We only had to once per year, in grade school and Junior high. We got to choose the poem, but it had to be age appropriate. Then we had a poetry competition. My best friend has a nearly-photographic memory for that sort of stuff. She won just about ever year.

The one I remember her doing that was SO long, was called something like the ABCs of Being a Girl or something like that. I was just in awe of her for being able to memorize that.

I don't remember there being much poetry memorization required in school, but my parents considered it part of raising kids. Specific Bible verses weekly (I'm one that considers a good many of those poetry); and several poems each month. No such thing as age-related... other than that we could chose one alternately with a parental choice.

I'm sorry that I didn't continue the habit with DD; somehow memorizing poetry was mislaid in her youth.

I don't think that my sons ever had to remember poems. They graduated in 1980 and 1081. When I went to school that was a different story, it usually was one a week, most times over the weekend.

OMGosh. Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Hiawatha, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Raven. We certainly had our share of poems to remember and recite. I had to do them in French, as well.

I don't remember my children having to learn any of the classical poetry let alone be able to recite them from memory. I do believe rote learning is considered passe' and not contributing to creative thinking. Ditto multiplication tables. LOL.

I remember memorizing Lyonnaise: "When I set out for Lyonnaise, the rime was on the spray and starlight lit my lonliness when I set out for Lyonaisse." (loved the literation in this)

"Tiger tiger burning bright in the forest of the night.
What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?" (but symmetry didn't rhyme with eye, drove me nuts).

Shelly's sonnet Ozymandus. That was used to teach us the sonnet format lets see aa bb 15 lines, oh I cannot remember now. "In the desert stand two vast and trunkless legs of stone look on my work ye might and despair, I am Ozymandius, King of kings. Nothing besides remains." (we were told that the country became a desert becasue they over grazed with goats and over irrigated and killed the soil with salts).

We did not have to memorize anything long. Don't think my kids had to memorize anything and they graduated in the mid to late 2000's.

I had to memorize some Shakespearean excerpts for HS sophomore English (my mom was my teacher), and I had to memorize the Gettysburg address in another class, and in college I had to be able to write and recite the Sura al-Fateha in Arabic (it is very similar to The Lord's Prayer in content and meaning), and I had to be able to write and recite the first paragraph of Plato's Republic in Greek. I don't remember a lot of memorization for grade school or junior high. Except for prayers, of which there were many in my childhood.

I think I've told the story about my uncle in grade school. He was charged to learn and recite a nursery rhyme in the first grade. He was one of 11 kids and his older siblings offered to "help" him learn one. He went to school and recited what they'd taught:
"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells and one dam* weed."

Needless to say, a note went home on that one...

I was not introduced to poetry at all in my high school in Sweden. It was mostly math, science and language.

Worst poetry session was in high school when one of our nuns had us write poems in honor of JFK. One classmate's poem started out "Lee Harvey Oswald shot a bullet into the air it landed in John Kennedy's hair" Needless to say she served many days of detention.

I, too, don't remember my kids having to learn poems for school.

Bible verses were another story.
This is still continued with my grands.

My piano teacher required our recital pieces be played from memory...no sheet music allowed.
I still remember some of the pieces all these years later.

I remember the steps from my first dance recital. I can still do it, and it has been fifty five years. Relax, I have no intention of doing it in front of anyone, but sometimes when I am cleaning house, and all by myself, I do it. LOL. Also remember several Japanese Folk Dances we were taught in school ......uhm.........fifty three years ago.

Husky,am still laughing over that wonderful little poem. Sure summed up that day,didn't she?

Listen my children and you shall hear..blah blah blah...the WHOLE thing,and I still know it. By the shores of Gitchee Gummee..the WHOLE thing,and I still know it. The thing I had to learn and am so glad I did and say it to myself a lot is what is written on the Statue of Liberty..Give me your tired your poor. etc. It's so beautiful.

Suzy..I also remember my first dance recital..and last. Step shuffle step step. A yucky tap dance. We weren't allowed to dance on our toes until the 2nd year.