30 Poems to Memorize (Before it's too Late)
edited by David Kern
I wanted to love this book. It seemed perfect for a poetry read-aloud with my high school students. They listen to a lot of poetry aimed more at the younger kids, so this seemed a good book for my oldest son's final years or homeschooling.
Each chapter includes a woodcut illustration of the poet (some poets have more than one poem), a short biography, a poem (or two), each followed by a reflection essay. There's a great guide for reading poetry at the beginning of the book (written by my friend and wonderful poet, Sally Thomas). There are also boxes here and there throughout the book with helpful notes on terms, rhyme schemes, and other more formally presented information.
I would read the poem, read the essay, then read the poem again. We read about one chapter a week, but took breaks for busy weeks and the seasons of Advent and Christmas, so it took more than a year to get through the book.
The reflections are written by different people, though a few wrote more than one. Some of the reflections were wonderful, and some were full of typographical errors and less organized thoughts. I was disappointed in the uneven quality.
There are also a few egregious errors in the biographies and poems. John Donne's brother died in 1893 (p. 35). "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evenings" has an extra word in the fourth line: "To watch his woods will [sic] fill up with snow" (p. 75). In a book designed to lead people to memorize poetry, I think the poems should be so thoroughly proofed for such a mistake to be impossible.
The selection of poems was a good mix of more well-known poems, like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and ones I might otherwise have never encountered, like "Listening to Peter and the Wolf with Jason, Aged Three" by A.E. Stallings (one of my favorites in the book). Not all of them are particularly suited to memorization, however. You could argue that there are poems worth memorizing that fall outside a regular meter or rhythm, but it's not clear they would be amongst the first thirty you'd want to memorize.
Most of the reflections provided insights into the poem that led my children to consider their poems more favorably on the second reading, despite the need for additional editing in some of them.
If you are reading to younger children, you may want to skip John Donne's "Holy Sonnet XIV." The poem and the reflection contain references to more mature topics, though nothing I thought inappropriate to read to my high school students. (I didn't pre-read, so I just adjusted my language a little as I read it aloud.)
Overall, I expected more of the CiRCE Institute and the editor, David Kern. I hope they are able to fix the mistakes in future printings. I also hope they will take greater care in choosing authors for reflections and editing those reflections if they attempt another poetry book.
I have received nothing in exchange for this post. I purchased this book. Links to Amazon and Bookshop are affiliate links.
