Yesterday in my English class I started a short, two-week series on American 18th & 19th-century poetry. We read from Dickinson, Whitman, Emerson, Wheatley, Howe, and Lazarus, and we talked about why poetry matters — even if we don’t particularly enjoy it. Poetry matters on a society-wide level, and it’s indicative of our humanity, our souls, and what u…
