“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators

po-pos of the world.”

-- Inspector Percy Bysshe "Dirty" Shelley (pictured above)

From the AP

From bad to verse: Vandals get classroom penance

By JOHN CURRAN, Associated Press WriterMon Jun 2, 3:36 PM ET

Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.

Using "The Road Not Taken" and another poem as jumping-off points, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways — and the redemptive power of poetry.

"I guess I was thinking that if these teens had a better understanding of who Robert Frost was and his contribution to our society, that they would be more respectful of other people's property in the future and would also learn something from the experience," said prosecutor John Quinn.

The vandalism occurred at the Homer Noble Farm in Ripton, where Frost spent more than 20 summers before his death in 1963. Now owned by Middlebury College, the unheated farmhouse on a dead-end road is used occasionally by the college and is open in the warmer months.

On Dec. 28, a 17-year-old former Middlebury College employee decided to hold a party and gave a friend $100 to buy beer. Word spread. Up to 50 people descended on the farm, the revelry turning destructive after a chair broke and someone threw it into the fireplace.

When it was over, windows, antique furniture and china had been broken, fire extinguishers discharged, and carpeting soiled with vomit and urine. Empty beer cans and drug paraphernalia were left behind. The damage was put at $10,600.
...

No word on whether or not the delinquents involved were taunted with

I know what you're thinking, punk.
You're thinking, 'Did he pen six stanzas or only five?'

before being taken into custody.

Still, fairly creative and not exactly the worst sentence ever meted out for messing up a writer's estate.

For example, you really don't even want to know what happened to the punk

who egged Poe's house.