Education by Poetry

The general argument/point made by Robert Frost in his work Education by Poetry is that people are getting away from poetry and coming short of enthusiasm, but by being closer to poetry one can be more in tune with expressing and interpreting feelings and expressions. More specifically, Frost argues/suggests that by interpreting and learning the format and concept of poetry you learn to analyze and know about the word “belief”. People who don’t understand or aren’t able to interpret poetry, because of lack of poetry in college, don’t know how to judge or interpret them when they are confronted with it. He writes, “The person that gets close enough to poetry, he is going to know more about the word belief, than anybody else knows, even in religion nowadays…every time a poem is written, every time a short story is written, it is not written by cunning, but by belief. The beauty, the something, the little charm of the thing to be, is more felt than known.” (page 50) In this passage, Frost is suggesting that poetry unlocks the most profound thinking that we have. In conclusion, it is Frost belief that the world would go in a bad direction if people do not gain from learning and interpreting poetry.


In my view, Frost is right because being educated through poetry and metaphors really does help you to have imagination and grow. For example, during my Honors English class during my sophomore year at Murray High School, I was taught the basics of poetry. Looking back at what I was taught, I can definitely tell that the experience in recognizing and interpreting poetry helped me to become a more alert and imaginative reader as we would discuss them in class. The expressions you interpret in poetry helped me recognize how people can have strong feelings towards situations and experiences. Although Frost might object that everyone should write poetry, I maintain that there is another way to come closer to poetry and that is by reading it. Therefore, I conclude that people shouldn’t all write poetry but learning and coming close to poetry makes us become more educated and better thinkers.