Why Not Memorize a Poem?

The other day I wrote about memorization. It's lovely to have poems in your memory bank, just as you keep song lyrics there. Poems provide a meditation, something better to think about than whatever is troubling you, a new way to reflect on an issue.

Here's the Robert Frost poem my student has been committing to memory for the past several days. I've been saying it a lot lately as I drive around town:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lak4
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

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