Poetic Justice?

Whatever became of the pack of kids who broke into Robert Frost’s former home in Vermont, got wasted, and trashed the place (over $10,000 in damage!), you might ask? Answer: they were recently sentenced to taking poetry classes on Robert Frost, taught by the inimitable Jay Parini, in an effort to teach the vandals some respect by educating them in Frost's artistic contribution.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it’s kind of fabulous, a brand of wise justice that seems to belong to the world of a movie like the Dead Poets Society or something; one the other, the approach also strikes me as overly optimistic. Or maybe that’s just cynicism talking?

That said, however things turn out, I’m just glad there was a news story that got people thinking and talking about poetry and what it might be able to accomplish.