Teen Central

Naomi Shihab Nye has been writing about the Middle East all of her life. Her father is Palestinian, her mother German-American, and her poetry is born of a childhood spent with a foot in both worlds, growing up in St. Louis, Jerusalem, and San Antonio. This volume collects for the first time in one place all of Naomi Shihab Nye's poems about the Middle East, about peace, and about being an Arab-American in the United States. You will find familiar poems here, poems that Nye's readers have cherished for years, as well as new poems being published for the first time. Nourishing, haunting, and hopeful—here is a timeless and necessary book.

Poems written in the voices of forty-seven people, including students, teachers, and other school staff, record the aftermath of a high school student's suicide and the preoccupations of teen life.

Drawing on poems both serious and silly and poets from Shakespeare to Lucille Clifton, The Body Eclectic looks at what our bodies are, what they are not, how we love them and taunt them, what they give us, and what they take away.

In a series of short interconnected poems, students at a high school nicknamed Brimstone reveal the violence existing and growing in their lives.

This collection of poems assembled by award-winning writer Marilyn Nelson provides young readers with a compelling, lyrical account of the life of revered African-American botanist and inventor George Washington Carver.

Poems describe how thirteen-year-old Allie, living with her grandparents in a small Minnesota town in the 1960s, struggles to cope with her father's recent death, being abandoned by her mother, and trying to fit in at school.

Series of poems reflect the thoughts of various people--town residents young and old, teachers, and some students visiting from the city--caught up in the events surrounding the murder of a beautiful high school student who had recently moved to the small lake-side community of Hudson Landing.

Amber Tamblyn, best known as an actress, is also an accomplished poet who was mentored by Beat poets such as Jack Hirschman and Michael McClure. Incisive and passionate, her poems represent Amber's unique perspective on universal issues of relationships, loss, and self-discovery.

A collection of short poems for and about boys and about some of their interests and thoughts.

A collection of over 100 poems recounting the ups and downs of one adolescent girl's school year.

A compilation of poems by Americans writing about American art in the twentieth century, including such writers as Nancy Willard, Jane Yolen, and X.J. Kennedy.

Acclaimed writer Walter Dean Myers celebrates the people of Harlem with these powerful and soulful first-person poems in the voices of the residents who make up the legendary neighborhood: basketball players, teachers, mail carriers, jazz artists, maids, veterans, nannies, students, and more. Exhilarating and electric, these poems capture the energy and resilience of a neighborhood and a people.

Organized into sections such as "Lopsided Love" and "Rapid Tumble," I Just Hope It's Lethal: Poems of Sadness, Madness, & Joy, ed. by Liz Rosenberg and Deena November, includes poems of great intensity such as Sylvia Plath's "Lady Lazarus," about her attempted suicides, alongside verses with humor-tinged darkness such as T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." More contemporary poets include Margaret Atwood, Naomi Shihab Nye and editors Rosenberg and November.

In order to earn money for college, fourteen-year-old LaVaughn babysits for a teenage mother. Rooted in the community of poverty, this story offers a penetrating view of the conditions that foster ignorance, destroy self-esteem, and challenge strength. LaVaughn needed a part-time job. What she got was a baby-sitting gig with Jolly, an unwed teen mother. With two kids hanging in the balance, they need to make the best out of life-and they can only do it for themselves and each other.

This is a book of original poetry by and for teens. Dramatic, plaintive, despairing, and hopeful, this unusual collection has been gathered together by artists Esther Pearl Watson and Mark Todd and dramatically illustrated with stunning paintings.

Paint Me Like I Am is a collection of poems by teens who have taken part in writing programs run by a national nonprofit organization called WritersCorps. To read the words of these young people is to hear the diverse voices of teenagers everywhere.

A collection of poems about the experiences of young people and a section with information about how each poem was written to enable readers to create their own original poems.

The term African Diaspora has been used to describe the spread of Africans to all corners of the globe. Ms. Okutoro, herself a native Nigerian, sent out an international call for submissions by young poets with African roots. This compilation is the result, a fine selection from poets in America, Canada, Jamaica, Barbados, Haiti, and Uganda. The poems are divided into eight categories, such as The Struggle Continues, After Tomorrow, and To Our Elders. Leading off each section are verses by noted literary figures including Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. But the real strength of this book lies in the passionate voices of the young poets. As one young woman puts it, "Take a trip to my soul and you will find me."

A variety of students at the same high school describe their ideas, experiences, and relationships in a series of interconnected free verse stories.

A collection of nearly sixty poems dealing with revenge and forgiveness, plus suggested readings about each contributing poet.

Seventeen-year-old Stephanie journeys from fall to spring and from childhood to womanhood as she experiences first love and deals with her fear of inheriting her mother's mental illness.

A remarkable collection of poetry from the Harlem Renaissance and beyond, stitched together with commentary from Giovanni. An important resource for those interested in poetry and in understanding the African American experience.

Weary of his life with his alcoholic, abusive father, sixteen-year-old Billy packs a few belongings and hits the road, hoping for something better than what he left behind. He finds a home in an abandoned freight train outside a small town, where he falls in love with rich, restless Caitlin and befriends a fellow train resident, "Old Bill," who slowly reveals a tragic past. When Billy is given a gift that changes everything, he learns not only to how forge his own path in life, but the real meaning of family. `

In this novel told in slam verse, best friends and aspiring poets Laura and Twig embark on a road trip after graduating from high school, from Pennsylvania to New York City, to compete at slam poetry events.

This is a memoir that is lived in moments. The moments you know - when you see your parents' marriage dissolving, when you realize you're a boy who likes boys, when you speak the truth and don't know if it will be heard. The moments you don't recognize until later - when you leave things unsaid (even to yourself), when you feel your boyfriend letting go, when you give up on love. And the moment you get love back. In an amazing narrative of poems, Billy Merrell tells an ordinary story in an extraordinary way.

A collection of poems that explore all kinds of loss.

Alternating poems by a brother and sister convey their feelings about the death of their older brother and the impact it had on their family.

Sophie describes her relationships with a series of boys as she searches for Mr. Right.

A collection of poems about dogs is accompanied by essays by young people about the dogs in their lives.

In this collection of "eyewitness" poems, the excitement and anticipation of attending the circus on July 6, 1944 in Hartford, Connecticut, turns to horror when a fire engulfs the circus tent, killing nearly 180 people, mostly women and children.

In 1955, people all over the United States knew that Emmett Louis Till was a fourteen-year-old African American boy lynched for supposedly whistling at a white woman in Mississippi. The brutality of his murder, the open-casket funeral, and the acquittal of the men tried for the crime drew wide media attention. Award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson reminds us of the boy whose fate helped spark the civil rights movement. This martyr's wreath, woven from a little-known but sophisticated form of poetry, challenges us to speak out against modern-day injustices, to 'speak what we see.'

Autobiographical poems recount events in a teenager's life, including her battles with eating disorders, her time in treatment facilities, and the suicide of her boyfriend.