As former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Frost said, “Poetry is what’s lost in translation.” There are metaphors, similes, rhythms, and nuances that can’t be translated word for word in everyday life, but even more so in poetry. This is one reason that reading and writing poetry in a foreign language classroom can often be confusing. However, that is all the more reason to keep reading and writing, as a means to understand deeper levels of the language. Encourage students to see the images a poem evokes and to talk about the words and phrases that don’t translate.