Poetry Speaks Who I Am: Poems of Discovery, Inspiration, Independence, and Everything Else

by Elise Paschen, Dominique Raccah (Editor)

Overview

From the creators of the New York Times bestseller Poetry Speaks to Children, comes this inspirational anthology book of poems for middle grade readers.

Poetry Speaks Who I Am is filled with more than 100 remarkable poems for teen boys and girls, making it the perfect addition to any classroom. With poems about who teens are and who they are becoming, they'll find poems that make them laugh, that make them angry, or poems that speak directly to them.

Poetry can be life altering. It can be gritty and difficult. It can be hilarious or heart-breaking. And it's meant to be experienced, so we've included a CD on which you'll hear 44 poems, 39 of which are original recordings—you'll only find them here. You'll hear poets both classic and contemporary, well-known and refreshingly new, including:

• Dana Gioia expresses the hunger of a "Vampire's Serenade"
• Elizabeth Alexander waits for that second kiss in "Zodiac"
• Langston Hughes flings his arms wide in "Dream Variations"
• Marilyn Nelson reads to her class in "How I Discovered Poetry"
• Paul Muldoon's poem "Sideman," brought loudly to life by the band Rackett
• And 39 more!

Poetry Speaks Who I Am is dynamic, accessible, challenging, classic, edgy, and ultimately...not quite perfect. Just like you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781402210747
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	03/01/2010
Series:	A Poetry Speaks Experience
Edition description:	Book and CD
Pages:	161
Sales rank:	51,288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Elise Paschen is the editor of Poetry Speaks to Children and co-editor of Poetry Speaks, both New York Times bestsellers. She is the author of several acclaimed poetry collections of her own, including Bestiary and Infidelities, winner of the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Former Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America, she is the co-founder of Poetry in Motion, a nationwide program that places poetry in subways and buses, and co-editor of Poetry in Motion and Poetry in Motion from Coast to Coast.

Series Editor Dominique Raccah is founder, president, and publisher of Sourcebooks, a leading independent publisher outside of Chicago. Today Sourcebooks is the world's leading publisher of poetry in book-and-audio form, and also publishes nonfiction and fiction. Raccah was the initial visionary of the books Poetry Speaks, Poetry Speaks to Children and Hip Hop Speaks to Children, seeing them as interactive, engaging ways to experience spoken and written poetry. Advisory Editor Elizabeth Alexander is a poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher. Most recently, she composed and delivered "Praise Song for the Day" for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, also published as a book. She has published five books of poems, including The Venus Hottentot, Body of Life, and American Sublime, which was one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and was one of the American Library Association's "Notable Books of the Year." Advisory Editor Brad Leithauser is the author of five novels, a novel in verse, five volumes of poetry, a collection of light verse, and a book of essays. His poetry collections include Curves and Angles, The Odd Last Thing She Did, The Mail from Anywhere, Cats of the Temple, and Hundreds of Fireflies. Among his many awards and honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Grant, and a MacArthur Fellowship. Advisory Editor Joy Harjo's seven books of poetry include She Had Some Horses, The Woman Who Fell from the Sky, and How We Became Human. Her poetry has garnered many awards including a Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America.

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction:

This is not a poetry anthology for adults, for children, for classroom study, or for required memorization and recitation. It's made just for you.

When I was younger, I wish I had possessed an anthology like this one—a compilation that brings poetry to life through words and recordings. In grammar school, I memorized the poems I discovered in a favorite poetry anthology my parents had given me. In high school, after my British Literature teacher introduced me to the work of William Butler Yeats, I began to understand how to write a poem. But in middle school there were no poetry anthologies compiled just for students and poetry was not taught in class. So I gravitated toward poets of the past and read William Shakespeare's love sonnets, trying to imitate them. I had no idea that poets were alive and writing. This anthology attempts to fill that void by offering poems about subjects that might express what's on your mind.

Youth inspires poets. So when we asked poets to send poems either that were important to them at your age or that they'd written about being your age, we received hundreds of submissions. Many writers try to capture those moments you may be thinking about now as you step into a new world.

We strived to create an anthology where you can discover poems about the changes taking place in your life. We offer first kiss poems like "Zodiac" or "The Skokie Theatre." If you've ever stood in the outfield, waiting to catch a fly ball, check out "Baseball." There are some Bar Mitzvah poems called "33" and "49." Poems about changing bodies such as "Bra Shopping." Poems about the times you think you hate your mother as in "The Adversary" and poems about loving her such as "Dear Mama (4)." Poems about loneliness like Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night." We even have a "Vampire Serenade." There are poems about navigating the turbulence of friendship like "Caroline" or the riptides of your parents' marriage as in "Mediation." We have paired classic poems with contemporary poems, from John Keats to Toi Derricotte, so you can read how poets throughout the ages have mulled over the same subjects.

Some poems will help you catch your breath, others will let you slowly exhale. Many of the poets traveled to studios to record their poems for Poetry Speaks Who I Am. When you listen to the CD, you will hear the immediacy of their words and the nuance of expression, and you will be able to hear and perhaps understand the poem from the poet's perspective.

In seventh grade, my friends and I would get together at each other's houses, listening for long afternoons to our favorite records. Older siblings introduced us to Carly Simon, James Taylor, Carole King, and we would sit and talk and sometimes just sit and listen to the songs, memorizing each one, playing them over and over in our minds. Let's hope that these poem recordings touch that same nerve for you and that they hold the same power that music did. Throughout my life, whenever I read a book I often scribble down a draft of a poem in the back pages. In Poetry Speaks Who I Am, you will find pages at the end where you can write down your own thoughts. Maybe some of the poems in this anthology will stir you to write some poems of your own.

We hope you will find inspiring company with these poems and with these poets. As the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes: "Live a while in these books..." So live a while with these poems.
—Elise Paschen

Table of Contents

A Note from the Publisher xi

Introduction xiii

Poem titles/authors

Eternity Jason Shinder 1

Perhaps the World Ends Here Joy Harjo 2

Still I Rise Maya Angelou 4

Cinderella's Diary Ron Koertge 6

Vampire's Serenade Dana Gioia 7

Alone Edgar Allan Poe 8

Alone Siegfried Sassoon 9

Caroline Allison Joseph 10

"What are friends for…˝ Rosellen Brown 12

I Loved My Friend Langston Hughes 13

In the Fifth-Grade Locker Room Rebecca Lauren 14

Bra Shopping Parneshia Jones 16

Blood Charm Annie Finch 18

Pause Nikki Grimes 19

The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee N Scott Momaday 20

Indian Education Sherman Alexie 21

One Art Elizabeth Bishop 22

Here Arthur Sze 23

Haiku Sonia Sanchez 24

Good Girl Molly Peacock 25

Bad Boats Laura Jensen 26

No Images Waring Cuney 27

won't you celebrate with me Lucille Clifton 28

What I'm telling you Elizabeth Alexander 29

How I Learned to Sweep Julia Alvarez 30

Sonnet 130 William Shakespeare 32

Litany Billy Collins 33

A Teenage Couple Brad Leithauser 35

Free Period David Yezzi 36

Zodiac Elizabeth Alexander 38

The Skokie Theatre Edward Hirsch 39

Valentine Wendy Cope 41

An Angry Valentine Myra Cohn Livingston 42

What Great Grief Has Made the Empress Mute June Jordan 43

Mad Girl's Love Song Sylvia Plath 45

How We Heard the Name Alan Dugan 46

The Gladiator Kevin Prufer 47

Worth Marilyn Nelson 48

I Am A Black Gwendolyn Brooks 49

Lost Sister Cathy Song 51

Flash Cards Rita Dove 54

Arithmetic Carl Sandburg 55

Dream Variations Langston Hughes 56

Dreams Langston Hughes 57

Blackberry-picking Seamus Heaney 58

Manners Elizabeth Bishop 59

Mascara Elizabeth Spires 61

from For a Girl Becoming Joy Harjo 62

Every Day It Is Always There Rainy Ortiz 64

Dear Mama (4) Wanda Coleman 65

A Boy in a Bed in the Dark Brad Sachs 67

The Talk Sharon Olds 68

A Small Poem Calvin Forbes 69

Fears of the Eighth Grade Toi Derricotte 70

When I have fears that I may cease to be John Keats 71

Death of a Snowman Vernon Scannell 72

Oatmeal Galway Kinnell 73

Eating Poetry Mark Strand 75

The Bagel David Ignatow 76

Hope Is the Thing with Feathers Emily Dickinson77

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking Emily Dickinson 78

The Duke's castle John Fuller 79

Ozymandias Percy Bysshe Shelley 80

The Sacred Stephen Dunn 81

The Road Not Taken Robert Frost 82

Prowess Samuel Menashe 83

What We Might Be, What We Are X J Kennedy 84

Sideman Paul Muldoon 85

XVIII Oh, when I was in love with you A E Housman 87

Sometimes with One I Love Walt Whitman 88

In the Desert Stephen Crane 89

Annabel Lee Edgar Allan Poe 90

The Summer of Black Widows Sherman Alexie 92

Permanently Kenneth Koch 94

A Dog on His Master Billy Collins 95

Mowing Midge Goldberg 96

Seal William Jay Smith 97

Seahorses Brad Leithauser 98

So Far Naomi Shihab Nye 101

The Germ Ogden Nash 102

Baseball Bill Zavatsky 103

Poetry Slalom Mary Jo Salter 106

How I Discovered Poetry Marilyn Nelson 107

Used Book Shop X J Kennedy 108

The Survivor Marilyn Chin 110

New Clothes Kay Ryan 111

Mediation Kim Stafford 112

A Fable Louise Glück 113

Houses Nancy Willard 114

Snowmen Agha Shahid Ali 115

The Floral Apron Marilyn Chin 116

Abuelito Who Sandra Cisneros 117

Legacies Nikki Giovanni 118

Instead of Her Own Molly Peacock 119

Tia Chucha Luis J Rodriguez 120

The Adversary Phyllis McGinley 122

What Your Mother Tells You Now Mitsuy

Editorial Reviews

This addition to the Poetry Speaks series aims at middle-grade readers with more than 100 strikingly diverse poems by writers including Poe, Frost, Nikki Giovanni, and Sandra Cisneros. The works are slotted together in mindful thematic order, beside occasional spot art. In Rosellen Brown's untitled poem, she reflects, “Nothing. They are for nothing, friends,/ I think. All they do in the end—they touch you. They fill you like music.” Just opposite, is Langston Hughes's “I Loved My Friend”: “I loved my friend./ He went away from me./ There's nothing more to say./ The poem ends,/ Soft as it began—I loved my friend.” Pairing a contemporary poem like Toi Derricotte's “Fears of the Eighth Grade” alongside Keats's “When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be,” results in a refreshing lack of literary hierarchy that enables disparate works to build and reflect upon one another. An accompanying CD features recordings of 44 of the poems, and blank lined pages at the end allow readers to integrate their voices into the chorus. A sound and rewarding introduction to the joys of poetry. Ages 9–12. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Teen readers will find much to enjoy in "Poetry Speaks: Who I am…a highly eclectic collection of 100 poems about everything from valentines to being black to mowing the lawn." — Scripps News

"The power of spoken poetry is at the heart of Poetry Speaks. Poetry is a vocal art, an art meant to be read aloud. Listening to a poem read aloud can be a transforming experience. Poetry Speaks not only introduces the finest work from some of the greatest poets who ever lived, it reintroduces the oral tradition of poetry, of poetry performed." — Powells Books

"Poet Elise Paschen is turning her attention to yet another most universal of human experiences: awkward adolescence…[Paschen] can turn this subject into something that we can laugh about now." " — NPR

"Poetry Speaks Who I Am is the perfect book to introduce tweens & teens to Poetry… [Poetry Speaks Who I Am] also features blank pages in the back, where teens can write their own poetry. The book's design also speaks to younger readers — with the pages created to look like they belong in a teenager's notebook, with scribbles and doodles around the edges…This adds yet another dimension to the experience of poetry, which is sometimes considered a performance art more than anything else." — Portland Examiner

"Elise Paschen: poetry for teens caters to the rebel in each of us… So what if that happens to be written by some fancy-sounding napoetryme such as Percy Shelley or Paul Muldoon? So much the better." — Chicago Tribune

"This volume of verse is aimed at teenagers and is, not surprisingly, full of strong emotion... It's a standout collection, packaged with a CD of the poems read aloud, many by the poets themselves." — The New York Times

"An added bonus to Poetry Speaks Who I Am is that is comes with a CD of 47 poems being read by their authors or others. There’s something hypnotic about listening to poems being read, especially by the author, who knows where she intended emphasis and can add tone." — Reading Local: Portland

"Humorous, biting, tender, angry, confused—the range of moods and voices reflect those of young people themselves as they make and lose friends, fall in love, worry about school, hug (and hurt) parents and try to figure out their place in the world." — Washington Parent

"A sound and rewarding introduction to the joys of poetry." — Publishers Weekly

"Teen readers will find much to enjoy in "Poetry Speaks: Who I am"(Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, $19.99). Editor Elise Paschen asked poets to send poems either that were important to them as teenagers, or poems they had written themselves about being teenagers. The result is a highly eclectic collection of 100 poems about everything from valentines to being black to mowing the lawn." — The Seattle Times

"These clear and powerful readings add a welcome dimension and will no doubt enhance readers’ enjoyment of the collection. The design of the volume, with its funky typefaces and brightly colored cover, will also appeal to young teens. The final pages provide space for readers to add their own poems—a good idea, because after paging through this eclectic and powerful anthology many will indeed be inspired to take up the pen." — Kirkus Reviews

"The greatest contemporary poets speak to our youth and to us all. This marvelous anthology contains over 100 poems that matter, by such luminaries as Langston Hughes, Robert Frost and Edgar Allan Poe, to the greatest of our own lifetime: Nikki Grimes, Joy Harjo, Richard Wilbur, Jason Shinder, Nancy Willard, N. Scott Momaday and scores more. A rich experiential collection is featured on the included CD with 47 new, recent and archived recordings of the poets and editors reading their work! The look, feel and design of this volume is cool and relevant – just like the poetry. This gem is a gift of a lifetime." — National Parenting Publications Awards" — NAPPA

From the Publisher

"An added bonus to Poetry Speaks Who I Am is that is comes with a CD of 47 poems being read by their authors or others. There's something hypnotic about listening to poems being read, especially by the author, who knows where she intended emphasis and can add tone."

Reading Local: Portland

"An added bonus to Poetry Speaks Who I Am is that is comes with a CD of 47 poems being read by their authors or others. There's something hypnotic about listening to poems being read, especially by the author, who knows where she intended emphasis and can add tone."

Reading Local: Portland

"Poetry Speaks Who I Am is the perfect book to introduce tweens & teens to Poetry... [Poetry Speaks Who I Am] also features blank pages in the back, where teens can write their own poetry. The book's design also speaks to younger readers -- with the pages created to look like they belong in a teenager's notebook, with scribbles and doodles around the edges...This adds yet another dimension to the experience of poetry, which is sometimes considered a performance art more than anything else."

Portland Examiner

"The power of spoken poetry is at the heart of Poetry Speaks. Poetry is a vocal art, an art meant to be read aloud. Listening to a poem read aloud can be a transforming experience. Poetry Speaks not only introduces the finest work from some of the greatest poets who ever lived, it reintroduces the oral tradition of poetry, of poetry performed."

Powells Books

"Teen readers will find much to enjoy in "Poetry Speaks: Who I am...a highly eclectic collection of 100 poems about everything from valentines to being black to mowing the lawn."

Scripps News

"Humorous, biting, tender, angry, confused--the range of moods and voices reflect those of young people themselves as they make and lose friends, fall in love, worry about school, hug (and hurt) parents and try to figure out their place in the world."

Washington Parent

"Teen readers will find much to enjoy in "Poetry Speaks: Who I am"(Sourcebooks/Jabberwocky, $19.99). Editor Elise Paschen asked poets to send poems either that were important to them as teenagers, or poems they had written themselves about being teenagers. The result is a highly eclectic collection of 100 poems about everything from valentines to being black to mowing the lawn."

The Seattle Times

"Poet Elise Paschen is turning her attention to yet another most universal of human experiences: awkward adolescence...[Paschen] can turn this subject into something that we can laugh about now."

NPR

"This volume of verse is aimed at teenagers and is, not surprisingly, full of strong emotion... It's a standout collection, packaged with a CD of the poems read aloud, many by the poets themselves."

The New York Times

"Elise Paschen: poetry for teens caters to the rebel in each of us... So what if that poetry happens to be written by some fancy-sounding name such as Percy Shelley or Paul Muldoon? So much the better."

Chicago Tribune

Gr 6–10—This extraordinary collection is alive with pathos, sensitivity, humor, beauty, controversy, and insight. The more than 100 poems are by prize-winning authors and relative newcomers. Familiar classics and contemporary selections sing out with profound ideas and simple truths. To define "who I am," there are selections about racial and ethnic identity; about ordinary and lofty ideas; about love, friendship, and family connections. They exhibit compassion, confusion, and anger. The poems are at once personal and universal, each told in a voice that speaks candidly to the target audience. The accompanying CD includes readings by many of the poets, and some of them describe the inspiration for their work, creating an intriguing perspective and connection to the piece. Blank pages at the end of the book invite readers to compose selections of their own. The variety of poems could easily hook youngsters on the genre as a comforting, accessible art form. This special book will enrich poetry sections.—Renee Steinberg, formerly at Fieldstone Middle School, Montvale, NJ

School Library Journal

It's a standout collection, packaged with a CD of the poems read aloud, many by the poets themselves.
—The New York Times

Julie Just