11.26.2012

William Shakespeare

Today was Poem Memorization day. It was a joyous occasion. "Joyous" here meaning "I don't recite poetry in front of people unless it's in my small workshopping group in class because I need the grade, or in front of select family members because I'm trying to find a poem to memorize. So please don't make me speak this language of poetry in front of my class' entirety."

Needless to say, butterflies were occupying my stomach every moment I thought about this day in all its poetic glory.

I chose to memorize two of my poems. This one and this one. Since they were my own poems, I memorized them relatively easily. The key word being "relatively". Because in the first part of the test (writing the poem from memory) I nearly forgot an entire line. Luckily it came to my brain at the end. And then came the reciting part. The part where we can have the poem(s) in front of us, but we can "only look at it three times". I was one of the last to recite. I thought to myself as people recited, "If I forget a line, I'm not going to say 'sorry' like many of these people are doing. I will simply look down at the stinking poem and move on.'"

Then I got up to the front of the class. Blessed day. My face turned red. My stomach churned. I blinked. I began. My mind went blank a jumble of times and I said "sorry" to the scoffing students. I also looked at my paper about seventeen times. "Seventeen" here meaning "more than three".

But, nevertheless, I finished my poems. I sat down. And William Shakespeare took his turn and cleaned up my poetry mess. He acted out his monologues. There was shouting involved. 

If I didn't pass, I'll know it was because I didn't have props or anger to help me out.

2 comments:

Alison said...

I'm sure it was okay! It always feels worse than it is - you're your own worst critic! But if not, maybe these will cheer you up:

http://dallasclayton.com/post/35186290886/for-all

http://dallasclayton.com/post/27661833378

He always cheers me up! :)

ruthie.von said...

First of all it's stupid how much I love your header. ALL THE TIME.
Second, once I had to read a poem I memorized in class, in the middle of it I started bawling. Surprisingly that actually made it easier because no one would look at me after I started to tear up, so I didn't have a million people staring at me. You should try crying next time, works like a charm.
Plus, also bethany, you're a wizard. I would read your poetry out loud. If I could write like you do I would just walk around quoting them to random people all day long.
Those theatrical types make me want to punch people sometimes.

INCONCLUSIONYOUAREAWIZARDBETHANY.