At first I wasn't too sure about memorizing any one of Gertrude Stein's poems in Tender Buttons. I wasn't sure what my approach would be, so I decided whichever poem I pick, I would just recite it over and over again, until it became muscle memory for my mouth. I flipped through the book and pick two and asked my friend to pick a number, 1 or 2, and that's how I picked "A Little Called Pauline."
It was abut hard at first. The first few lines were haphazard; there was no obvious connection among the short sentences. As I kept going through the poem, memorizing little by little, I began to have the feeling that the poem is a snippet of a one sided conversation, or someone talking to him/herself. I thought maybe the object being addressed in the poem was a little girl or a little piece of ribbon that was affectionately given a name.
The first third of the poem had little connection to anything, but once I got to the part with "Gracious of gracious and a stamp a blue green white bow a blue green lean, lean on the top..." the nonsensical formation of the words sort of made sense. When I say makes sense, I mean the sound of the words made it feel like what was being said had significant meaning, but it didn't.
"...show white has lime in sight. Show a stitch of ten. Count, count so that thicker and thicker is leaning" had a rhythm to it that made it feel like it was a real sentence. Of course it was a bit of a tongue twister saying show white when I was tempted to say snow white.
By the end of memorizing the poem in its entirety and after many recitations to myself, the poem felt more organic. It didn't have to make logical sense. I imagined it like a conversation, so I spoke as if I was in a conversation and I guess that's where the poem came alive for me. It felt weird like it was just existing based on a mismatching of words and syntax. In the end, it was a rewarding experience I think and I have a better appreciation for Stein.
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