Hi! Does anyone know a good poem for high school students?

[kcat]

Hi Everyone-
I'm new around here! I've been lurking around and I thought I would post.
I am looking for a poem that will reach out to high school age kids. Any idea? Any help would be greatly appritiated!!
Thank you!

[AbdoRinbo]

Hi Everyone-
I'm new around here! I've been lurking around and I thought I would post.
I am looking for a poem that will reach out to high school age kids. Any idea? Any help would be greatly appritiated!!
Thank you!

Choose your poet first. Lord Byron always compliments teenage-angst (he was like the Jim Morrison of the Romantic period). Give him a try. Keats is good too. Maybe Rimbaud, for the dedicated reader.

[Admin]

Anything by Eminem.

I'm serious. When I was in highschool one of the best poetry things we did was examin the poetry of Pink Floyd. (Learning to Fly specifically).

If you were teaching symbolism why not use Pearl Jam, their songs are full of it (Jeremy, Black, etc).

The point is that if you show kids Shakespeare or Donne or someone else they might not understand as easily as many of them might have a language barrier to get over. The English of Shakespeare's time is not the same English that is spoken today. So, as an introduction, I'd use something that kids can relate to easier. Plus it makes poetry cool.

To most highschool kids I'd gather that poetry is lame, and writing music is cool. Of course we know that they're pretty much the same thing.

[den]

Mr. Admin has a great point in using contemporary poetry/music as initial study of poetry. In grade 5, the first `poem' I was ever exposed to study was Spread Your Wings by Queen, and it really turned me on looking deep between the lines and catching the essense of lyricism and symbolism.

Of course we listened to the song over and over, and how cool was that? I'll never forget Mrs. McPhee.

[den]

Oh yeah, so maybe Queen isn't current anymore, but I'd vote for Eddie Vedder too, he's an amazing writer, and a lot of people can relate to his words, even if they don't like his music. But how could they not? :P

[AbdoRinbo]

Evenflow . . . like butterflies . . . wtf?

[AbdoRinbo]

What does that mean?