Teen Read Week

It's Teen Read Week this week and a fun time to showcase poetry for young adults. October has been the month for celebrating Teen Read Week since 1988, a time to “encourage teens to be regular readers and library users” according to the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA). At YALSA you’ll find many great programs and strategies to try, as well as a list of Teens’ Top Ten “teen choice” books, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year.

I did a blog post about poetry for Teen Read Week for Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday this week, so you can find more info about poetry for YA there including recommended anthologies of poetry for YA, books of poetry BY teens, and suggested resource books on writing poetry with teens. Check it out. 

Of course, I'd also like to feature a few poems from my collaborations with Janet Wong, The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School and You Just Wait. I just love all the poems those 70+ poets created for us! I made a few new digital poem postcards featuring their poems to share with you here and you'll find them on Pinterest too. 

Here's "Black Ice" by Joseph Bruchac along with a "mentor text" poem by Janet Wong in response to Bruchac's poem (below) and a response activity for teen writers from You Just Wait.

Here's "Who Am I?" by Margarita Engle along with a "response poem" AND a "mentor text" poem both by Janet Wong in response to Engle's poem (below) and a response activity for teen writers-- all from You Just Wait.

And if you'd like to see how one poem connects with ALL of the activities in You Just Wait, here's one example with Robyn Hood Black's "Locker Ness Monster" as the featured poem at the heart of things. 

Now head on over to Live Your Dream, where the lovely poet Irene Latham is hosting Poetry Friday. See you there!