"We don´t read and write poetry because it is cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for."
Professor Keating, Dead Poets´ Society
Professor Keating, Dead Poets´ Society
I wish there were more literature teachers like Keating, someone who used poetry to inspire their students to seize the day, carpe diem, to suck out all the marrow of life, as Thoreau put it. He talked to these teenagers about Whitman, Byron, Tennyson, Shakespeare... encouraging them to struggle to make their dreams come true.
Poems are made of the deepest secrets of the soul that need to come out. They tell about identity, discovery, survival, mortality, feelings, hopes, loss... things of primary interest to everybody in this uncertain world.
