Why Poetry Is Making a Comeback in Schools

Hanif Abduraqqib. Sarah Kay. Elizabeth Acevedo. Clint Smith. Do any of these names sound familiar? How about Amanda Gorman? All of these writers are part of America’s thriving contemporary poetry scene. But you won’t find them in many text books, because high school poetry units tend to focus on dead poets, like Robert Frost, Walt Whitman and Edgar Allen Poe. North Carolina teacher Melissa Smith is working to change that. For the last seven years, she’s been diversifying the canon in her classroom, and encouraging other teachers to do the same with the hashtag #teachlivingpoets. The shift has inspired teachers across the country to get creative with how they teach students things like tone, rhythm and structure in poetry. And it’s inspired students to connect with and see reflections of themselves in the poets they study.