For Teens

The New Higher by John Ashbery
You meant more than life to me. I lived through
Making a Fist by Naomi Shihab Nye
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
homage to my hips by Lucille Clifton
these hips are big hips.
Eating Poetry by Mark Strand
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth
The Young Man's Song by W. B. Yeats
I whispered,
Possum Crossing by Nikki Giovanni
Backing out the driveway
Ballad by Sonia Sanchez
forgive me if i laugh
That Sure is My Little Dog by Eleanor Lerman
Yes, indeed, that is my house that I am carrying around
Dangerous for Girls by Connie Voisine
It was the summer of Chandra Levy, disappearing
Falling by James Dickey
The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
Charlotte Brontë in Leeds Point by Stephen Dunn
From her window marshland stretched for miles.
Deer Hit by Jon Loomis
You're seventeen and tunnel-vision drunk,
The Pomegranate by Eavan Boland
The only legend I have ever loved is
Ground Swell by Mark Jarman
Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
The Changing Light by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The changing light at San Francisco
Lady Tactics by Anne Waldman
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
At the end of my suffering
The Fist by Derek Walcott
The fist clenched round my heart...
Mairsy and Dosey by Sharon Olds
Patience by Kay Ryan
Patience is
Thanks by W. S. Merwin
Listen
Cicada by John Blair
A youngest brother turns seventeen with a click as good as a roar,
A Muse by Reginald Shepherd
He winds through the party like wind, one of the just who
Alice at Seventeen: Like a Blind Child by Darcy Cummings
One summer afternoon, I learned by body
Mermaid Song by Kim Addonizio
Damp-haired from the bath, you drape yourself
Hyper- by David Baker
Then a stillness descended the blue hills
Ave Maria by Frank O'Hara
Mothers of America
Sticks by Thomas Sayers Ellis
My father was an enormous man
Notes from the Other Side by Jane Kenyon
I divested myself of despair
White Apples by Donald Hall
when my father had been dead a week
Workshop by Billy Collins
I might as well begin by saying how much I like the title
Howl, Parts I & II by Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked
Coach Losing His Daughter by Jack Ridl
She stares at his players
In Knowledge of Young Boys by Toi Derricotte
i knew you before you had a mother