Poetry Out Loud: My Poem

The poem I chose to read for the Poetry Out Loud recitation in class is Let it be Forgotten by Sara Teasdale. I think the meaning of this poem is that some things should be forgotten, no matter how beautiful they are, because they will only make you and others sad when they are gone. My reasoning for thinking this is that the things the poet mentions are all really pretty, like a flower or a fire that "once as singing gold." I'm not sure how accurate this is, though, because the poem is so short that its meaning is hard to judge with what I'm given. The poem isn't really very relevant to my life because there haven't been any particularly amazing things that needed to be forgotten, or that should have because they made me sad when they were gone. The closest thing I can think of is something that applies to most everyone, which is your childhood. When you're a child you can have huge amounts of fun doing even the simplest things, and there is usually nothing you need to worry about. But once you get older you tend to forget your childhood. This might be for the best, because if you remembered it better then you might miss it even more and become sad. There may be other, less significant ways in which this poem relates to my life but I can't think of any.

I'm not exactly sure how I'll convey the theme of the poem through my reading. If I read it in a hushed voice, it will make it seem more mysterious or secret, which kind of makes sense because of the verse "if anyone asks say it was forgotten." This verse makes me think that Sara Teasdale is talking about some sort of secret, and if I read the poem in a hushed voice it would make those listening feel that way as well. However, I think it would sound kind of awkward and it might be hard to hear, so I'm not sure if this is the best option. Besides this, I'm not sure what else I could do with my voice to help the poem have more meaning when read. I also don't know what I ought to do with my face and gestures. With my face I suppose it would be best to appear very interested, like I'm telling or being told something secret. I don't really know what gestures would fit with this poem. I feel like anything too exaggerated goes against the hushed nature of the poem, but I really don't know what else I could do. I guess one possibility would be to think of some sort of subtle hand movement that signifies something "being forgotten," and that I could use at every use of the word forgotten. This seems like it could get a little corny and repetitive though, and I also can't think exactly what I should do. Still, I feel I ought to think of something because a short poem like this would be very boring and pointless if read in a monotone voice with no movement.