the importance of memorizing a poem

I recently met the poet Taylor Mali (www.taylormali.com) when we were both assigned to the same collaborative group of professionals exploring possible solutions to helping teachers access resources for teaching Common Core Standards. There were several times during the process when Mr. Mali would concisely say what the group was thinking or ask a question that everyone wanted to ask, but didn't. When I mentioned this to him at the end of the session and commented how useful it was, he responded that he was simply being a poet - that the function of a poet was to put into words what people wanted to say, but were unable to.

Taylor Mali's most well-known poem is his response to a lawyer's comment that those who can't, teach. In this poem he gave millions of teachers the words to explain why they became teachers, despite the inherent difficulties. I think it's really important to remember the importance of poems. We've kind of moved away from memorizing and reciting poems to each other, but I think I might be ready to try that again.