Thanks for posting the link, Jayne. Hearing that memorizing poems is good for you is a bit like hearing that sex has health benefits. Nice to know, but that's not the main reason for doing it.
Does anyone else think that one of Brandreth's interviewees is mistaken when she calls the meter of "Jack and Jill" trochaic? To my ear, that nursery rhyme is in the common meter that turns up so often in Emily Dickinson's work.
JACK / and JILL / went UP / the HILL
to FETCH / a PAIL / of WAT er
JACK / fell DOWN / and BROKE / his CROWN
and JILL / came TUM / bling AF ter
That reads to me as lines of iambic tetrameter (with headless initial iambs) alternating with lines of iambic trimeter (with hypermetrical unstressed syllables at the end).
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