Sustainable education can be attained by making a cultural shift to include engagement for real purpose through transformative learning, creativity and adaptability. In an age of robotics and automation, STEM-related majors are emphasised at the cost of marginalizing Humanities and Arts majors. This paper explores the role of literature, and particularly poetry as a genre, to develop sustainable life skills in students. This paper uses the mixed methods approach. The qualitative analysis of student responses is triangulated with the data obtained from the survey. The analysis revealed that literature was a valuable tool for fostering sustainable life skills. Reading and engaging with literary texts lead the students to move beyond the four walls of the classroom and view the world differently. The interplay of the self with the text leads to an ongoing process of reflection in order to develop sustainable life skills.