Two or three minutes may be enough. A poem that catches a class's interest may come up over and over in discussion, be referred to again and again throughout the year as a shared experience by which other moments may be measured. What can't be seen or understood by more didactic methods of teaching may suddenly be clarified by a poem. 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 as well as having great appeal to gifted students because of a poem's many layers and the worlds contained, but not necessarily voiced.
Poems contain values and voice, time and place, past and present.
They carry within their spareness the currents of rivers, the horizon, and the scent of loamy soil. Emily Dickinson, Collected poems of Emily Dickinson , Doubleday, 1997. The Library of America, 1995. Robinson Jeffers, Collected poetry of Robinson Jeffers Vol. Tim Hunt, Ed.