Following from Amy’s comment on yesterday’s post, I came across a YouTube vid that I just have to share. It’s a three year old boy called Samuel Chelpka, who has memorised Billy Collins’s poem “Litany”:
Gorgeous, isn’t it? And what great parents, to have taught their child to love poetry this young. If you’re wondering what Billy Collins thought about it, this article covers their meeting a year later.
And if you want to see and hear the man himself, try:
Time for a poll.
Which version do you like better?
I don’t think the Billy Collins version needed the long introduction – he really takes his time explaining things that we could have figured out for ourselves.
Other than that, I enjoyed both.
I just loved the way Samuel managed to get exactly the right tone to “There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.”
Deary deary me. He’s learning it very young.