing it” - you may find that the writing evolves as you work it up for performance.

I find that pieces that rhyme are easier to memorise, as remembering the first line of a passage gives you a massive clue to the next 2/3/4 lines depending on your rhyme scheme.

Look for any mental hooks to help you memorise. I have a poem that's a numbered list of things – number two in my mind links to the word “through” in the following line, number four with “more” etc.

Break it down into sections if that helps. Memorise a verse or passage at a time, build it up as you go along.

Practice as you're washing up, in the shower, walking along, on your lunch hour, at the traffic lights, etc. Practice every day! If you see me doing a new poem from memory then I'll have done it maybe fifty times already, twenty times that day, twice in the car on the way there and once round the back just before I went on. Is it nerve-wracking? Yes? Do I drink alcohol before performing from memory? No!

These days it's within the reach of most people to record your poem as audio - play it back to yourself on your computer or on a cd, perhaps in the car, on an ipod. Hearing audio or seeing video of yourself actually performing is also very enlightening. That long pause? Should have been twice as long! And what the hell are you doing with your hands!!?? Etc.

The typical progression of presenting a new piece for me is to read it a few times, read it but just glancing down for prompts, perform it with it in my hand but don't need to look at it, bring it along but leave it in my pocket, don't bring it at all. It's interesting sometimes to go back to a piece that you've been performing for a long time to see how you've changed it – or mis-remembered it – over time.

Once you've memorised it, actors talk about going beyond memory to “internalising” the piece – when it becomes second nature to you. Once the piece is well remembered then you can work on it's presentation, experimenting with volume, pauses, etc until it's finely tuned.

On stage, you'll find that your brain works on two levels. The one that is making your mouth move, the other which is looking round the room, clocking reactions, thinking two lines ahead etc.

If you're struggling for a line, you learn not to panic – it's there somewhere and usually comes.

If it doesn't then don't panic, make a joke of it, compose yourself and carry on. If you deal with it with good grace then the audience usually will do to. Audiences love bloopers and they can actually endear you to them!

When you've done it and got away with then there's a tremendous buzz and sense of satisfaction. You'll be hooked! Good luck. Go for it!

Cheers.

Thank you, Mr Walsh.

Hey Tony, brilliant! Many thanks for sharing your experience and giving tips to the rest of us. This is more an article than a message!
Of course it also raises, for me, the whole question of whether we (Write Out Loud) are about performance poetry, or poetry performance or just about poetry; or live lit, whatever that is.

Take a look at this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJXm7lRQrTg

It's former Brum poet laureates Dreadlockalien and Spoz putting some talented young poets through their paces for the UK Schools Slam Final which they run each year. The young people have been selected from previous school sessions. All are performing from memory!

Referencing across to another thread, I do think performance poetry, spoken word, live literature - whatever you want to call it - is in good health - albeit within a tight niche. And with a lot of good work happening in schools and youth settings these days, I think you'll see a further upswing when some of these guys start hitting the adult stages in a year or two.

Cheers

Tony

Being nervous on stage is something I go through with every new stage I'm on - I've been reading for five years at the Poetry Cafe and it's home to me, so I feel best there, but every time I go on a new stage, the same fears, shakes, doubts etc come back up.

I think a little ice breaker at the start of a set can be a relief for the poet - as your striding up, or taking the mic, maybe as the MC is still on stage.

I open up with the line - Boy am I nervous - but I'm using one of those mind techniques, you know, you use at interviews to compensate - erm how does it go? if you could all just imagine me naked ...

The way I deal with hecklers gets me respect and banned. I jump off stage and scream my poem into their fuckin faces. If challenged I pull a knife and declare ' welcome to the real world you fuckers' This inevitably leads to a suspension of my readings.

The way I deal with nerves is to take a shed load of cocaine and some vodka, then I strut around the stage nodding with lips pursed for 15 minutes or until I'm dragged off by the management.

The way I memorize my poems is to make it up as I go along. I find this adds a sense of daring to the proceedings and can increase the takings at the bar.

Yours must be a very interesting act to watch - tell me - where do you read/shout abuse/pull your knife out?

impromptu performances so far include: The pub (all of them) the post office (''honest your Honor it was poetry!'') bus queues (''giz a swig of yer SB''') and neighbors front doors (after mid-night)... Im also available for rent for children's parties.