Any selection of poems to memorise should feature this classic example of nonsense verse. The full poem first appeared in Carroll’s 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass, his superb follow-up book to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and as well as giving us several new words now in common use (see the link above to discover more, and to read the full poem), it is also a glorious short narrative poem about a hero slaying a monster. What’s not to like? Those with warm memories are often ardent, lifelong advocates of learning a poem by heart, but their experience can be so embedded in particular relationships and contexts that it can be harder to tease out a more generalisable set of ideas about the value to children’s learning. What exactly are the benefits to children of learning a poem by heart? In ten years of running Poetry By Heart we’ve listened avidly to the stories and testament of many thousands of teachers, librarians and pupils who have taken part, in every school type and every corner of the country. Here are nine things we’ve learned. Achievement This heart-breaking piece is about how a lady breaks up with the speaker. Their relationship has ended abruptly or quite humorously. In this poem, Bukowski describes how the lady toys with his heart. One day, she suddenly comes by and ends everything for a silly reason: A Process in the Weather of the Heart’is a free-verse poem by Dylan Thomas. This poem taps on the theme of death. The dry and arid imagery of this piece makes a reader think of oblivion. After reading the text, it becomes clear that Thomas wrote this poem with a heavy heart, maybe lamenting his loved one’s death. In general, it is a topical poem about death that delves into the juncture when the heart gives up. Let’s have a look at the last few lines from the text: In Poetry By Heart children choosing to learn a poem with others usually think they’re taking the easier option. In fact, speaking a poem with others demands cooperation, trust and coordination – and to do it well involves breathing together, being in the moment together and becoming part of something beyond yourself. Understanding

The grand final of the competion, which is now in its fourth year, will be held in March 2016 for students in secondary schools and colleges. The competition opens on National Poetry Day, the first Thursday of October, and the closing date for competition entries is the end of March. Finalists are announced mid May with the grand finale taking place at the end of June. Poetry By Heart, the national poetry speaking competition for students in England, recently announced the line up for the Grand Finale of the competition. Now in its tenth year, this was the biggest competition yet, with over 2,000 entries and more than 37,000 young people taking part in schools across England. A national poetry recital competition has launched a set of interactive resources for primary school children and their teachers. Like Housman, then, Frost favoured traditional verse forms but also a plain-spoken yet lyrical style. And although many people know the words in the final stanza of this poem, a good many people misinterpret them – and how well does anyone know the rest of ‘The Road Not Taken’? Why not commit this classic poem about opting for the road ‘less travelled’ to memory…Between 2013 and 2016 Poetry By Heart was the principal educational initiative of The Poetry Archive, developed with The Full English and supported by the Department for Education. It was co-founded by Andrew Motion (Co- Director of The Poetry Archive) and Dr Julie Blake (Co-Director of The Full English and Education Director of The Poetry Archive) in February 2012. Since 2016 Poetry by Heart has been directed by The Full English. Adults are regularly surprised by the facility children seem to have for learning by heart, with varied reasons proposed such as less fear, the pliability of young brains, and more time to devote to it. There’s a general consensus that once you’ve learned one thing it’s easier to learn more things, a poem being a very good place to begin. Oracy Pupils who succeed in learning and performing a poem by heart, however short, feel an incredible sense of achievement. We think it’s to do with a tangible sense of mastery: the child either gets to the end of their poem or they don’t, and they can measure for themselves how well they’ve done it. This can be especially powerful for children with Special Educational Needs, low literacy levels and those who otherwise struggle to access the curriculum. Enjoyment The Poetry By Heart resource for primary school children is designed to help pupils and teachers find poems they love, and enjoy them together through reading aloud and learning them by heart. It encourages playful discovery and serious fun.” Here are the poems selected: Love and the Gentle Heart’is a sonnet with an irregular rhyme scheme. This poem reveals the nature of love and heart. In the first two quatrains of this piece, Dante describes how love and heart are the same at the same time two distinct things. Whereas the concluding section talks about how virtue wins a woman’s heart and her love. Let’s have a look at the last few lines from Dante’s sonnet.

Memorably recited in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral – the success of which led to a whole new generation discovering Auden’s poetry – this elegy actually started life as a parody of public obituaries, although its sentiment can be taken as sincere as well, which shows Auden’s genius. The four quatrains of this poem make it the ideal length to commit to memory.This poem, which sees Housman’s ‘Shropshire Lad’ observing the cherry blossom on the trees and reflecting, as a young lad of twenty, that he has only fifty years left of his biblical three-score and ten, is a case in point: In the poem ‘The Hope of My Heart,’John McCrae describes the love that exists beyond the grave and a speaker’s worry for his little, fair maiden. The speaker describes how he was forced to leave her loved one behind. He cared for her deeply. When he is absent, he thinks she is unsafe in this world. Hence, he prays to God to protect her. He has to make sure when she dies comes to heaven. The poet’s love for the maiden is best expressed in these lines: Poetry is often taught through the rather mystifying lens of Latinate terminology. Fun for some but many children need more experience of poems to make sense of it. Learning a poem by heart seems to develop that experience in an accessible and embodied way through children feeling rhythm on their pulses, noticing how rhymes knit a pattern and hearing the music of sequences of words. Co-founder and director Julie Blakeof Poetry By Heart explains just why learning a poem by heart is so beneficial for children. Housman (1859-1936) may not have revolutionised poetry in the way that some of the other names on this list did, but of all the poets included here, he is perhaps the one whose work most easily lends itself to being learned by heart. His fondness for regular rhyme schemes and verse forms, his plain and direct use of language, and his ability to articulate deeply felt sentiments in affecting and moving verse, all make Housman a join to learn, and carry around, ‘by heart’.