You remember how, at presidential press conferences, Helen Thomas used to ask a question and then say, “And I’d like to follow up”? I have followed up. A week ago, I published a column called “Poems by Heart.” Today, my column is headed “Poems by Heart, Cont.” I have surveyed some writer friends and colleagues: Are there poems you have memorized? Would like to memorize? Would recommend that the rest of us memorize?

Let’s have a sampling of reader mail. A reader writes,

Hello, Jay,
. . . Memorizing poems is a fantastic endeavour — it enhances one’s love of language; increases one’s vocabulary; lets one see how words have been used over hundreds of years; makes one more aware of the underlying rhythm of our lovely English language; is a great exercise that keeps the brain active and healthy; and there are numerous other benefits. But the memorization of poems is a joy unto itself.
I remember in my very early childhood education in Trinidad, we had to memorize nursery rhymes. Is that still done these days? Can’t say.
The late poet Derek Walcott, under whom I studied at Boston University back in the mid-2000s, once said that after society and everything collapses, no one will remember a whole novel or movie, but one will be able to recall a poem. Very true!
Sometimes I’m disciplined with memorizing poems, while at other times I’m not. Some of my favourite ones are “In Memoriam (Easter, 1915),” by Edward Thomas, “Forest of Europe,” by Derek Walcott, Sonnet 73 (Shakespeare), “Ozymandias” (Shelley), and “In Memory of Sigmund Freud,” by W. H. Auden (which just might be the most perfect poem, if there is one, because not one word is wasted or incorrectly used).
There are so many others . . .

Another reader writes,

I loved your column and it validated a little of the nerdiness my wife has always associated with my fondness for memorized poetry. No freshman at Jesuit High School, Portland, Ore., ’78, escaped Fr. Ed McTighe’s freshman English class without first reciting all 18 stanzas of Poe’s “The Raven.” It was brutal to learn but fun. The freshman halls were filled with random bleats of “Quoth the Raven ‘Nevermore.’”
Poetry memorization was Fr. Ed’s thing. He knew it developed the brain in various ways, made for useful learning, and added a prop to the “well rounded” young man.
“The Highwayman” (Noyes) was of great length and also on our “must learn” list. Similarly, “The Eagle” (Tennyson), a mere six lines, was one of Fr. Ed’s favorites — a great one he selected simply for the alliteration of the first line.
I can still do about 80 percent of “The Raven” and have relearned it over my 50 years post–high school. I love it. I immediately thought of Fr. Ed when I saw your column this morning. May he rest in peace. Thank you for making my day.

Another reader:

I grew up in a home where memorization was encouraged. My mom had a number of poems committed to memory and encouraged me to do the same. As a Hoosier, she read to me and recited James Whitcomb Riley’s poems, and I have snippets of those committed to memory. For a high-school assignment, I chose to memorize and recite Constance Fenimore Woolson’s “Kentucky Belle” — not sure why I chose that one, other than it was in a book of poetry that my mom had read to me growing up (and her dad had read to her — she passed it down). I still know parts of it.

Marvelous. (Woolson was a grand-niece of James Fenimore Cooper.)

Another reader:

May I add Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”? When I decided to take early retirement from my public-school teaching position and go to Germany to teach at a school for missionary children, I read this poem to my vice principal as part of my explanation for retiring early. I have not regretted going to Germany and teaching for three years at the Black Forest Academy, where I met some amazing students and adults.
Frost’s poem is worthy of memorizing.

Maybe one more:

. . . It’s been a long time since I memorized a poem — elementary school? . . .
Now that I think about it, I memorized “The Road Not Taken” in college for a communications course (when I was in hopes of becoming a ballet dancer). And years later, I arranged a dramatic reading for a fundraiser — a reading of Eliot’s “Choruses from ‘The Rock.’”
But the poem that has stayed with me? “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” It seems a perfect poem to me — everything a poem should be.
I do love Frost.
Thanks for the brief reverie.

And thanks, as always, to all readers and correspondents.