Poetry Live is a standards-based curriculum enhancement program that uses poetry as a language with which to explore social issues and the humanities. The program employs web-based distance learning technologies to bridge geographic barriers. The goal of Poetry Live is to bring students together virtually in cooperative and community-building experiences that foster a deeper understanding of the true issues at the heart of history and contemporary culture. It aims to use poetry as an accessible and common language for the study of the humanities. Poetry Live is unique in that participating students interact live online with expert poets and with other students across the nation, and around the globe. The live interaction includes actual online voice discussion and a wide variety of stimulating and exciting collaborative activities. In addition to live interaction on the Web, participants also take part in a series of classroom-based activities with their own teachers, do independent poetry writing, and join in asynchronous web-based activities with remote peers. The Poetry Live program has been designed by Columbia University Teacher's College Institute for Learning Technologies and Jonathan Finkelstein, with generous support of the Academy of American Poets, and participating high school teachers and their students. Funding for the program has been graciously offered by the New York Life Foundation Tech Power Program and New Visions for Public Schools.