Poetry Is Good for Your Brain!

I was delighted to read this article about the shrinkage of modern memory, not because I think such shrinkage is good (it's awful) but because the article suggests poetry as a remedy. Memorizing anything, of course, is good for one's memory. Some fundamental information, such as the multiplication table or the periodic table, is really useful to have stored between one's ears. But poetry is especially, perhaps uniquely, well designed to take advantage of the little subroutines in the human mind/brain that allow us to memorize things. This is most true of rhymed, metered poetry: the kind that has largely fallen out of fashion today. I have to wonder if there is some subtle connection between the falling respect for memorization and the rising popularity of free verse.

I'm not particularly good at memorizing a script, even if it's poetic -- when I do a ritual that needs a lot of specific words, I use pages or cards -- but I still get a kick out of memorizing short bits. Verses of songs and poetry tend to stick in my head, or scene snippets. I'm much better at memorizing information, like the characteristics of a bird or plant, or the magical properties of stones, etc. Poetry is just ... fun. When I was learning foreign languages in school, that was memory work, and one thing that especially stands out is memorizing pieces of Mexican and Russian poetry. (And of course, I'm linguistic SillyPutty; languages themselves stick to me amazingly.) It made a good anchor for other bits of the language inside my head.

I am somewhat in awe of actors who can memorize (their character's part in, at least) a whole play at a time. That harks back to a time when all knowledge was stored mentally, rather than written down, and everyone's memory was more developed due to greater use. Some cultures had specialists, like the Druids, who memorized massive amounts of information and served as walking libraries. They were the mental equivalent of bodybuilders, pushing an innate ability to tremendous levels through rigorous training.

Some tips on memorization and memory building are here.

Poetry Is Good for Your Brain!

I was delighted to read this article about the shrinkage of modern memory, not because I think such shrinkage is good (it's awful) but because the article suggests poetry as a remedy. Memorizing anything, of course, is good for one's memory. Some fundamental information, such as the multiplication table or the periodic table, is really useful to have stored between one's ears. But poetry is especially, perhaps uniquely, well designed to take advantage of the little subroutines in the human mind/brain that allow us to memorize things. This is most true of rhymed, metered poetry: the kind that has largely fallen out of fashion today. I have to wonder if there is some subtle connection between the falling respect for memorization and the rising popularity of free verse.

I'm not particularly good at memorizing a script, even if it's poetic -- when I do a ritual that needs a lot of specific words, I use pages or cards -- but I still get a kick out of memorizing short bits. Verses of songs and poetry tend to stick in my head, or scene snippets. I'm much better at memorizing information, like the characteristics of a bird or plant, or the magical properties of stones, etc. Poetry is just ... fun. When I was learning foreign languages in school, that was memory work, and one thing that especially stands out is memorizing pieces of Mexican and Russian poetry. (And of course, I'm linguistic SillyPutty; languages themselves stick to me amazingly.) It made a good anchor for other bits of the language inside my head.

I am somewhat in awe of actors who can memorize (their character's part in, at least) a whole play at a time. That harks back to a time when all knowledge was stored mentally, rather than written down, and everyone's memory was more developed due to greater use. Some cultures had specialists, like the Druids, who memorized massive amounts of information and served as walking libraries. They were the mental equivalent of bodybuilders, pushing an innate ability to tremendous levels through rigorous training.

Some tips on memorization and memory building are here.

Poetry Is Good for Your Brain!

I was delighted to read this article about the shrinkage of modern memory, not because I think such shrinkage is good (it's awful) but because the article suggests poetry as a remedy. Memorizing anything, of course, is good for one's memory. Some fundamental information, such as the multiplication table or the periodic table, is really useful to have stored between one's ears. But poetry is especially, perhaps uniquely, well designed to take advantage of the little subroutines in the human mind/brain that allow us to memorize things. This is most true of rhymed, metered poetry: the kind that has largely fallen out of fashion today. I have to wonder if there is some subtle connection between the falling respect for memorization and the rising popularity of free verse.

I'm not particularly good at memorizing a script, even if it's poetic -- when I do a ritual that needs a lot of specific words, I use pages or cards -- but I still get a kick out of memorizing short bits. Verses of songs and poetry tend to stick in my head, or scene snippets. I'm much better at memorizing information, like the characteristics of a bird or plant, or the magical properties of stones, etc. Poetry is just ... fun. When I was learning foreign languages in school, that was memory work, and one thing that especially stands out is memorizing pieces of Mexican and Russian poetry. (And of course, I'm linguistic SillyPutty; languages themselves stick to me amazingly.) It made a good anchor for other bits of the language inside my head.

I am somewhat in awe of actors who can memorize (their character's part in, at least) a whole play at a time. That harks back to a time when all knowledge was stored mentally, rather than written down, and everyone's memory was more developed due to greater use. Some cultures had specialists, like the Druids, who memorized massive amounts of information and served as walking libraries. They were the mental equivalent of bodybuilders, pushing an innate ability to tremendous levels through rigorous training.

Some tips on memorization and memory building are here.

Poetry Is Good for Your Brain!

I was delighted to read this article about the shrinkage of modern memory, not because I think such shrinkage is good (it's awful) but because the article suggests poetry as a remedy. Memorizing anything, of course, is good for one's memory. Some fundamental information, such as the multiplication table or the periodic table, is really useful to have stored between one's ears. But poetry is especially, perhaps uniquely, well designed to take advantage of the little subroutines in the human mind/brain that allow us to memorize things. This is most true of rhymed, metered poetry: the kind that has largely fallen out of fashion today. I have to wonder if there is some subtle connection between the falling respect for memorization and the rising popularity of free verse.

I'm not particularly good at memorizing a script, even if it's poetic -- when I do a ritual that needs a lot of specific words, I use pages or cards -- but I still get a kick out of memorizing short bits. Verses of songs and poetry tend to stick in my head, or scene snippets. I'm much better at memorizing information, like the characteristics of a bird or plant, or the magical properties of stones, etc. Poetry is just ... fun. When I was learning foreign languages in school, that was memory work, and one thing that especially stands out is memorizing pieces of Mexican and Russian poetry. (And of course, I'm linguistic SillyPutty; languages themselves stick to me amazingly.) It made a good anchor for other bits of the language inside my head.

I am somewhat in awe of actors who can memorize (their character's part in, at least) a whole play at a time. That harks back to a time when all knowledge was stored mentally, rather than written down, and everyone's memory was more developed due to greater use. Some cultures had specialists, like the Druids, who memorized massive amounts of information and served as walking libraries. They were the mental equivalent of bodybuilders, pushing an innate ability to tremendous levels through rigorous training.

Some tips on memorization and memory building are here.