It's gratifying to have had several responses to a topic that seemed a bit outside the aegis of this forum.
Ralph, the Frye books are now on my reading list. Thanks.
Bob, I'm thinking mainly in terms of teaching college students to read, hear, and even perform poetry. In my experience, the biggest problem to overcome in teaching people to write poetry is their unfamiliarity with poetry, so maybe the two issues boil down to one.
Clive: I like your suggestion that we ask what the consequences of not teaching poetry would be. I'm torn between what seems the obvious answer (No consequences whatsoever) and the answer that acknowledges my ideals (A more impoverished life). In a way it's like teaching anything: One has to teach as if the subject is the most important thing in the world, and yet if he believed it without qualification he'd probably go nuts at the thought that many students get nothing and that all of them get less than he believes they need.
There is a fairly strong link back to the main topic of this forum. As a critic I take it as my responsibility to teach my readers something about poetry in general, in addition to telling them about this particular poet's work. Even those readers who know more than I do don't necessarily know all that I do, after all; we can learn from people who know less than we do.
RPW
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