Memory Palace

New York Times

03-05-2025

The first poem I memorized was 'Pinkle Purr' by A.A. Milne. I was around seven years old when I encountered it and was immediately enchanted. It's a children's poem, four stanzas, all with the same hypnotic AA/BB/AA rhyme scheme. It's a poem about a kitten, Pinkle Purr, and his mother, Tattoo, and their changing relationship as Pinkle Purr grows up, a sort of 'Cat's in the Cradle' for kids, but less sad.
I don't remember making any effort to memorize it; I just read the poem so many times that it worked its way into me, such that I knew it as well as I knew the theme songs to my favorite TV shows. I'd walk around muttering to myself, trying out different voices and syllable stresses: 'Tattoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr/A little black nothing of feet and fur;/And by-and-by, when his eyes came through,/He saw his mother, the big Tattoo.' It was meditative, comforting, an internal metronome that I naturally returned to when I returned to myself.
Perhaps because I started memorizing poems early, before I was forced to do so in school, I never perceived the process as onerous, but rather as a fun challenge, a way to take something I loved and make it a part of me. As a graduate student, I memorized Galway Kinnell's 'Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight,' lines from which still regularly surface in my brain unbidden — 'Kiss the mouth / that tells you, here, / here is the world' — even though I can't recall the whole thing anymore. I love that, amid the practical information and persistent worries and memories good and bad, my mind's archive contains these bits of beauty, lyrics that float up into consciousness, lovely echoes.
This past week, The Times Book Review ran a weeklong challenge to help readers memorize Edna St. Vincent Millay's 'Recuerdo,' replete with games and videos. (Ethan Hawke's recitation of 'We were very tired, we were very merry, / We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry' is delightful and dramatic; I'd like to hear him do 'Pinkle Purr.') I'm obviously the exact audience for this type of thing, but even if you're the sort who thinks of memorizing verse as homework, I think this challenge will make you reconsider. The poem is dazzling, and the challenge's structure makes it almost effortless to absorb it. I love what A.O. Scott and Aliza Aufrichtig write in their introduction: 'At a time when we are flooded with texts, rants and A.I. slop, a poem occupies a quieter, less commodified corner of your consciousness. It's a flower in the windowbox of your mind.'
The flower in my mind's windowbox that blooms most satisfyingly is 'Spelt From Sibyl's Leaves,' by the late-19th century English poet and Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins. I memorized it for the first time maybe 20 years ago, and I have made a point of re-memorizing it at regular intervals, whenever I go to recite it and find I can't do it perfectly without hesitation. It's a strange, propulsive poem whose rhythm, language and imagery I love so deeply — 'Earnest, earthless, equal, attuneable, ' vaulty, voluminous, … stupendous / Evening strains to be time's vást, ' womb-of-all, home-of-all, hearse-of-all night' — that reciting it is a sort of ecstasy.
I found out only recently that Hopkins insisted that the poem should not just be read with the eye, but loudly performed, 'almost sung.' In the shower. While driving to work or making dinner. On those insomniac nights when you can't stop fretting and wish you had something, anything else to think about. This is when memorized poems are most valuable. You can run over the lines in your head, or you can open your mouth, call the verse up from the recesses of your memory, and sing.
🎬 'Friendship' (Friday): It can be hard to make friends as an adult. It's that much harder when you are as terminally awkward as Craig (Tim Robinson), a gormless digital strategist slogging through middle age in a grim suburb. On shows like 'I Think You Should Leave' and 'Detroiters,' Robinson has made a study of unhinged Everymen. Craig is one more. At the urging of his wife Tami (Kate Mara), a florist and cancer survivor, he makes overtures to an affable new neighbor (Paul Rudd). In Andrew DeYoung's directorial debut, which has its dial set to maximum cringe, intimacy quickly cedes to light stalking and gun play.
Asparagus Ricotta Pasta
It's asparagus season in much of the country, and Christian Reynoso's lemon-scented asparagus ricotta pasta is a perfect showcase for those grass-green stalks. The sauce is a snap to make: just a dollop of ricotta, thinned out with a little pasta cooking water, which gets tossed with the pasta and crisp-tender asparagus spears. Then a topping of garlicky toasted almonds is sprinkled on top, adding crunch, while a few dashes of hot sauce zips up everything.
The Hunt: A couple left Queens for Manhattan with $600,000 and a short wish list. Which home did they choose? Play our game.
What you get for $625,000: An American Foursquare house in Newburgh, N.Y.; an 1810 Saltbox in Sandwich, Mass.; or a 1908 Craftsman bungalow in Portland, Ore.
Listed: The longtime Upper East Side home of Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary is up for sale. See inside.
I published a story this week about the collision between a 25-year-old TikTok influencer and a Reddit community that took aggressive measures to paint her as a fraud. In a voluminous collection of videos, the influencer, Sydney Towle, discussed her efforts to live a full life while she received treatments for a rare cancer. Her critics accused her of faking the illness.
SydTowleSnark was one of innumerable Reddit 'snark pages' or 'snark subreddits,' forums where people congregate under the veil of anonymity to critique and mock influencers and celebrities.
My article attracted hundreds of comments on The Times's site, many about the perils of sharing one's private life on the internet. 'Social media is poison,' as one reader put it.
Dozens of readers reflected on their own experiences with cancer and said that, like Towle, they did not always 'look' sick.
The comments also included gems like this piece of advice, which I plan to (try to) live by: 'Don't accept criticism from someone that you wouldn't accept advice from.'
Over on Reddit, the article kicked up a lot of dust. One moderator spilled 1,100 words in a takedown that criticized all the perceived problems with what I wrote, meaning that my article, fittingly, got the full snark page treatment.
Find a great Mother's Day gift
Nearly every Wirecutter mom with small children had the same answer for the best gift they have ever received: a few hours to themselves. Whether you're shopping for a mother of toddlers or grown-ups, our gift experts say you can never go wrong with a bouquet of pretty flowers or a box of excellent chocolates. We have plenty of other more surprising and offbeat ideas, too, as well as some lovely options under $50. And don't overlook the gift of something sentimental. 'So often the labor of memory-keeping falls to moms,' our gifts editor, Hannah Morrill, says. Consider taking that off their plate with something meaningful — perhaps a piece of their kids' art encased in a beautiful frame. — Haley Jo Lewis
The 151st Kentucky Derby: A horse named Journalism is the favorite in today's race, with 3-to-1 odds. How on earth does a horse get a name like Journalism? Its co-owner, Aron Wellman, told LAist the name is partly a reflection of the horse's lineage — its mother was named Mopotism — and partly his own, as a former sports editor of his high school newspaper.
This isn't the first newspaper-inspired horse name in the Derby, as Jason Frakes noted in the Louisville Courier Journal:
Third place isn't bad. But, if you'll allow us a little media bias, it would be nice to see Journalism get a win.
Derby coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. Eastern on NBC; post time is 6:57 p.m.
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was virology.
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And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa
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