Dear Editor,

When talking about poetry, most of the people will think of it as outdated, boring or useless, like Miss Lang, who posted her letter against poetry on 13th March. However, there are ample evidence to support poetry is practical and with significant value.

Fairly speaking, poetry is not common to be seen in nowadays society. Words are so difficult to be used in daily life and it is not interesting to read. But, there are some intangible benefits that help students a lot. While reading and writing poem, you can see the picture in poet’s mind. It can train your abstract thinking and polish up your skills of expressing yourself. People who work and talk like a robot is not uncommon, whereas people who are humorous are very rare. That’s all owing to the lack of skills to express. To prevent the escalation of the problem, learning poetry is the best solution.

Those who are unconvinced of the benefits such as enhancement of expressing skills would like the government to focus on the down-to-earth curriculum of something ‘useful’ such as grammar or examination practice. Of course, their beliefs are in no way unconvincing. But my view is poetry can improve students’ reading ability and writing skills which are critical to examination. Through studying poetry, they can learn rhetoric that is always used in poetry. On account of the difficulty of reading poetry, when students face public examinations, reading will not be a problem for them. To conclude, poetry can enhance students’ writing and reading skills so it is an undeniable down-to-earth subject that students can profit from a lot.

There is also a deeply-entrenched view that poetry is undoubtedly a bore-to-earth subject which contains no value and entertainment. Is that really fun? Not likely. Poetry can be fun as well if you consider it as a riddle. Although it seems to be impossible to understand its true meaning, once you did, it would bring you colossal sense of success. Every poem is a challenge for students and there will be a lot of fun to uncover its meaning. There is no denying that poetry is attractive for all students. After all, students will find poetry is a worth-learning subject.

To reiterate, poetry can bring improvement of expressing skills and polish up reading and writing skills. Nonetheless, it is also exciting and fun. In the fact that poetry brings students’ mountain of tangible and intangible benefits, poetry must stay. It is hoped that people will discover the advantages of it.

Yours faithfully,
Pat Poon