PARTY TRICK

If family and friends know you're a writer, chances are that at some point this holiday season someone is going to ask you to share some of your writing. This year, instead of pulling up that Word file or unfolding that tired piece of paper you keep in your wallet, really wow 'em by reciting something! My friend Suzanne who is a performance poet as well as a page-poet says the trick to memorizing your own work is to record yourself on tape or CD, then listen to it about a billion times, and voila! you've got a poem ever-ready in your brain. Why not give it a shot?