A brisk little essay by Jim Holt in the New York TImes tells of the ease with which verse can be burned into one’s cortex: [T]he key to memorizing a poem painlessly is to do it incrementally, in tiny ...

“Breathe in gently and deeply through your nose. Exhale slowly and fully through your mouth. Clear your mind and allow your breath to find its natural rhythm.” That’s the instruction for most ...

What do you remember? Which words float to the front of your mind in moments of stillness? Consider the following lines, the beginning of “Ode to Buttoning and Unbuttoning My Shirt,” a poem by Ross ...

One tribute to the late John Lewis began by noting his love of W. E. Henley’s “Invictus”; it seems to have been Nelson Mandela’s favorite too, as affirmed in Morgan Freeman’s reading of the poem.