Versifying your reading list: Using poetry to teach inequality

Employing literature as a pedagogical tool in the sociology classroom is a well-known and accepted practice in many courses and curricula. Yet nearly every discussion of this "sociology through literature" approach either exp licitly refers to or implies the; use of novels. in this paper, the sociolo gy through literature approach is extended to include poetry as pedagogical ly useful classroom material Poetry provides many of the gains attributed t o using literature in general, while also conveying some unique advantages over other literary forms. I discuss the benefits of using poetry to teach and apply sociological concepts, and provide specific examples of how I emp loy this technique to teach social inequality.