In most English departments, the teaching of poetry focuses on traditional English poetry, mainly its structure, and fails to address poetry of the diverse styles, language and themes evolving from traditions that are not necessarily English. This disparity has pedagogical implications for speakers learning poetry whose first language is not English. Not only that, but the approach can also affect the learner's interest in poetry. By privileging Western Euro-centric aesthetics, which view traditional English poetry as blueprint for "good" poetry, this approach marginalises other poetry communities, especially poetry in African and Caribbean cultures which evolves out of the experiences of its creators and is at times presented in non-standard English. An appreciation of different kinds of poetry will require a paradigm shift, such as bridging canonical boundaries and engaging curriculum interventions and transformative acts on both the part of the learner and the instructor. These interventions will have to be learner-centred and interactive. One way of actualising this is by allowing the students to create and critique their own poems, before we take leaps to canonical texts that are a staple in most traditional English Departments. This article looks at the inherent disparities between Western and African conventions of poetry production and consumption. It further highlights pedagogical implications for such disparities and offers some alternatives, based on new forms of exciting and compelling creative impulses such as dub-poetry and spoken word poetry which are currently changing the landscape of courses in the English Departments. Some of the research questions that can help guide the discussion are: What are some of the implications of teaching poetry by starting with the students' experiences instead of the rules? What are the implications of the personal in the learning experience, what I will refer to as the political economy of experience, as the students make a connection between classroom activities and their experiences? Why is it crucial that educators constantly engage in pedagogical paradigm shifts which are learner-centred, contextualised and speak to different experiences?