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Poetry Please

Older Teens

Cover of Wildly Romantic: The English Romantic Poets—the Mad, the Bad, and the Dangerous
Catherine M. Andronik
In the early 1800s, poetry could land a person in jail. Among the most subversive were a group of young writers known as the Romantics: Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth and John Keats. These rebels were barely out of their teens when their words changed the course of literature.
Cover of How to (Un)Cage a Girl
Francesca Lia Block
Fantasy and reality come together in Block’s book of original poetry that examines the pressures girls feel growing up, in stories real and imagined.
Cover of Falling Hard: 100 Love Poems by Teenagers
Betsy Fanco, editor
Love poems for teens, written by teens.
Cover of The Taking of Room 114
Mel Glenn
Five students respond in poetry when their teacher goes berserk and takes their history class hostage.
Cover of Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath
Stephanie Hemphill
Through a series of poems written from the perspective of those closest to her, Hemphill explores Sylvia Plath’s life. Supported with photos and an extensive list of facts and sources, Your Own, Sylvia is a terrific companion to Plath’s own works.
Cover of Crank
Ellen Hopkins
From perfect daughter to addict, Hopkins chronicles the disappearance of Kristina and the emergence of Bree and her struggles to fight the monster, crank.
Cover of Burned
Ellen Hopkins
Finding where you belong and what you believe in is the central theme in Hopkins’ novel about a 17-year-old girl in a fundamentally religious family.
Cover of Impulse
Ellen Hopkins
Three teens, three suicide attempts, three stories to tell—all from a psychiatric hospital in Hopkins’ third novel.
Cover of Glass
Ellen Hopkins
The sequel to “Crank” returns to Kristina’s story and her continued battle with drugs and her own demons.
Cover of Identical
Ellen Hopkins
Two identical twin sisters from a seemingly perfect family confess their pain through Hopkins’ poetry. The ending will shock you.
Cover of Blushing: Expressions of Love in Poems and Letters
Paul B. Janezcko, Editor
Collection of poems about love featuring classic poets like Shakespeare and Whitman.
Cover of Undercover
Beth Kephart
Shy, quiet Elisa is used to going unnoticed except when the boys in her school ask her to write poetry in the form of love notes. Struggling with her parent’s marital problems and a crush on one of her “clients,” she retreats to a pond in the woods where her love for ice-skating helps her come out from under cover and take center stage.
Cover of Black Stars in a White Night Sky
JonArno Lawson
These entertaining poems explore everything from love and conformity to the nature of time. Lawson stretches the boundaries of various poetic forms to create humorous and thought-provoking verses.
Cover of Ludie’s Life
Cynthia Ryland
Newbery medalist Cynthia Rylant returns to her home state of West Virginia with this powerful collection of poems about the hardships, joy, laughter and loss faced by the wife of a coal miner.
Cover of Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the United States
Traditional poems capturing Latino culture in America are presented in both English and Spanish.
Cover of Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by 20th Century American Art
Art and poetry are brought together as famous pieces of art are interpreted by modern poets in this unique and attractive collection.
Cover of Quiet Storm: Voices of Young Black Poets
This collection features poems by young people from the U.S., Canada, England, Jamaica, Haiti, Barbados, Panama, St. Thomas, and several African countries.
Cover of Stop Pretending
Sonya Sones
Short, intense poems based on the author’s experience as a teenager with a sister suffering from mental illness.
Cover of United States of Poetry
The work of Nobel Laureates, rock n’ rollers, Beats, cowboy poets, rappers, and even former presidents are combined into a poetry collection unlike any other.
Cover of You Hear Me
Free verse poetry written by young men about love, anger, and jealousy.

Younger Teens

Cover of Becoming Billie Holiday
Carole Boston Weatherford
Told in first-person narrative person, Billie Holiday looks back at her early years in this fictionalized memoir.
Jen Bryant
The town of Dayton, Tennessee was turned upside down in 1925 with the Scopes “monkey trial/” The effects of this trial on visitors, spectators and the town’s residents are told in a series of free-verse poems.
Cover of Partly Cloudy
Gary Soto
Gary Soto uses his poetry to explore first kisses, broken hearts and falling in love.
Cover of Life is Fine
Allison Whittenberg
With a neglectful mother who has an abusive, live-in boyfriend, life for fifteen-year-old Samara is far from fine. But when a substitute teacher walks into class one day and introduces her to poetry, Samara starts to view life from a different perspective.
Cover of Frida: Viva la Vida = Long Live Life
Carmen T. Bernier-Grand
Biographical poems about one of the greatest painters of the 20th century.
Cover of The Secret of Me: A Novel in Verse
Meg Kearney
This novel in verse follows 14-year-old Lizzie through a year in which, despite her loving family, a circle of good friends, and a potential first boyfriend, she struggles with a personal secret. She desperately wants to find out the story behind her adoption and her own identity, and discover why she deserves to be loved.
Cover of Annie, Between the States
Laura Elliott
As Virginia shuttles between Union and Confederate control, Annie witnesses “revolting horrors” in her own backyard. She is initially convinced that her side of the battle is the right one—Virginia fights for states’ rights, not for slavery. But Annie’s certainty deteriorates as the war divides her family, and—linked by their mutual love of poetry—she loses her heart to an occupying Union soldier.
Cover of The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano
Margarita Engle
Juan Francisco Manzano was born in 1797 into the household of wealthy Cuban slaveowners. He spent his early years at the side of his owner’s wife, entertaining her friends. His poetry was his outlet, reflecting the beauty and cruelty of his world. Written in verse and based on Manzano’s autobiographical notes and poems, The Poet Slave of Cuba creates a portrait of a life in which even the pain of slavery could not extinguish the capacity for hope.
Cover of Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems
Mel Glenn
The spirit, drive, and devotion of the players and their supporters are captured in short poems that describe one high school basketball season.
Cover of Hoofprints: Horse Poems
Jessie Haas
A collection of over 100 poems celebrating horses of the past and present.
Cover of Out of the Dust
Karen Hesse
Short poems from different viewpoints tell the story of one town in Oklahoma and its struggle for survival during the Great Depression.
Cover of Worlds Afire
Paul Janeczko
The tragic story of a terrible circus fire on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut is told through poems.
Cover of A Cool Moonlight
Angela Johnson
Lila, born with an allergy to sunlight, uses poetry to describe her plans to finally feel the sun’s rays on her birthday.
Cover of Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance
Laban Carrick Hill
Chronicles the world of Harlem Renaissance artists, writers, and activists such as Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston.
Cover of Harlem
Walter Dean Myers
This illustrated poem describes the people, places and history of the author’s hometown.
Cover of Carver: A Life in Poems
Marilyn Nelson
Forty-four poems, told from the poet of view of Carver and the people who knew him, celebrate his amazing accomplishments.
Cover of The Space Between Our Footsteps
Naomi Shihab Nye
Poets and artists born or living in 20 Middle Eastern and North African countries describe and celebrate through homeland through poetry and painting.
Cover of Frenchtown Summer
Gary Paulsen
The story of a lonely young man living in the post WWI tenements of the French-Canadian district of Monument, told in blank verse.
Cover of Locomotion
Jacqueline Woodson
Lonnie Collins Motion tells the story of his difficult life and his struggle for happiness through a series of school-assigned poems.

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