Poetry can be a good thing in and of itself. My father instilled a love of poetry in me by reciting such authors as Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Rudyard Kipling. Later, I came to know Keats, Browning, Yeats, Hopkins and others, but I probably would not have got there without prior exposure to "The Walrus and the Carpenter" or "The Owl and the Pussycat".