Master of Memory: Accelerated learning, education, memorization - MMem 0431: Memorize “And Now We Are Six” by AA Milne in 6 minutes

Episode Date: November 2, 2015

Patrick asks about memorizing poetry of AA Milne. I present a guided memorization of “And Now We Are Six”. Listen to the episode and have the poem memorized within six minutes! What do you want to learn? Leave your question at http://MasterOfMemory.com/. Music credit: Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, 2nd movement, performed by the US Army Band.

Master of Memory 431. 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. Patrick requested memorization materials for memorizing poetry of A. A. Milne. Now, I'm going to do something a bit new with this episode, such that you should have an entire poem memorized by the end of this episode. We'll be using a very short and popular children's poem called And Now We Are Six.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to present the poem first, then talk about some mnemonics that will help you to memorize the key words of each line. And then I'll go through a process where I'll recite the poem two more times. And by the end of it, you should be able to walk away reciting the entire poem yourself. First of all, here's the poem. And listen carefully, but focus on the rhymes and the way that the end of each line rhymes with each number. When I was one, I had just begun. and the way that the end of each line rhymes with each number. When I was five, I was just alive. But now I am six. I'm as clever as clever. So I think I'll be six now and forever.

So as you can see, it's a short and simple poem, but it's not something that you could just go away and recite after hearing it once. So we're going to come up with a couple of mnemonics to help you remember, first of all, the keywords of each line, and then the entire poem based on having heard it a couple of times and recalling those keywords. What's happening here is a kid has just turned six years old, and so he's really excited. He has a birthday cake, and he's wearing a party hat. We're going to use the cake to store the first verse, and then we'll use the party hat to store the second verse.

So bear with me here. We have five key words for the first verse. So thinking about the cake from the outside to the inside, first of all we have the tray that the cake is sitting on. Then moving in a little bit, we have the utensil that's used to cut the cake. Then we have the frosting on the cake. And then we have the center of the cake with even more frosting on it, about, you know, heaped up in the middle of the cake. And then we have the inside of the cake. So the tray, and then the utensil, and then the frosting around the outside, the frosting on the inside, and then the inside of the cake itself.

So the tray itself was what was used to begin the cake. So think of the word begun. Then the thing used to cut the cake has a price tag on it because it's new. So think of the word new. Then the frosting along the outside of the cake, there isn't much of it. So there's hardly any. In fact, you can see the cake through it. So think of the word hardly. But then in the middle of the cake, there's a lot more frosting. So think more. And then moving inside the cake, there's a beating heart because the cake itself is alive. So again, moving from outside to inside, we have the tray, which is begun. We have the cutting utensil, which is new. We have the frosting around the outside, which is hardly. We have the frosting on the middle of the cake, which is more. And then we have the beating heart, which is hardly. We have the frosting on the middle of the cake, which is more. And then we have the beating heart, which is alive. So now you should be able to count to five and say these key

words. One, begun. Two, new. Three, hardly. Four, more. Five, alive. Try to remember all of those words as I read the first verse again. When I was one, I had just begun. When I was two, I was nearly new. When I was three, I was hardly me. When I was four, I was not much more. When I was five, I was just alive. Great, now we get to move to the party hat, which is weird. It's curved and shaped sort of like the number six. And it's not just a party hat. It's a sort of thinking cap. The kid thinks that he's really clever, and when he's more clever, it lights up.

And not only that, but it shoots out a laser that shoots straight through the ceiling of the room where he's having the party and into outer space and goes on forever. So the key words here are six, clever, and forever. But now I am six. I'm as clever as clever. So I think I'll be six now and forever. So basically, that's the poem. If you can remember the birthday cake with its five items and the birthday hat with its three items, you have basically the whole poem memorized. Just try to remember the essence of it as you

listen to me read the poem one more time and see how much you can recite along. When I was one, I had just begun. When I was two, I was nearly new. When I was three, I was hardly me. When I was four, I was not much more. When I was five, I was just alive. But now I am six. I'm as clever as clever. So I think I'll be six now and forever. Listen to this episode again if you're not completely confident with your level of memorization of this poem. And admittedly, this is a fairly simple and short example, but if you want to learn 80 poems, including eight poems by Milne, eight poems by Edgar Allan Poe, and many more, go to masterofmemory.com slash poetry. What do you want to learn? The world's knowledge can be yours. Leave your learning request at masterofmemory.com

slash question, and I'll talk to you again soon.