I am passionate about poetry. I love reading it. I love teaching it. I love reading and talking books in verse for my library and reading a talking books that highlight poetry for my library. I have become increasingly concerned about the nudges that we are getting through the core that can effectively reduce the amount of time that we feel "justified" in teaching poetry. So...I appreciated Amanda Ronan's "7 Reasons to Keep Poetry Instruction Alive." She notes that "in today's classrooms it seems like poetry has been pushed to the side." She notes a study by the Pioneer Institute that analyzes the teaching of poetry in core classrooms. As educators we must consider her 7 reasons as we craft the curriculum that guides our English instruction. These are (1) Length, Kids sometimes respond more readily to shorter works. (2) Inference, Inferring is a skill that is easily taught in poetry and applicable in many academic areas. (3) Emotions, Forget the common core; literature is about touching emotions, and kids need to think about their emotions and the emotions of others. (4) Figures of Speech, Can there be too much practice with these? (5) Historical, I love teaching history and literature to getter.In AP, we often discuss what aspects of our culture and history will be reflected in poetry. (6) Performance, I have had some great experiences with having kids perform poetry. (7) Critical Thinking, An excellent way to encourage critical thinking skills. . If we consider the points made in her article it becomes clear that poetry instruction does indeed support the skills required by the common core. Further, poetry instruction creates smarter students and better people. These things still matter.