It’s been said that no nation in the world loves a particular type of food more than the Koreans love kimchi. I can believe that.
For those of you who don’t know, kimchi is spicy, fermented cabbage. Koreans can’t get enough of it. They eat it all the time. When a Korean has to go abroad, his or her first thought is “Where am I going to get kimchi?”
Koreans love kimchi more than the Italians love pasta, more than the Spanish love paella, than the French love cheese, than the Germans love sausages, than the Japanese love sushi, than the Swedes love foul-smelling putrescent fish.
This sort of thing (who likes what the most) is impossible to gauge, of course, but it’s a frivolous exercise anyway, so there’s no harm in speculating.
What about poetry? Which country likes poetry the most? Hard to say. The Chinese and the Arabs would have to be somewhere at the top. (In Arab countries poetry competitions are really popular. I like that.)
Do the British love their poetry more than the Italians? I don’t know, it’s possible. On the radio here sometimes they have surveys of the nation’s favourite poem, and then they compile a chart. (They love charts.) I don’t remember anything like that back home.
Apparently, among highly-educated, literary-minded people, one is supposed to have a favourite Shakespeare sonnet. I don’t have one, of course, but I’m neither highly-educated nor literary-minded. In fact, I don’t really have many favourites. I honestly couldn’t tell you what my favourite book or movie are.
When asked about it, Christopher Hitchens said that his favourite Shakespeare sonnet was number 29. He then proceeded to recite it by heart. Hitchens’ ability to recall poetry from memory was legendary. A British publisher once said that he never met anyone who knew so many poems by heart as Hitchens did.
Many people think that memorising poetry is pointless, but I think it's kinda cool.
My uncle Paolo (my mum's brother) can recite long passages from the Inferno and the Orlando Furioso from memory. It's not something that he set out to do. He just read those works so many times, through the years, that certain passages are now etched in his brain. For some reason I really like that.
Is it just a pointless exercise? I mean, sure, if no one does it, the sun will still rise, plants will still grow, and animals will still mate.
But by committing poetry to memory you'll have something that can keep you company, anytime, anywhere. You're at the bus stop, waiting for the bus, it's chucking it down with rain, and you go in your head:
"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita..."
("Midway through the journey of our life...")
