“We were very tired, we were very merry Remember those lines? If you do, you probably recall the first-ever New York Times Poetry Challenge, which wrapped up two weeks ago. (If you missed the fun, click here to immerse yourself in five days’ worth of games, videos and mini-essays about Edna St. Vincent Millay’s infectious “Recuerdo.”) Those of us who worked on the project are still merry about the response. Thousands of readers took to the comments to share their enthusiasm for poetry and their delight in learning a bit of it by heart. For some participants, the exercise tested mental muscles they hadn’t used since childhood. “In high school I spent hours memorizing sonnets from Shakespeare and the poems of the best known poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins. Thank you Fr. Caroluzza!" wrote Stephen Francis Callahan of Annandale, Va. “Today, I begin again.” For others, finding “Recuerdo” confirmed a longstanding devotion in poetry or to Edna St. Vincent Millay, whose candle still burns bright more than 130 years after her birth. Each day’s comments were garlanded with citations and sometimes whole stanzas, from Millay, Robert Frost and other favorites. Perhaps best of all were the many readers who arrived with a desire to find some room in their lives for poetry. “My husband literally said to me today, apropos of nothing, that he wished he had been made to memorize poetry as a child,” wrote Kristin Gilbert of Louisville, Ky. “Now we are memorizing this poem together.” There were a lot of good notes and thoughtful suggestions, and — this being poetry, and these being New York Times readers — a few nits to be picked. Mostly though, there was a clamor for more: more poetry, more challenges, more “reprieve” and “diversion” from the torrent of news. A new poem every day! A new challenge every week! That may be more than we can manage — did I mention that we were very tired at the end of that ride — but we hear you, and we agree with the general sentiment. Meanwhile, God bless you for the apples and the pears. |
