Howard Jacobson: Simon Armitage is wrong. Learning a poem by heart is a joy for life, not class warfare

The poetry we commit to memory when we are young stays with us as a solace and an inspiration – an emotional no less than an intellectual resource – long after we have forgotten the mere accidents of our lives. So there must be universal assent to Michael Gove's plans to reintroduce the learning of poetry into schools. Or so you'd think. But that's to reckon without the trahison des clercs. The clerc in this instance being the poet Simon Armitage.