How to Memorize a Poem
Memorizing a poem is an activity that’s usually taken up in school, but you can memorize a poem by heart just because you want to. Here’s how to memorize a poem without a hitch.
Hopefully, the poem you have to memorize is not too long. However, don’t think it’s impossible to memorize a long poem. It’s all in how you pace yourself. If you have a deadline, make sure that you start memorizing at least two weeks before the deadline.
Read the whole poem through and understand what the message of the poem is. Don’t rely on anyone else’s interpretation of the poem. Understanding what the poem is trying to say is key in memorizing the poem.
If you run into difficult words or can’t decipher what a line in the poem wants to say, look up the difficult words in the dictionary. If it’s a difficult line, try to see how the line relates to the lines that came before and the lines that came after.
Read the whole poem aloud. Try to get into the natural rhythm of the poem. Remember, each break in the line is what a period would be to a sentence. There should be a short pause.
Start memorizing the poem one or two lines at a time. First, read the first one or two lines out loud while reading the words.
After reading the lines out loud five times, close your eyes or look away from the text and try to visualize the text. Check the text if you’ve gotten the whole thing correct. Repeat if you haven’t.
Once you’ve memorized the first one or two lines, move on to the third line. Again, read the third line five times while looking at the text. However, before you recite the third line of the text without looking at it, you have to recite the first two lines that came before it first. This way you’re building up your memorization from the start, and not piecemeal.
Once you’ve gotten the words memorized, only then can you start incorporating inflections, gesticulations and other things you need to do if you’re in a declamation contest.