Memory Might Have a Future

I think you’ll enjoy this video clip of Billy Collins’ poem “Litany” recited by a 3-year-old boy. (Embedding disabled, so please follow this link.)

Does Memory Have a Future? by David Barber raises a critical question for our culture. It’s great being part of a school that takes this issue seriously. Excerpt from Barber’s article:

I have purposely selected a poem of exceeding brevity in order to emphasize that the art of memory I’m agitating for here is not be confused with showstopping circus feats of memory power such as rattling off a couple dozen of Shakespeare’s sonnets on cue or spouting whole pages out of Paradise Lost. That kind of industriousness can be intellectually stimulating, I suppose, but to me it’s an approach to memory that smacks more of sport than art. Another thing that makes this little poem “Western Wind” such a talisman for me is the small miracle that it has come down to us at all — and how we can be pretty darn sure that it was preserved in warm blooded memory long before it was set down in cold type.

Advertisement