Teaching Poetic Form as Deep Language Learning with Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”

Abstract: In this essay, I present a pedagogical method for using description (rather than explanation) to highlight basic poetic concepts such as allusion, genre, meter/scansion (rhythm), rhyme, stanza, diction, and tone. If the interdisciplinary strategy that I discuss is reasonably adapted, it can have a positive impact on students ranging from secondary school to graduate studies. To demonstrate how formal features work in poetry, this approach uses a brief poem—Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”—rather than excerpts from longer works. This focus can lead students to feel excitement rather than misgiving when they begin to read a poem. My strategy’s emphasis on description also stresses the idea that a poem’s unified surface form (including its links to other works of literature) communicates its reason for being.