Driving home from a Moth StorySLAM in Brooklyn earlier this month with three friends in the car, the conversation somehow shifted to poetry.
I’m not sure how it happened, but I think one of my friends — prompted by something that is likely lost to time — asked me what my favorite poem is, which was a challenging question. After I meandered through some Whitman, a Langston Hughes option, and a lot of Robert Frost, I finally settled on Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night” — a poem that suits my philosophy and demeanor well.
In explaining this, I began reciting parts og the poem, because it’s one I have committed to memory.
So began a discussion of poetry and the recitation of poems.
I told the story about a teacher next door to my classroom who stole the call and response from the movie Dead Poets’ Society:
Teacher: “Oh, Captain!”
Students: “My captain!”
… which comes from a Whitman poem about the death of Abraham Lincoln.
Another poem I have committed to memory.
The teacher didn’t know the poem — just the lines from the film —, so I quietly taught his class the poem without him knowing, and when they had it memorized, we chose a day for them to hear his call:
“Oh, Captain”
… and they rose in unison and recited the entire poem — quite long— to him.
A fantastic moment for them and me.
In the car, I recited the poem for my friends.
I also told them how I had memorized “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll because it’s fun to recite it to children in a scary voice.
I recited that, too.
Then I told them I had memorized Elysha’s favorite poem, “The Tyger” by William Blake, as a Hanukkah gift one year, so she could request it at any time and have it recited to her.
My friend, Chris, recited a poem his father had once recited to him, doing a far better job than me of bringing it to life.
My friend Kaia discussed and recited her favorite poem.
I explained the true nature of a haiku and recited a couple of my favorites.
Our poetry talk went on and on.
It was a wonderful conversation that only happens when I get to spend extended time in a car with people I love. I always say that I love attending storytelling shows with friends, but I love the drives to and from Boston and New York almost as much.
How often do you get to spend hours with friends in conversation?
A conversation like that also doesn’t happen unless the people I love aren’t as brilliant, bright, inquisitive as my friends are — friends who love words and sentences and stories and, it turns out, poems, as much as I do.
I felt very lucky that night, driving home from New York, eating up interstate miles with conversation and recitation of poems and their meaning.
Lucky me.
