ABSTRACT
First published in 1959, Poetry without Tears is a book not about what poetry is. The author argues that this book is not concerned with the educational resurrection of a dead art but about the artistic resurrection of education. Poetry is a force released in activity. That is how an educationalist and a poet see it. It is rarely how critics and academics see it. They see it as a series of poems, correspondingly it is as a ‘Collection of Poems’ that it is taught. Basic educational truths are frequently overlooked in our teaching of the arts, and no art suffers more from this than poetry. Baldwin goes on to say that in the end teaching is a creative activity and the creators are the best teachers. This book is a must read for students of both literature and education.
