Think of a poem: what poetry do you know by heart?

A Cambridge University survey, set to launch on National Poetry Day on 2 October, aims to find out what poetry is stored in our nations collective memory and why

What poem do you know by heart? Share a video of yourself reciting it

According to Molesworth, there is only one piece of peotry in the english language. Its Tennysons The Brook, and Geoffrey Willans schoolboy recites, delightfully: i come from haunts of coot and hern / i make a sudden sally / and-er-hem-er-hem-the fern / to bicker down a valley. Even advanced english masters set The Brook they sa it is quaint dated gejeune etc but really they are all in leag with parents who can all recite it. And do if given half a chance, Molesworth tells us.

I love the thought of scads of parents declaiming men may come and men may go, / But I go on for ever. Because, and Ive said it before, poetry by heart isnt something Im great at. Since I made that admission four years ago, Ive committed a few more to memory, starting small, with some William Carlos Williams, red wheelbarrows and plums, having a baby and drinking down Plaths Youre, trying to expand my Gerard Manley Hopkins repertoire beyond Spring and Fall. Small, horribly small, but definite, steps.