Getting fitter

I keep thinking I ought to start learning poetry again – all part of a getting fitter attempt (again) because I really think a combination of laziness and too much sitting here, pretty motionless apart from my hands as I write, isn’t good. I mentioned the other day that we have a quiet life these days for a variety of reasons, so although I’m busy here in my little writing room, brushing up my French and learning Danish, researching for my stories, and writing my current novel, I don’t have much actual interaction and the things I do are quite straight forward. We’ve started going for daily walks to keep active, so maybe ought to do some brain exercise too – hence my thoughts on poetry. I used to know so many poems when I was younger, longer ones and short ones such as –

Now Chil the kite brings home the night

that Mang the Bat sets free –

The herds are shut In byre and hut,

For loosed till dawn are we.

This is the hour

Of pride and power

Talon and tush and claw.

Oh, hear the call! Good hunting all

That keeps the jungle law.

“Night Song in the Jungle” – by Rudyard Kipling which I learned when I was quite young, not at school but at home.

I know the opening verses of The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Robert Browning, a few lines from The Lady of Shallot by Tennyson, and maybe a smattering of odd lines from other poems.

I know whole verses of hymns and carols, because when I was at school we sang them in assembly every morning, plus having singing in class music lessons, learning folk and traditional songs. I also went to Sunday School and must have known most of the hymns, carols and choruses by heart then. When I was eleven, my parents bought me and my sister a Dansette record player – we only had a few records, so we knew all of them, ever word – and the B sides too. We saved our pocket money, and I earned money from a paper round, and bought LPs which we played over, and over, and over.

My head must have been full of all these, music and lyrics, and my parents must have been sick of them! Music has always been important to me, not particularity classical, but popular music – and my favourites were often ones which had meaningful or catchy lyrics.

I don’t play much music now, and usually it is background to me writing – but supposing I started playing it and singling along, would I learn the lyrics all over again? Supposing I started re-learning poetry? Would that be like mental keep-fit? Would that help me be less forgetful (where’s my phone/wallet/thingy/book/cup of coffee?) I guess it may, or may not, but it will be fun, and possibly help with crosswords and quizzes!