Literary texts, in addition to their aesthetic functions, serve as important means of cultural transmission that reflect societies’ value systems, cultural memory, and conceptions of education. Poetry, through its imagery and metaphorical expression, provides a powerful literary medium for conceptualizing abstract phenomena. This study aims to examine the conceptual, pedagogical, and value-related dimensions of education in the education-themed poems of Bahtiyar Vahabzade, a prominent figure in Azerbaijani literature. The study was conducted within a qualitative research framework using document analysis. The study material consisted of twenty two education-themed poems included in Vahabzade’s Works: Volume I (1949–1959). The data were analyzed within the frameworks of Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Bernstein’s (1990, 2000) Theory of Pedagogic Discourse, and the values education approach. The findings indicate that education in Vahabzade’s poems is constructed not merely as a process of knowledge transmission but as a multidimensional structure that supports individual development, character formation, cultural belonging, and social responsibility. Education is conceptualized as a journey; the teacher as a guide and cultivator; the school as a protective and transformative educational space; books and knowledge as vehicles of education; and the student as a developing, progressing, and socializing subject. The findings further reveal that values such as diligence, responsibility, love, respect, appreciation of knowledge, mother-tongue awareness, and cultural commitment constitute important components of the pedagogical discourse. In conclusion, Vahabzade’s education-themed poems portray education as a multidimensional educational perspective integrating individual development with cultural and social continuity.

Bahtiyar Vahabzade, education-themed poems, conceptual metaphor, pedagogical discourse, values education