Memorizing may help delay onset of dementia

Editor’s note: This is Jan Polek’s final column for the Families page. Look for her byline in the Your Voice section in the coming weeks.

Once in a while, you hear a story about a famous performer who has forgotten the words to the song she was lip-syncing. For those of us who grew up memorizing poetry in school, this is hard to comprehend.

I can still recite a few stanzas from Edgar Allen Poe’s “It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived, whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee …” But recitation and oration have largely been phased out of schools, and a forthcoming book by professor Catherine Robson of the University of California at Davis, “Heartbeats: Everyday Life and the Memorized Poem,” says this is the result of scientists not being able to prove that memorization helped the mind improve.

But contemporary scientists are now convinced that memorization can delay dementia, introducing the world of “neurobics,” a term coined by Duke University neurobiology professor Lawrence Katz.

Writing in the New York Times last fall, Jenny Lyn Bader cited research which indicates that reciting poetry in dactylic hexameter (the meter used in classical Greek and Roman poetry) can help synchronize heartbeats with breathing. Memory needs a workout as other muscles do.

This is good news for all of us English majors.

One of the reasons for the decline in memorization is that we lack time to reflect.

“The idea that we would devote a block of time to a single thing or a single poem or a single piece of data seems like a waste of time because you could be multitasking” says Joan Gussow, professor at Columbia Teachers College.

Perhaps the last “memorizers” for us to admire are stage actors. Local actors such as Maria Caprille, husband Tony, Kathy Doyle-Lipe, Patrick Treadway, Maynard Villers, and countless others continue to dazzle us with their ability to memorize and invest meaning into the written word.

The playwright A.R. Gurney says that “theater not only dignifies the idea of memory, but is an art form that calls on the cultural memory.”

A performance worth attending

The invitation read “Charlotte Isabella Critchlow would be greatly honored with your presence at her First Piano Recital.” Happily I attended and was treated to performances by eight little girls and one boy, ages 6 to 16, under the caring and professional instruction of Margee Webster.

I have never heard a more stirring rendition of “Hot Cross Buns.”

Not too late for Christmas

My favorite gift this season is the publication of a new book by local author, Judy Laddon, based on the life of Spokane icon Sally Pierone. Called “Sally: The Older Woman’s Guide to Self-Improvement,” it is the story of Sally, who is “living proof that it’s never too late to start again. She failed Romance 101. She flunked sex. She barely passed motherhood.”

An added bonus to Laddon’s skillful writing are the illustrations by Pierone herself.

This is a perfect gift for the wise women in your life (or to keep for yourself when you need inspiration). For more information go to www.sallythebook.com or phone (800) 247-6553.

A final poetic thought

One of the poems I memorized years ago was “Jenny Kissed Me” by the English poet Leigh Hunt. Fortunately, it was also one of my husband’s favorite poems so it was an easy decision.

To our daughter Jenny:

Jenny Kissed Me

Jenny kissed me when we met,

Jumping from the chair she sat in,

Time, you thief! Who love to get

Sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I’m weary, say I’m sad;

Say that health and wealth have missed me,

Say I’m growing old, but add –

Jenny kissed me!