Parini:“Poetry is about life and death and who you are as a person”

It’s from the essay“Education by Poetry,” in which the poet warned, “Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world.”

For years, Jay Parini, the Robert Frost biographer and literature professor, had been writing — wrestling with, he says — a book titled “Why Poetry Matters.” No sooner was it published than the writer was confronted with a slice-of-life demand to demonstrate his thesis.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08sun4.html