Is it still worth learning poems by heart?
In this age of AI, instant answers and speed, I invite you to pause for a moment and ask yourselves whether it is still worthwhile – particularly for the younger generations – to learn poems by heart. I believe that such a practical question is, at the same time, a key one for those who shape education policy, teachers, families and young people – including those who are reading this piece right now. My answer is yes. Not out of nostalgia for a past characterised by rigour and discipline; nor merely as a means of cognitive and language development, or as a form of mnemonic training – as is already widely recognised.
But also for deeply contemporary reasons. At a time when any piece of information is available in a matter of seconds and artificial intelligence can retrieve data, texts and knowledge with a simple prompt, what is becoming rare is not access to information, but rather the ability to internalise it, attribute meaning to it and transform it into personal experience. Memorising a poem points precisely in this direction: not merely accumulating content, but inhabiting it. Not merely consuming words, but allowing oneself to be transformed by them. And it is precisely this process that makes poetry an extraordinary training ground for empathy – a skill that is becoming increasingly essential even in contemporary business life.
A poem, just like a play or a film, puts you in a position to listen to what the author is feeling and to understand what they are trying to convey. It takes you out of yourself to make room for the other person’s perspective – who is often the one right beside you. Think of Benigni when, in *The Tiger and the Snow*, he shares his feelings with us: “If she dies, as far as I’m concerned, this whole spectacle of the world turning – they can take it all down, carry it all away, tear everything down, roll up the whole sky and load it onto a lorry with a trailer. They can switch off this beautiful sunlight that I love so much, so very much. Do you know why I love it so much? Because I love her bathed in sunlight, so much. Take away this whole carpet, these columns, this building; the sand, the wind, the frogs, the ripe watermelons, the hail, 7 o’clock in the evening, May, June, July, the basil, the bees, the sea, the courgettes. The courgettes.” Learning pieces like these means lingering on that feeling, on that thought, just as we do on those seasons and those scents. It prevents us from brushing it aside with a quick ‘scroll’ and, almost as if by magic, leads us to connect with a deep part of ourselves, with our own experiences – emotional ones, above all.
Get primary school children to study Umberto Saba’s *Goal*. You will discover – and, above all, they will discover – the whole world of a game they love: the disappointment of a goalkeeper with his face to the ground after conceding a goal, as well as the joy of hugs after scoring one, including those from their own team’s goalkeeper, who often can’t physically give them a hug at that moment and simply does a somersault or blows kisses. Above all, they will understand that this experience is not just that of the poet’s observer, but is partly their own as well, just as it is that of so many other children who came before them and who, after every goal, found the strength to get back up off the ground and kick the ball back into midfield to try once more to turn the result around. By taking the time to learn it by heart, they will first and foremost discover that they are capable of doing so. In an age when attention is constantly fragmented and everything seems to have to be immediate, memorising a poem means experiencing the value of perseverance. It is a small personal achievement that nurtures confidence in one’s own abilities and builds the self-esteem needed at school, in sport, at work and, above all, in life.
Whether you’re a parent, an uncle or an aunt, a teacher, or simply care deeply about a child or teenager, learn a poem by heart and recite it to them – perhaps by the sea, as if you were Benigni, or on a playing field, as if you were Saba. They’ll listen to you more than they would to the many words you might want to say to them, and above all, you’ll spark their curiosity. You’ll activate synapses and processes that scientists have been studying for decades – and which you, in turn, can offer through such a simple act. In a world that ceaselessly urges us to consume words, learning a poem by heart means, instead, living them. And it is perhaps for this reason that, even in the age of AI, poems continue to have something deeply human to teach us.
