Poem Memorization-- Belles

I signed up to recite a poem from Michael McClure's Ghost Tantras, before even having read one, simply because McClure's work was next to be read for class, and I thought it would be easiest to memorize a poem from a work that I was already reading at the time.  I had peeked inside of the book upon renting it from the bookstore, but had no real idea of the work's content or its context when deciding whose poem I would memorize.  When we began to read McClure's poetry in class, I was attracted to Tantra #49, as I realized that it held a certain significance.
After a rude awakening when I found myself in class on Tuesday unprepared for my poem recitation, I set out to redeem myself from my embarrassment. I began reading, reading, and re-reading the 49th tantra to pound it into my head.  As I read the poem and set out to memorize each line, I remembered that Michael mentioned a video of McClure in class.  A quick youtube search turned up several archived videos with the poet, and I began watching.  As I watched these interviews, I began to understand the character of the artist who created the poem I sought to learn.  McClure's incredibly strange and unique demeanor was no surprise to see, especially after studying the tantras in his book.  I listened to McClure describe his experience with hallucinogenic drugs, music of the 60's and his writing process.  In each video McClure displayed an airy, almost semi-present quality, often finishing cohesive sentences with strands of nonsense words and phrases.  In one video in particular, McClure is seen reading the 49th tantra to several lions in a zoo.  As the beasts roar, the poet recites his work calmly and with a certain serenity at first.  His pronunciation of "drooor" is nearly sung, and the ends of his sentences often end in little more than a whisper.  When he arrives at the second half of the poem, however, he begins to roar with a newfound vigor and volume.  The roars of lions are coupled with the Graahhhrrrs of the poet, and each seem to encourage or at least excite one another.  It is this rendition of the 49th poem that I studied, to do my best at emulating the energy and character of McClure's reading of his own work.
I found the english poetry quite pleasant to memorize, and in fact, began to draw new meanings from the work as I read it again and again.  What once seemed to me like an unintelligible strand of words and phrases actually began to hold meaning and significance.  The self-assuring and almost encouraging tone of the poem began to ring in my ears, and I understood it to mean much more than I originally thought. The challenging bit of the poem was, for me, the second half.  To recite this poem like McClure did in his reading to lions, I needed to memorize each individual Graahhrr sound in its uniqueness-- all 40 of them.  Slowly but surely, I developed a code, and assigned each beast sound a number, by which I memorized the list.  In doing this, I felt a certain victory, by --if only partially--creating some sense of order and organization where there otherwise appeared to be none.  All in all, I found the experience extremely entertaining, and hope to remember the Grahhrs that I memorized for a long time.