‘Living in a house without mirrors’ : poetry’s cachet and student engagement

Abstract

This article examines the contentious proposition that poetry has for the past few decades been experiencing a crisis, especially when it comes to student engagement. By means of the results of a study conducted in an English as a second language context, it explores teachers’ and students’ beliefs, attitudes and practices in relation to poetry. This article shows that the very discourse used to talk about poetry is a direct reflection of how much cachet it is ascribed in the classroom. It questions whether this inflation of cachet is responsible for the fact that poetry is not perceived as a genre that teachers and students opt to read for personal pleasure.