Fellow storyteller, Priscilla Howe, has a blog called More Storytelling Notes and her article "On Storytelling and Memorization" sparked an online conversation between the two of us. First go to that link and then think a bit about it. This is what I emailed her:
Oh I definitely agree! I've seen some of those who memorize get hopelessly stuck. At the same time, my years of storytelling this way has caused me HUGE difficulties when I started to return to my background of theatre. I'm doing it as a mental discipline while pampering my inner ham. I also prefer supporting roles to avoid letting my fellow actors down if I can't regurgitate it 100%. (My theatre training said you should listen to your colleagues, but I find some -- if they were storytellers they'd definitely memorize! -- expect that 100%.)
I believe in storytelling. It's alive and adapts to its audience. At the same time I know there were some societies, like the Druids, who believed in memorization to guarantee passing a story unchanged through the ages.
At the same time I'm finding some of historical storytelling needs me cheating a bit to guarantee (a) getting all the topic into the presentation and (b) getting facts presented accurately.
I'd love a way for you to "guest" on my blog on this topic, Priscilla.
I was never paid for my memorization (maybe I'd have grown to love it), but my mom, too, loved to spout bits from her own memory including that RLS couplet. I'm still trying to figure out what in her youth prompted her to exclaim with delight "the old man spilled his bag of gold!" upon seeing a lawn scattered with dandelions. I'm attaching a poem from Annette Wynne's For Days and Days; A Year-Round Treasury of Child Verse. It was published in 1919, so it would have been a recent book when she was in grade school. Still that ending couplet of "Miser, miser, here's God's gold, Gather some before you're old!" seems to have problems with being both memorable enough AND it's about gathering, not spilling.LoiS(earching & wishing I'd asked her to say more)
This was that poem (with a bonus poem on the same first page):
To which she responded:
Thanks for the comments, and for the poem. My mother had vast quantities of poetry floating around in her brain, but it was not always accurate.
On a totally different note, she would sing "Wilberforce, get off your horse, and bring him in to lunch!" but no other verses. Do you know that song? There are SO many things I wish I could ask my mother now.
I've been doing a presentation for Humanities Kansas that is about 3/4 storytelling and 1/4 lecture. For that, I do use notes. Facts don't stick in my head as well as stories do. I think that's why I don't do many historical pieces. When I tell a story I wrote about the Siege of Leningrad, I always have to go over and over the specific facts, and still wonder if I've bungled them.
I'd be happy to be a guest blogger. Do you want to use this Substack post, or something new?
Be well!Priscilla
Learn about my programs, recordings and calendar on my website. You can also read my blog and sign up for my Substack newsletter there. You'll find lots of videos on my youtube channel.
Our conversation continued
Oh, Priscilla, I know exactly what you mean about wishing you could talk to your mother yet again. Where's a true time machine that would permit that? As storytellers we do the best we can, but always know it's imperfect.
I definitely agree that I, too, need ways to see notes relating to facts. I've found ways to do it as a reporter in my Prohibition program and as a school teacher in my One Room School program. My WWI Hello Girl program, because I have the audience hold up photos (also in the Prohibition program) has me look at notes. My Underground Railroad/Civil War program has me study beforehand like a spy learning a cover story! I'm getting my plans together for a woman who led a Minute Women's group and can't think of a way to "cheat." Spy style learning will probably have to return & that's so tough. I think it's on a par with what you say about your Siege of Leningrad story.
I've been thinking about how we can do this. My blog has stayed print rather than podcast, but it can always take a link and embed it. That's how we could use your Substack post, by printing the article, mentioning it's followed by the minute-long Jabberwocky and giving a plug to your Substack blog. Beyond that I guess it's my comments and yours from these emails. I'd love to find a way to break them up more like a conversation, but I guess calling it An Email Conversation On Storytelling and Memorization is the best we can do. Brief intro to your post then our emailed reactions.
Your further thoughts on this? You ask about "something new" and admit I'm open to it, but this is where my head sees it currently.
LoiS<MILE> & well wishes your way, too
Oh, Priscilla, I know exactly what you mean about wishing you could talk to your mother yet again. Where's a true time machine that would permit that? As storytellers we do the best we can, but always know it's imperfect.
I definitely agree that I, too, need ways to see notes relating to facts. I've found ways to do it as a reporter in my Prohibition program and as a school teacher in my One Room School program. My WWI Hello Girl program, because I have the audience hold up photos (also in the Prohibition program) has me look at notes. My Underground Railroad/Civil War program has me study beforehand like a spy learning a cover story! I'm getting my plans together for a woman who led a Minute Women's group and can't think of a way to "cheat." Spy style learning will probably have to return & that's so tough. I think it's on a par with what you say about your Siege of Leningrad story.
Your further thoughts on this? You ask about "something new" and admit I'm open to it, but this is where my head sees it currently.
LoiS<MILE> & well wishes your way, too
Priscilla:
Oh, yes, the spy cover story! In fact, my uncle wrote backstories for German spies who had been "turned" by the Americans, and who were being sent back into Germany. He wrote a novel about his experiences, Call it treason, which was made into the movie Decision before dawn. I've been thinking about telling his story, and the story of a cousin on the other side of the family who was in the French resistance in WWII (caught, almost hanged, saved at the last moment!), and my great-aunt and great-uncle who were in WWI (one a nurse and the other a pilot). One of these days...And of course, the pressure to keep to facts is intense.
Here are a few more points:
Though I don't memorize, when I've told the same story hundreds of times, it tends to come out almost the same every time.
One of the benefits of not memorizing is that I can personalize it to the audience or location. For example I mention the local co-op when I tell The ghost with the one black eye (a story I heard from my good friend Mike Rundle, who worked at said co-op for decades).
Maybe we could ask readers if they memorize, and if they do, what they prefer about that way.
Just mullling.Priscilla
Lois:
Some great history lurking in your past!
Talking about expanding the conversation, telling often on a story (as opposed to those factual tales) I find tends to simplification a la the great story synthesizer, Pleasant DeSpain.
As for personalizing (singing:) Aaaa-men, AMEN! AMEN. I dearly love it's freedom to match the audience and also incorporate things happening which would be a distraction if using memorization.
The audience response is worthwhile, giving another viewpoint. I confess it's no longer for me after finding the benefits of telling. To my mind it's a straitjacket or a support that can't be trusted.LoiS(melling the mulled thoughts & like mulled cider, I like it)
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So this is where we ask for reactions. Do you memorize? Why do you prefer memorization?
This blog offers some limited options to reply here. I also mention it each week on Facebook and will be posting about it on Storytell, the email list for storytellers.
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