Reciting a Poem

 

How to Recite a Poem Like an Expert

If you would like to recite a poem for an audience – whether you are reciting a poem that you wrote yourself, or a poem by someone else – there are many different ways to go about it. Here are some of the things that will help you learn to recite poetry like an expert.

Choose a Poem that “Speaks to You”

When choosing a poem to recite, be sure to pick a poem that you really like. The more you like the poem, the more fun you will have learning and reciting it. Whether it’s a funny poem, a serious poem, a sad poem, a sports poem, a spooky poem, a jump-rope rhyme, or even a love poem, if it’s a poem that “speaks to you” – a poem that makes you feel something – you are going to enjoy sharing it with your audience.

It’s Okay to YELL!

There are lots of “right ways” to recite a poem, but in my opinion there is only one “wrong way.” The wrong way to recite a poem is to use your normal, everyday, “inside voice.” When you use your “inside voice,” you only speak loud enough for those closest to you to hear what you are saying. When you recite a poem, you need to speak loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you.

Of course, if you really want to mess it up, you can also hold the poem in front of your face so no one can see your lips moving, making it that much harder for people to hear you. Oh, and look down at your shoes. When you speak, your voice travels in whatever direction you are facing. If you are looking at your shoes, your shoes can hear you really well, but other people might not.

So the first and most important thing to know when you want to recite a poem is that you really need to face your audience and use your “outside voice,” even if you are inside. In other words, it’s okay to YELL when reciting a poem. If anyone ever asks you why you were yelling when you recited a poem, please tell them Kenn Nesbitt said it was okay.

How to memorize a poem:

1. Get a printed copy of the poem.
2. Look at the poem and read it out loud.
3. Turn it over so you can’t see it.
4. Recite as much of it as you can remember, from the beginning.
5. Repeat steps 2 through 5 until you can recite the entire poem from memory.