Every family has a "make
the kid perform" tradition. Ours came out at Thanksgiving, but honestly,
it belongs on a summer porch just as much — somewhere between the lightning
bugs and the second helping of watermelon. So pour something cold, prop your
feet up, and let me tell you about the year my five-year-old sister brought down
the house with the poem, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost.
The Setup
My parents’ Colonial-style
table had every leaf in it, stretched out to fit several generations of
relatives who'd all shown up hungry. The grown-ups were doing what grown-ups do when seated at a groaning table — passing things back and forth and talking so much they barely had time to chew. My sister
Jill, meanwhile, had a far better use for her time: ducking under the table
every three minutes to check in with the dog.
I just watched, the way would-be writers always do —
cataloging gravy smells, escaped peas, the rhythm of dishes passed hand to
hand like a game of musical chairs where nobody could quite tell when it would stop. Eventually, though, it did stop. The relatives signaled to one another by touching their stomachs and sighing that no one could possibly manage to lift the serving spoon out of one more
tureen.
And that's when Dad made his
move.
The Main Event
“Jill, come here,” he said.
“Listen to this, everyone.”
“I don't remember it,” came a
small voice from under the table.
“Yes, yes, you do. You recited
it this morning. Listen, everybody.”
Jill crawled out — yellow hair like
the frayed end of a broom, leggings and a green velvet dress dusted with carpet fuzz from an
earlier dog-wrestling session — and took her place beside Dad's chair. She'd
performed tricks before: standing on tiptoe, fetching the cocktail nuts. This
was different. This was a poem.
“Whose woods these are I
think I know…”
My mother's face did a whole silent monologue--I guessed she was wondering if she should start the coffee or wait. Jill worked her way through the verses, hitting the line she'd mashed into a single word because that was the only way she'd found to survive the meter — “Hewillnotseemestandinghere” — and finally landing the bit about the horse giving his harness bells a shake. (The horse was her favorite animal, right behind dogs and baby raccoons.)
"And miles to go before I sleep."
Applause. Delight. Universal
agreement that Jill was, in fact, adorable. It had begun to snow outside. Mom got up to start the
coffee, and life resumed.
My Turn (Considerably Less Adorable)
I recall the time my turn came to
memorize a poem for school — I was nine. It was the weekend and I'd procrastinated about choosing a poem from the school library. I discovered exactly
zero poetry lying around my house. I called my friend Prissy, who'd found the perfect option: a bouncy little number called The Gingham Dog and the
Calico Cat. It rhymed, and I nearly memorized it by the time she'd read it to me on the phone call, for all
the good that did me, since it was taken.
So I knocked on my teenage
sister Joan's door. She sat cross-legged on the floor. Her hair was in curlers. She stared into a
full-length mirror. Her nose was Scotch-taped upward to test out a new
profile.
“Poetry?” Joan pointed me
toward a shelf of Contact-paper-covered books without looking up. She decorated everything in those days. Today she's writing a book. Some things change.
I found a poetry textbook.
There was Ogden Nash, but his poems were too short to count. There was The
Highwayman, sexy, hypnotic, and dangerous with its barely contained “riding, riding, riding” refrain about Bess the landlord's daughter. I loved it, and was a little embarrassed at the thought of letting people see my excitement. I chose a safe, patriotic poem about an American icon, Barbara Frietchie,
instead.
It was, as was its author's name, forgettable. I never volunteered to recite it at home. I can't remember a single line of it today. That's my regret. Some choices you make for the wrong reasons follow you for decades. That choice became an inkblot moment in my lifelong battle: to stand out or to not stand out.
Some Things Never Change
This tradition really holds up. While digging around online, I
found the notice for 2026's annual poetry-reciting contest at a school in India. The lines on the flier could
have been written in any decade in the past two hundred years:
The poem should be 10–12 lines, and not from the course
book. Actions, clarity of voice, correct pronunciation, and use of props will
be encouraged. Topics: Nature, Courage, Seasons, Friendship.
What agony I'd have endured if I'd felt obligated to compete for extra points with
props. For my poem, the American flag would have sufficed. I'd have died of embarrassment waving one around in front of my class while trying to focus on the words I'd half-heartedly memorized.
Your Turn
So — did anyone ever make you
recite something? Did you have a Frost, a Frietchie, a Gingham Dog moment? Was
it nerve-wracking? Or were you the one standing on the sidelines watching a
sibling steal the spotlight (and, if you're anything like our dog, jealously hoping
someone would drop something)?
Tell me about it. Bonus points if props were involved.
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