Poetry helps in so many ways. Even nursery rhymes help children gain phonemic awareness—the sense of individual sounds, and people helps with pronunciation since a major problem with English is that there are no rules for which syllable to stress!
I do hope they teach *how* to memorize. On the few occasions they told us to memorize a poem, I just struggled along by reading it over and over, and there are much better ways to do it. It also helps to have a partner in the endeavor, a parent or friend or someone.
Nursery rhymes like;
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But words can never hurt me.
Teach important life lessons