Been reading some poetry lately. Not for any intellectual stimulation as much as the completion of the First year syllabus! I had to teach a Donne sonnet to a bunch of second language teenage learners. And I always ask myself the same question when I am about to teach a poem: How?
The English language is still foreign territory for them; dare I plunge them in the metaphysics? And just as nothing kills a joke more than having to explain it, nothing kills poetry more than summarizing it! The beauty is not in the meaning alone, but in the form, rhythm and music as well. 
Fancy hearing that from a person who was an avowed poetry hater in college. Oh well. Don’t they say, that to teach is to learn twice over?
Here’s Donne at his cheeky best. Who’s afraid of death? Ah, the magnificence of the last couplet!
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then?
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.
