Several years ago, I suggested printing out good but accessible poems and hanging them on the walls of your house. I listed 50 poems, mostly short enough to fit on one page.
The good thing about having a poem not just tucked away in a book, but hanging on the wall of your home – especially on a wall that you’re likely to spend time staring at anyway, like one next to the toilet, or on the cabinet by the sink when you’re washing the dishes – is that you are likely to read it over and over again, and let it really sink into your imagination. (The mark of a good poem is that it can be read over and over again, at different stages of your life, and it won’t go stale.)
Of course the downside to having poems in all the places where people naturally hang out is that they may be literarily inexhaustible, but they do get beat up physically.
Of course you could do it right and print them out on good paper and frame them, but it is too late for me to turn into that kind of person. As Chesterton said, if a thing is worth doing, then it’s worth doing badly. Anyway, the first batch of wall poems inevitably got stained and torn and crumpled; so I made a second list and printed out more poems.
I’ve kept it up over the years, on and off, whenever we manage to have both ink and paper in the printer. Whenever I come across something that sounds good, and like something I would like my kids to see, I print it out right then and there and stick it to the wall.
Some of the kids don’t care at all, and just ignore them; but some of them like the poems, and memorize them, and seek out more poetry now that they’re adults. What a delight!
I’m here today with a new list with another 15 worthwhile poems (or excerpts), short enough to fit on one page:
- “No Time” by Billy Collins
- “California Hills In August” by Dana Goia
- “Praise in Summer” by Richard Wilbur
- “Saint Judas by” James Wright
- “Antiphon for the Holy Spirit” by Hildegarde of Bingen
- “Holy Week” by Sally Thomas …. Read the rest of my latest for The Catholic Weekly.
A Jesuit who taught Honors English at my high school had us memorize poetry, because it was something beautiful that you could always possess.
He had been an ambulance driver in the Vietnam war.