Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0364: Memorize Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting”

Episode Date: July 30, 2015

Angus asks about memorizing “Strange Meeting” by Wilfred Owen. I present the tools and techniques needed to commit this poem to memory. BONUS: Here’s a quizzing set you can use to memorize the key words of this poem: Memorize strange meeting What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd […]

Master of Memory 364 Welcome to Master of Memory. I'm Timothy and I'm here to answer your accelerated learning questions every day and to inspire and empower you to learn anything you want to learn faster than ever. Agnes asks about memorizing Wilford Owen's poem, Strange Meeting. Some of the difficulties of memorizing this poem are, first of all, that the verses are not in regular sizes. So you have a couple of short parts, then one part that's really long, and then another short verse at the end. So there aren't regular verses. There is meter, but there's no rhyming, so you don't have that to depend upon.

So Agnes, to memorize this, what we'll do is what we do with most poems when we memorize them, and that is to choose a key word from each line. And then also we're going to break it down into chunks. Since there aren't small verses that we can work with in the first place, we'll just create verses of our own, which we'll use as memory palace locations. So to give a few examples, our first chunk is the first three lines, which are just grouped by themselves, by Owen himself. So we have, it seemed that out of the battle I escaped, as the first line.

And the key word there is battle, I think, maybe escaped. And then second, down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped. So I think tunnel there triggers the rest of the line. And then the trigger for the third line is the word granites. So if you put those three things on one flashcard, for example, you can quiz on the entire thing. And all you have to do at that point is just remember the words battle, tunnel, and granites, and then say the lines a few times, and you'll remember the entire lines from those keywords. The second thing I would memorize is the seven lines

that the author groups together, and the keywords there would be encumbered, bestirred, spraying, recognition, bless, smile, hell. Then to break up the huge part in the middle, I would choose maybe the first four lines, no, the first three lines, the first three lines before the dialogue starts. And then after that, just keep breaking it up into lines of about eight each. And so you'll just keep memorizing these keywords from these lines on different palace locations. So you're going to turn those keywords that you reduce these lines down to into images. And then for each chunk that we've chunked it down to, you'll turn those keywords that you reduce these lines down to into images, and then for each chunk that we've chunked it down to, you'll memorize those keywords in those locations, and to recite

the poem, all you have to do is think through those locations, and once you've said it a few times, you've read it while thinking through this imagery, it will stick with you. So that's how you would do it, Becky, and the good news is that with these techniques, some of the work is already done for you. We've actually created flashcards already that you can use to quiz on these key words and to memorize this poem. Just go to masterofmemory.com slash strange meeting. For everyone listening, if there's a poem, a quote, or anything else that you want help memorizing, Master of Memory is here to give you the techniques to learn or memorize it faster than ever. What do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours,

so leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon.