Student teaching in New York City on September 11, 2001, forced the author to scrap her carefully planned lessons. Instead, she designed a unit to address the urgent needs of the ninth graders in her care. In this article, the author describes the poetry unit she designed to help students deal with the grieving process and allow them a way to talk about what they were feeling through the analysis and discussion of poetry. Students read each poem closely and they analyzed and discussed them. Each poem was followed by a writing assignment, where students experimented with one or two stanzas of poetry. In the end, each student chose one poem to revise and compiled a portfolio of drafts, reflections, and one revised poem. Throughout the unit she saw students embrace poetry and take risks in their own writing. Many wrote in their reflections how their feelings about poetry had changed and they realized it wasn't only about figuring out a meaning, but also about feeling poetry and thinking about different issues. (Contains 1 figure.)