By Robert Oliphant

The United States seems to be reuniting around its traditional intellectual center. The National Anthem Project's call for memorizing all four verses of the Star Spangled Banner was quickly followed by a call for memorizing from the Poetry Out Loud National Recitation Contest. And millions of us have seen, via the Ellen De Generes show, both a 3-year-old belting out the fifty states and a 5-year-old reciting the 43 presidents. More facts, fewer opinions, and no child left uninformed or untested - who can argue against an agenda like this?

Traditionally, poetry has played a key role in the acquisition of factual knowledge. Most of us still remember "I before E except after C" and "Thirty days hath September." And many parent still bring their poetic skills into family use when it comes to helping small children remember their phone number and street address.

As our factual knowledge movement accelerates - "core knowledge" to E.D. Hirsch, Jr. and others - we can expect both poets and non-poets to take on challenges like composing a learning-friendly poem for helping students to memorize, say, chemical valences or grammatical terms or even the times tables.

The multiplication challenge . . . .Learning the times tables from one to twelve is certainly a substantial challenge. As far as spoken recitation goes, the tables comprise 144 five-word sentences with the structure "a times b is c." Back in Colonial days a four-stress poetic setting would follow each of these sentences with an appropriate rhyming line e.g., " Níne times níne is éighty-óne / Wé should éach rise wíth the sún " and " Níne times tén is nínetÿ / Yóu shall táste my fíne téa " (stressed syllables are identified with accent marks).

Unfortunately, this traditional setting adds another 144 sentences to our memory target, along with producing a time-consuming memorization challenge of 288 sentences of at least five words each. At a customary speaking rate of 100 words a minute these 1,440 words will require almost fifteen minutes to recite. This, incidentally, is substantially less than the five minutes that Poetry Out Loud gives its contestants to work with.

In the interest of effective learning, then, our aspiring poets have good reason to take stock of what they have to work with poetically and factually.

The four-stress line as a tool . . . . Poetically, our four-stress line should be perceived for what it is: a marvelously flexible instrument that can have as few as six syllables ( yóu shall táste my fíne téa ) and as many as nine, as in " Lísten , my chíldren , and yóu shall héar ," or even eleven, as in "O sáy ,can you sée by the dáwn's early líght ." One, two, three, four; left, right; left, right; this systolic-diastolic beat is as familiar to us as life itself and probably as old as our species itself as it chanted and marched its way out of Africa toward northern and eastern points unknown.

In addition our four-stress line invites arrangement into four-line stanzas that can be retained in the mind's eye, not just the mind's ear. And those single stanzas invite combination into two-stanza poems like Emily Dickinson's "I never saw a moor," or four stanza poems "Concord Hymn" and "Stopping by Woods," and even eight-stanza poems like Lewis Carroll's "Father William."

Foot-tapping rhythmic lines and visually comprehensible larger units - these are far more important than precise rhyming to the poetry of factual learning.

They are also far more important than overly ambitious goals. Practically considered, our goal of times table mastery certainly permits us to eliminate the easier elements (one through four) in favor of an eight-element target, 5 through 12. And it also permits us to reduce the number of words in our table-sentences, so that "five times five is twenty-five" becomes a two-beat sentence, " fíve fives: twénty -five, or with caps, "FIVE fives: TWENty -five.

Four-beat lines and four-line stanzas . . . . Our two-beat sentences can productively be accompanied by plain language statements that provide both content continuity and a rhyming framework . Here, by way of illustration is the first 4-line stanza from Appendix One .

Fíve fives: twénty -five. Bróther rúns .

Fíve sixes : thírty . Lóts of fún .

Fíve sevens : thírty -five. Síster síngs ,

Fíve eights : fórty . Lóvely thíngs .

***

As will be apparent in Appendix One , this kind of versification approach requires only 91 words to cover our Five and Six times tables in four stanzas. With only 16 stanzas required for the full 5-12 sequence, we have produced a target version that is both practical (just a little longer than the 4-verse Star Spangled Banner) and testable, as indicated by the sample questions in Appendix Two .

TO CONCLUDE . . . . How far can we go with versification efforts like these? - Poetry with a Pedagogical Face, we might call it. By way of an experiment, Appendix Three presents a work up of Times Tables Twenty-Two down to Thirteen. As matters stand, I myself am still pretty slow in pulling it up to a break-neck speed recitation level.

But the "Brother runs" part has a narrative logic that sticks in the mind: an 8-line nuclear family followed by an 8-line extended family, we might say. And the arithmetic part has plenty of recognizable patterns that can be reconstructed. Best of all, there's a strong tradition that justifies this kind of personal-best effort for older Americans, not just those in classrooms.

Rebecca West, for instance, used to work arithmetic problems in her declining years, just as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. read Plato in Greek and Edna St. Vincent Millay "spent the whole summer learning Wordsworth's Prelude," according to a letter written to Edmund Wilson.

Even Florence Nightingale, according to the Cecil Woodham Smith biography, was in her eighties helping one of her friends with his translation of Plato, namely, the redoubtable Benjamin Jowett , of whom it was written, "Í, good sír , am Bénjamin Jówett / and Í am the Máster óf this Cóllege ./ If there's ánything wórth knowing, by Gód , I knów it,/ and if Í don't knów it, it ísn't Knówledge ."

Even more to the personal-best mental effort point: It's rapidly becoming clear that even our 60-year-old Baby Boomers, are starting to worry about precocious senile dementia and how to combat it with something better than just playing bridge or working crossword puzzles. In our present climate, then, it's quite likely that the poetics of factual learning and retention may soon be getting plenty of attention from intellectually narcissistic grownups, not just educational reformers and concerned parents.

Appendix One. . . . " A Wonderful Times Tables Time" . . . . Multiplication Tables Five Through Twelve in Versified Form . . . . Note. . . . These verses use a variable-syllabic four-beat line like Paul Revere's Ride. This means that the total number of syllables can range from seven to as many as fourteen. Usually a stressed syllable is identified by an accent mark over its first vowel letter; but for stronger emphasis we here capitalize all the letters in such syllables

The 16-line companion lyric links up with two tables (e.g., 5 and 6). For effective learning, the stressed syllables of number-words should be emphasized very strongly at the beginning of the memorizing process, especially in multi-syllabic lines, e.g. , SIX twelves . SEV- enty two, UNCle JOGS. . . . Since each succeeding table uses the same lyric and the same stressed-syllable rhythmic pattern, only Tables Five and Six appear in this Appendix.

***

Intro) WELcome , young FRIENDS , to RHYthm and RHYME,

And WE'LL have a WONderful TIMES tables TIME.

5) FIVE fives: TWENty -five. BROther RUNSs .

FIVE sixes: THIRty . LOTS of FUN.

FIVE sevens: THIRty -five. SISter SINGS,

FIVE eights: FORty . LOVEly THINGS.

5) FIVE nines: FORty -five. FAther CHUCKles ,

FIVE tens: FIFty . CRACKS his KNUCKles .

FIVE elevens: FIFty -five. MOther SKIPS,

FIVE twelves : SIXty . SAILS on SHIPS.

6) SIX fives: SIXty . UNCle JOGS,

SIX sixes: THIRty -six. CHOPS up LOGS.

SIX sevens: FORty -two. AUNTie KNITS,

SIX eights: FORty -eight. GIVES us GIFTS.

6) SIX nines: FIFty -four. GRANpa DOZes ,

SIX tens: SIXty . TENDS his ROSES.

SIX elevens: SIXty -six. GRANma COOKS,

SIX twelves : SEVenty -two. READS good BOOKS.

[Note: Tables 7 & 8, 9 & 10, and 11 & 12 follow the same pattern, matching up with the same 16-line lyric.]

***

Appendix Two . . . . Illustrative Multiple-Choice Test for the Times Tables Presented in Appendix One. . . . Please identify the FIRST VOWEL LETTER of the word syllable that immediately PRECEDES the following word clue (it may be a phrase, or include an additional word before the blank). In making your identification you have four choices: (a) A; (b) E; (c) I; (d) O, U, Y, or "none."

***

Q1) ______ RUNS . . . . Q2) ______ SINGS. . . . Q3______ fives : TWENty -five. . . . Q4 ______ nines: FORty -five. . . . Q5 ____ _ KNITS . . . . Q6 ______ FIFty -four. . . . his ROSES. . . . Q7 _____ SIXty six . . . . Q8_____ _ COOKS . . . . Q9 ______ SEVenty -two. . . . Q10 _____ BOOKS.

***

[Answers: Q1-d (o-brother). . . . Q2-c ( i -sister). . . . Q3-c ( i -five). . . . Q4-c ( i -five). . . . Q5-a (a-auntie). . . . Q6-c ( i -six). . . . Q7-b (e-elevens). . . . Q8- a ( a- granma ). . . . Q9-b (e- twelves ). . . . Q10-d (o-good).

***

Appendix Three . . . . " An Upscale Times Tables Time" . . . . Multiplication Tables Twenty-Two down to Thirteen in Versified Form. . . . Note. These tables use the same 16-lines lyric as do tables five through twelve. Only the first two (22 and 21) are presented here. For economy, the three-digit answers are spelled out numerically, e.g., "one one oh" for "one hundred and ten." These numerically higher tables take more pronunciation time; so it's helpful to preserve the four-beat rhythm by slowing down the lyric element, as in " TWENty -two fives: ONE one oh. BRO . . . . ther . . . . RUNS."

***

22) TWENty -two fives: ONE one oh. BROther RUNSs .

TWENty -two sixes: ONE three two. LOTS of FUN.

TWENty -two sevens: ONE five four. SISter SINGS,

TWENty -two eights: ONE seven six. LOVEly THINGS.

22) TWENty -two nines: ONE nine eight. FAther CHUCKles ,

TWENty -two tens: TWO two oh. CRACKS his KNUCKles .

TWENty -two elevens: TWO four two .. MOther SKIPS,

TWENty -two twelves : TWO eight four. SAILS on SHIPS.

21) TWENty -one fives: ONE oh five. UNCle JOGS,

TWENty -one sixes: ONE two six. CHOPS up LOGS.

TWENty -one sevens: ONE four seven. AUNTie KNITS,

TWENty -one eights: ONE six eight. GIVES us GIFTS.

21) TWENty -one nines: ONE eight nine. GRANpa DOZes ,

TWENty -one tens: TWO one oh. TENDS his ROSES.

TWENty -one elevens: TWO three one. GRANma COOKS.

TWENty -one twelves : TWO six two. READS good BOOKS.

[Note: Carrying on the reverse sequence, tables 20 & 19, 18 & 17, 16 & 15, and 14 & 13 follow the same pattern.]