Poems touch us at deep levels, levels we don't or can't always articulate. Meaning carried by metaphor and the condensed tight language of a poem may penetrate faster for learning-disabled students. Poems can make another's journey real to us as nothing else can. We identify with another and then we begin to see and feel. A world opens up to us, and we ride along for the journey.
Poems shift points of view.
If we always see things one way, suddenly a poem may turn another light on, shift the focus to see another facet of an issue or subject. Poems braid curricular areas. They break through boundaries and separations, weaving things back together, fractions to feelings, historical events to this moment, tears to joy. Poems contain values and voice, time and place, past and present. They carry within their spare space the currents of rivers, the horizon, and the scent of loamy soil.