But what about when you need to use a poem, a quote, or some specific verbiage that you want to keep intact? Memorization seems to be the only way to go. One can use mnemonics for some pieces, but if a long section of verse needs to be memorized, how does one go about it?

In one of the recent "list serves" on the internet, storyteller, colleague and friend Megan Hicks offers some great advice:

I'm finding that if I want to memorize a narrative -- prose or verse -- the memorization work goes much MUCH more quickly if I learn it back to front. Literally, the last word first, the last line first, the last verse. And when I'm learning the bones of a story, so I don't forget any crucial plot points during the first tellings while it's still kind of "medium rare," I go backward from the denouement to "once upon a time," plotting it out on a timeline. 

Most of us start at the beginning, and go back to the beginning over and over again. Since we repeat the beginning, what we remember most is the beginning, and that often makes it difficult to recall the middle or end sections of a poem, or even the story itself. This "back-chaining" or "backward build up" is a method that has also been used very successfully in learning languages. Try it out on a short poem or quote and see what happens.