Who is a poet that today's youth would identify with? What poetry work would really resonate with teenagers?

Question

I'm trying to put together a project that requires poetry or any written word that would mean something to today's youth. I plan on writing music to that poetry and using it with a performing group of high school students. I would also be interested in a writer's story or background that would mean something or be interesting to high school students even if his/her written work did not. The important thing is that I want the performers to feel connected to the words in the hopes of creating a meaningful experience that resonates with them.

Answer 1

love, emo, reality, the hard life or the rough cut in plain language.

Try the Vietnam or WWI poets. Show them Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, Judith Johnson's Uranium poems, Sonia Sanchez, James Wright, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, James Baldwin, and Imamu Amiri Baraka.

Give them Sarah Teasdale for honesty and rhyme!

Answer 2

I think todays musicians are the equivalent of the old poet - travelling the countryside performing for people. Let's face it, they are the words that your high schoolers are listening too and some of them are brilliant. I always wish a teacher had given me the opportunity to write about my favourite lyrics (alright they would have been Metallica but I was so passionate). These were the only 'poems' I could get into but I really do believe you could reach a HUGE audience if you let them talk about the writings they want to talk about. They could even perform them, perhaps stressing the points most important to them and changing the song so it reflects how they personally feel about the lyrics. How many death metal teenagers can you reach with Donne and Wordsworth? I'm positive you can reach them if you go on their level and ask them to provide some 'poetry' for discussion.

I love literature but nothing moves me like the words to my favourite song.

Answer 3

Oh, do the Beat Poets!! They were so "cool." And they are still relevant to today's teenagers because the Beat poets were unorthodox, rebellious, yet, literary.

Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Anne Waldman, John Wieners... they were hugely popular with young people in the 50s and 60s!! They were still popular even as they aged.

The Beat poets, had BEATS to their poetry -- rhythm -- like musical sounding words. When they recited their poetry, you could literally FEEL the beat! Sound words were part of the poetry, and as it was read outloud, you could feel the essence of that sound, feel the "beat!" There was music involved -- drumming, chimes, all kinds of rhythms that sang with the poetry.

Their poetry was wild, effusive, loud, soft, lyrical, coarse, yet with a passion and verve and "beat!" Allen Ginsberg was one of the most famous -- when you heard him recite poetry, you felt it to your soul. It was rhythm, it was passion, it was wild and sometimes obscene, but it was still poetry. And the Beat poets, I feel, exemplify teenagers. Teens are searching for themselves, they are still paving their way, they are lurching about and not sure, and yet sure, and they are poetry in motion.

Beat poetry is performance! It is song! It is rhythm! It is lyrical and literary words. And the kids can even have a coffee house setting with candles and coffee, and bongos, and berets. They would be able to act out and perform the very poems they are reciting.

And, yes, I have heard the now-gone Beat poets recite their poetry, and I also have a 16-year-old daughter who became enamored with Beat poetry when she had to study it in her Sophomore year in high school -- I see it from both sides.

I don't think you can beat the Beat poetry! :)

Answer 4

Modern poets like Benjamin Zephania would be popular. Another would be Paul Cookson, writes a lot of humour but also some more serious issues.

Answer 5

1. Suicidal and dramatic poetry.
2. Poetry where an old and corrupt villain is defeated.
3. Poems where urban legends and supertisions come true.
4. Poetry where the character flirts with homosexuality.

Answer 6

Charles Bukowski, because of his irreverence and powerful language. I think his topics (alcohol, love, life, discontent) would be very interesting to your students. My brother loves these poems since he was 17, for their directness.

The most important topic to young people is love. For example, many of my friends say their favorite book is the novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel García Márquez. I highly recommend you the short story "Eyes of a Blue Dog" by the same writer:
http://eserver.org/fiction/eyes-of-a-blue-dog.html

But I think any good love poem will do.
Hope it helps! =)

Answer 7

Philip Larkin (died mid 80's) - wrote some seriously depressing stuff about proper ordinary stuff like family, loneliness - famously wrote "they f**k you up your mum and dad" - seems to resonate with teenagers!

Answer 8

Some works of the Romantic poets, particularly Coleridge, with his tragic drug history, and perhaps Byron and Shelley -- Byron for his darkness and Shelley for his connection with the creation of one of the greatest monsters of all horror history, Frankenstein's monster.