Poetry can convey what prose cannot

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2000/feb/23/tefl2

“Given these difficulties, is poetry worth the effort? What can a good poem offer the language learner that a good newspaper article or authentic dialogue can’t?

The answer has to do with things such as richness of meaning, diversity and ambiguity. In ELT textbooks students are usually presented with oral and written texts whose meaning can be fairly confidently ascertained: these texts have a meaning and you, the learner, can discover it. Poetry is different. The reader is a much more active participant in working out the meaning – or rather the range of meanings – of the text. The reader brings his or her own experience to the poem. The idea that the meaning of a text can vary according to the person reading it will be a new and refreshing one for many students.

A well-chosen poem encourages teachers to ask questions such as, “What do you think this means?” When students realise that “I’m not sure” is an acceptable answer to such questions, a whole new way of thinking about meaning is opened up.

So using poems in class encourages a diversity of views and a healthy debate about meaning. What else? Well, good poems deal with issues and concerns that are important to students – growing up, love and loss, the animal world and our relationship to it, perhaps even (sadly) war and peace.

The key phrase here is “well-chosen”. You’ve got to find poems that are at the right level for your students, both linguistically and in terms of content. This isn’t easy. On the other hand, there’s no point in feeding students an unrelieved diet of whimsy.”