Do people memorize poems anymore?

April is National Poetry Month in the United States, and yesterday I recalled my high school freshman English class. Each of us had to memorize several poems. I remember what two of them were: “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley and “How Do I Love Thee?” by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Through the years, “Ozymandias” has not entered my thoughts at all, and I wouldn’t be able to recite one line from the poem if asked. But Browning’s poem has stuck with me, not in its entirety, but some of the lines cross my mind from time to time. I remember being moved by it as a budding teenager.

Both poems are in the public domain now, so I’ll paste them in below the image I just generated using NightCafe. The prompts I entered for the image were inspired by Browning’s poem:

How Do I Love Thee?
(Sonnet 43)
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806–1861

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1792–1822

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

I expect that today’s students are not asked to memorize poems from the nineteenth century. Perhaps, if they are asked to learn a poem or two, maybe they can pick their own. If I were to pick one from the twentieth century, I’d pick Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese,” which isn’t in the public domain, but you can find it on the internet. It’s hugely popular.

Have you memorized poems at any point in your life? If so, did you do it for your own pleasure, or was it a school assignment. And which ones did you memorize? Or do you memorize poems now? If so, which types of poems appeal to you? I hope you’ll let me know in comments.