Are poems tools? The 90 contributors to this book think so. They describe how specific poems have helped them. For example, our line this week, from the poem “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was submitted by a teacher who has those words tattooed on her leg. She writes, “It is a constant reminder to me to be authentic about my own sorrow and struggles . . . It is a reminder to honor and make space for the sorrow my students must carry. And it is a mark of faith that suffering may make us kinder, more loving people.”
Sam M. Intrator and Megan Scribner, editors, Teaching with Heart: Poetry that Speaks to the Courage to Teach (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, a Wiley Brand, 2014), p. 63.