"I encourage all parents out there to read poems to your kids often," she says. "It is a sweet gift that's undervalued." The Amell and Kipling poems were complex, but rhyme like stopping by woods on a snow evening or the frost bomb.
Dwayne Betts was a 16-year-old in solitary confinement when a fellow inmate slid a book of poetry under his cell door. What happened next is an astounding story of transformation: from desperation to the discovery of beauty, even behind bars. Listen as the lawyer, prison reform advocate, and award-winning poet explains to EconTalk host Russ Roberts why he's on a mission to bring books--and beauty--into prisons. They also discuss Betts's latest book, Redaction, a collaboration with the artist Titus Kaphar.