15 Poems to Learn by Heart for Apocalyptic Times

Preppers, don’t forget to memorize some poems (and it seems we're all preppers now)

 What requires no storage space, has a very long shelf life, can be shared without running out, and will boost morale for you and your loved ones?

Memorize a poem and you will have its company as long as you live, perhaps even after other things fade from your memory. 

In this post, I will share with you my top fifteen recommendations (in no particular order) for poems to know by heart in this challenging epoch. 

I’ll also guide you through how to memorize a poem.

1. "Apollo" by Elizabeth Alexander

We pull off
to a road shack
in Massachusetts
to watch men walk

on the moon…

Read the rest of "Apollo."  

2. "How to Break a Curse" by Danielle Boodoo-Fortuné

Lemon balm is for forgiveness.

Pull up from the root, steep

in boiling water. Add locusts’ wings,

salt, the dried bones of hummingbirds… 

Read the rest of "How to Break a Curse."

3. "Spell for Safe Passage" by Ching-In Chen

for you who heard useless

           through honey trees in time of wasp and stalk

 

for you who raised surface                             we all mixed from hunger

           generated off-color milk                            borne from chemical cousins… 

Read the rest of "Spell for Safe Passage."

4. "Ladders" by Richard Garcia 

First the people had to invent ladders. No one had ever seen a ladder. Once they had ladders they invented walls to climb over. Soon they realized it took two ladders to climb a wall… 

Read the rest of "Ladders." 

5. "Anthropocene: A Dictionary" by Jake Skeets

dibé bighan: sheep corral 

 

juniper beams caught charcoal in the late summer morning

night still pooled in hoof prints; deer panicked run from water 

 

ooljéé’ biná’adinídíín: moonlight… 

"Read the rest of "Anthropocene: A Dictionary."

6. "Grace" by Sarah Gambito

You will transcend your ancestor’s suffering

You will pick a blue ball. You will throw it to yourself. 

You will be on the other side to receive. 

Green leaves grow around your face… 

Read the rest of "Grace."

7. "What Spells Trouble" by Amaud Jamaul Johnson 

you have since swallowed

so much blood, the sailboats

rap violently about the docks,

and how heavy the gulls’ wings… 

"Read the rest of "What Spells Trouble."

8. "Bulb Planting Time" by Edgar Guest

Last night he said the dead were dead

  And scoffed my faith to scorn;

I found him at a tulip bed

  When I passed by at morn… 

Read the rest of "Bulb Planting Time."

9. "Preparation" by Effie Waller Smith

“I have no time for those things now,” we say;

“But in the future just a little way,

No longer by this ceaseless toil oppressed,

I shall have leisure then for thought and rest… 

Read the rest of "Preparation."

10. "A Barred Owl" by Richard Wilbur

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird… 

Read the rest of "A Barred Owl."

11. "This is What Makes Us Worlds" by Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

Like light but
in reverse we billow.

We turn a corner
and make the hills...

Read the rest of "This is What Makes Us Worlds."

12. "The Rules" by Leila Chatti

There will be no stars—the poem has had enough of them. I think we can agree

we no longer believe there is anyone in any poem who is just now realizing

 

they are dead, so let’s stop talking about it. The skies of this poem

are teeming with winged things, and not a single innominate bird… 

Read the rest of "The Rules."

13. "[everyone asks for the you they remember]" by CAConrad

                  everyone asks for the you they remember

                  I wish for no new way to feel alone again

                                                                  America is

                                                           the wrong angel...

Read the rest of "[everyone asks for the you they remember]."

14. "There are these moments of permission" by Camille Dungy

Between raindrops, 

 

space, certainly,

but we call it all rain.

          I hang in the undrenched intervals… 

Read the rest of "There are these moments of permission."

15. "Pain Too" by Laura Hershey

I dream

of pain too

not the always ache

of emptiness...

Read the rest of "Pain Too."

Secrets and strategies for memorizing a poem

Consider those bits of language you already know by heart— whether ad jingles, phone numbers, or the words to songs— how did they get inside your memory? 

Probably because you encountered them a lot, over and over again, whether you meant to or not.  You can use the same approach to memorizing a poem.

What memorizing a poem will be like for you, and how you get there, will vary based on how you learn and your style of sensory processing. 

Here are a few ideas:

• Carry a copy of the poem around with you
• Tape a copy somewhere you will see it often
• Record yourself reading it out loud and play it back to yourself
• Read it out loud
• Read it quietly, then set it aside and write down as much as you can

Whatever way you choose, add one line to the previous one as you memorize, always starting from the beginning of the poem each time and build from there.

This is because you’re not only trying to memorize each individual line in isolation, but also, the order in which they go. This will be so much easier if you stack each line to the previous one while you are learning the poem. Trust me, it will make all the difference! 

So your process could look like this:

• Day 1: Memorize line 1
• Day 2: Memorize lines 1 and 2 together
• Day 3: Memorize lines 1 through 3 together

...and so on. 

For a fun twist, challenge a friend or family member to memorize a poem with you. You could do the same poem or each memorize different poem from the list.

Well well, that brings us to the end

... of this post, not the world. Isn’t that one of the strangest aspects of living in times that feel so apocalyptic? The part where we go on living.

For me, poetry plays a significant role in that go-on-living thing. I hope it can for you, too.