Teen poems

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Summer in a Small Town

© Tony Hoagland

Yes, the young mothers are beautiful,
with all the self-acceptance of exhaustion,
still dazed from their great outpouring,
pushing their strollers along the public river walk.

Ode on the Facelifting of the "statue" of Liberty

Even as the sunne with purple-colourd face,
Had tane his last leaue of the weeping morne,
Rose-cheekt Adonis hied him to the chace,
Hunting he lou'd, but loue he laught to scorne,
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amaine vnto him,
And like a bold fac'd suter ginnes to woo him.

Cold Calls: War Music, Continued

© Christopher Logue

Take Quinamid
The son of a Dardanian astrologer
Who disregarded what his father said
And came to Troy in a taxi.

Now and then

© James Schuyler

for Kenward Elmslie

Up from the valley

October 1973

© John Betjeman

Last night I dreamed I ran through the streets of New York

Looking for help for you, Nicanor.

Laus Veneris

© Algernon Charles Swinburne

Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,
Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck
Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out;
Soft, and stung softly — fairer for a fleck.

The Scholar-Gipsy

© Matthew Arnold

Go, for they call you, shepherd, from the hill;

Go, shepherd, and untie the wattled cotes!

Hymn to Life

© James Schuyler

The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp

And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass

Tam O 'Shanter

© Robert Burns

This truth fand honest Tam o' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter:
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonie lasses.)

Middle-Aged Midwesterner at Waikiki Again

© John Logan

The surfers beautiful as men

can be

Three Teenage Girls: 1956 by Steve Orlen: American Life in Poetry #160 Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureat

© Ted Kooser

I've mentioned how important close observation is in composing a vivid poem. In this scene by Arizona poet, Steve Orlen, the details not only help us to see the girls clearly, but the last detail is loaded with suggestion. The poem closes with the car door shutting, and we readers are shut out of what will happen, though we can guess. Three Teenage Girls: 1956

Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri pants
And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins
Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing,
Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain,
The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out
Not looking at the cars going past.

Cozy Apologia

© Rita Dove

For Fred

I could pick anything and think of you—

Venus And Adonis

TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE HENRY WRIOTHESLY,
EARL OF SOUTHAMPTON, AND BARON OF TICHFIELD.
RIGHT HONORABLE,

Chrysalis

© Wole Soyinka

Corpses push up through thawing permafrost

as I scrape salmon skin off a pan at the sink;

How Spring Comes To Shasta Jim

I never seen no "red gods"; I dunno wot's a "lure";
But if it's sumpin' takin', then Spring has got it sure;
An' it doesn't need no Kiplins, ner yet no London Jacks,
To make up guff about it, w'ile settin' in their shacks.

Hugging the Jukebox

They’ve tried putting him to bed, but he sings in bed.
Even in Spanish—and he doesn’t speak Spanish!
Sings and screams, wants to go back to the jukebox.
O mama I was born with a trumpet in my throat
spent all these years tryin’ to cough it up …

Tristram And Iseult

Tristram. Is she not come? The messenger was sure
Prop me upon the pillows once again
Raise me, my page! this cannot long endure.
Christ, what a night! how the sleet whips the pane!
What lights will those out to the northward be?