The attitude that poetry should not be analyzed is prevalent

Host: The classroom was half-empty, bathed in the waning gold of the late afternoon. Dust floated through the light, turning the air into something sacred and slow. Outside, autumn leaves swirled in quiet rebellion, brushing against the windows like forgotten thoughts trying to get in.

A blackboard stood at the front, streaked with chalk ghosts of earlier lessons—equations, half-erased poems, a doodle of a sun with a crooked smile. Jack sat on one of the small wooden desks, far too large for the seat beneath him, a cup of coffee cooling beside his hand. Jeeny stood near the window, her fingers tracing the lines of light, watching the children’s playground outside — empty swings, silent slides, the echoes of laughter now long gone.

It was quiet — the kind of quiet that only happens after a long day of words.

Jeeny turned, a faint smile curving her lips.
Jeeny: “X. J. Kennedy once said, ‘The attitude that poetry should not be analyzed is prevalent among many who consider themselves experts on children's literature. But I suspected that kids like to look closely at things and figure out what makes them go.’”
Her voice was soft, but her eyes gleamed. “Isn’t that beautiful, Jack? The idea that curiosity is not something you lose — it’s something adults learn to fear.”

Jack leaned back, his chair creaking beneath his weight. He rubbed his chin, his eyes fixed on the blackboard.

Jack: “You call it beautiful. I call it naive. Poetry isn’t a machine to take apart, Jeeny. The moment you start analyzing, you kill it. It’s like dissecting a butterfly to understand how it flies — sure, you learn something, but you lose the very thing that made it worth watching.”

Host: A gentle wind moved through the open window, carrying with it the faint scent of chalk, paper, and early evening. The sunlight had turned to bronze now, casting long shadows across the desks.

Jeeny crossed the room and sat beside him, her voice quiet but insistent.

Jeeny: “No, Jack. You only kill it if you stop feeling it while you look. Kids don’t do that. When a child takes apart a toy, they do it with wonder. They don’t want to destroy it — they want to understand it. That’s not death. That’s discovery.”

Jack smirked.
Jack: “Maybe for kids. But adults? We analyze until there’s nothing left but structure. We label every emotion, categorize every rhythm. We turn wonder into data. It’s what we do — we ruin magic with logic.”

Jeeny laughed softly.
Jeeny: “And yet you’re here, sitting in a classroom, arguing about poetry. Maybe you haven’t killed all the magic after all.”

Host: Jack’s eyes flickered — annoyance, then something quieter, a fleeting memory. The silence that followed was the kind that hums — full, alive, waiting to burst into meaning.

Jack: “When I was a kid, I wrote a poem once,” he said, his voice low, almost ashamed. “About a bird. Teacher called it ‘sentimental fluff.’ Told me poetry needed discipline. I stopped writing after that.”

Jeeny turned fully toward him, her brows furrowing.
Jeeny: “So you believed her? One person’s critique and you buried your own voice?”

Jack: “It wasn’t just one,” he replied. “Every time I tried to understand why poems worked — the teachers said not to. Said I’d ruin it. ‘Just feel it, Jack,’ they’d say. But feelings fade. I wanted to know why the words worked.”

Jeeny: “That’s exactly what Kennedy meant,” she said, leaning forward. “That attitude — that fear of breaking poetry by studying it — it’s wrong. Kids want to know why things glow. Adults are just afraid they’ll find out it’s only phosphorus.”

Host: Her words hung there, glowing faintly in the amber light. Outside, a single leaf drifted past the window, turning slowly, like an unspoken thought.

Jack: “Maybe because we’ve seen too many things lose their shine under the microscope. You ever look at something too closely, Jeeny? You start to see the flaws. The gaps. The gears that shouldn’t fit but somehow do.”

Jeeny: “That’s not losing magic, Jack. That’s realizing magic has gears. That’s even more miraculous.”

Host: The air between them thickened with quiet defiance. A clock ticked somewhere, slow and certain. The day outside began to fall apart into dusk.

Jack: “You really think kids want to analyze? I’ve seen them get bored reading anything that doesn’t rhyme.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe the problem isn’t the poetry,” she said, her voice sharp now. “Maybe it’s the way we teach it. We hand them answers instead of questions. We tell them what to feel instead of asking what they see. Do you remember when learning felt like play?”

Jack: “That’s a romantic illusion. The world doesn’t reward play; it rewards efficiency. We train minds to function, not to dream.”

Jeeny: “And yet,” she said, “the world is dying from lack of dreamers.”

Host: The room dimmed as the last of the sunlight withdrew. A single lamp buzzed to life overhead, humming softly like a nervous thought.

Jeeny stood, pacing slowly, her shadow long and graceful against the blackboard.

Jeeny: “Look, Jack. The best scientists are poets in disguise. Einstein said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’ He looked closely at things, not to kill their mystery, but to deepen it. When a child takes a poem apart, it’s not dissection. It’s communion.”

Jack: “And what happens when they start seeing patterns where there are none? When they start thinking every rhyme hides a secret code? That’s not poetry — that’s madness.”

Jeeny: “Maybe madness is where meaning hides.”

Host: Jack chuckled — a dry, reluctant sound that cracked the tension like a match in a dark room.

Jack: “You’re impossible, Jeeny.”

Jeeny: “And you’re predictable,” she teased. “You keep building fences around beauty and calling it logic.”

Jack: “Someone has to. Without logic, beauty runs wild. It loses definition.”

Jeeny: “And without wonder, logic turns to dust.”

Host: The argument reached a fragile peak, like two notes clashing in dissonance before finding harmony. Jeeny’s eyes softened. Jack’s hands stilled.

Jeeny: “You know what I think?” she whispered. “Poetry isn’t meant to be protected from analysis. It’s meant to survive it. The real poems — the ones that matter — they grow stronger the closer you look. Like people.”

Jack: “And what about the fragile ones?”

Jeeny: “Then you handle them gently. That’s what kids know, Jack. They take things apart carefully. They wonder. They listen to the hum of what’s inside.”

Host: He said nothing. The lamplight carved his features in soft contrast — the cynic, the seeker, the man still haunted by a teacher’s scorn. Slowly, he reached for the chalk and, without a word, began to write on the blackboard.

The letters were uneven, uncertain, but full of quiet intent:

“The bird flew not to escape,
but to understand the wind.”

Jeeny smiled.

Jeeny: “That’s yours, isn’t it?”

Jack: “A long time ago,” he said. “Maybe it’s time I look at it again.”

Host: The lamp flickered. The chalk dust shimmered like stars in the fading light.

Jeeny: “See? Even analysis can bring something back to life.”

Jack: “Or maybe you just made me remember what I forgot to feel.”

Host: The bell of the old school clock rang once — low, resonant, final. They stood in silence as the darkness pressed gently against the windows, wrapping the world in stillness.

Jeeny: “Kids look closely because they still believe things are worth seeing. Maybe that’s what we lost, Jack — not the ability to analyze, but the courage to wonder.”

Jack nodded slowly.

Jack: “Maybe you’re right. Maybe understanding isn’t the opposite of wonder. Maybe it’s just another way of loving something.”

Host: And as they left the classroom, the blackboard glowed faintly in the dim light — chalk words soft and trembling, as if alive. Outside, the wind carried their laughter down the hallway, mingling with the scent of autumn and old paper.

And in that moment, even the silence seemed to think — and feel — at the same time.