Poems for a 15 year old

[PavlovtheCat]

my niece in USA is completing an assignment in which she has to talk about 15 poems. She is struggling because she states she does not like poetry.

What poems would you recommend she read for this age group, some classics, some modern, some that might link her english and american heritage even.

Dh has come up with This Be The Verse by Larkin - of course he has! his brother/niece's dad is overjoyed

I am no good with poems really. the ones i like are too dark i think!

How about Robert Frost either The Road not taken or stopping by woods on a snowy evening.

When I was a child I loved 'The Listeners' by Walter de la mare. Dh says America by Allen Ginsberg but it does have strong language.

Keats, Ode to a Nightingale and W B Yeats Stolen Child are other options.

I think strong language is ok, if it is in context and shows the poem was picked with understanding and some thought, rather than just because it was explicit. At least that was DHs explanation of the Larkin one with its famous first line!

I shall go take a look at it, and the others mentioned, thank you!

found this on BBC website which may give you some more ideas

excellent, i just emailed her that link

Prob short ones would be good. And emotional ones, she's 15 after all.

short:
Catullus, Odi et Amo
Adrian Mitchell, Celia
William Carlos Williams, This is just to say (the 'plums in the icebox' poem)
Shakespeare: Full Fathom Five

emotional:
Sylvia Plath, The applicant
I'd agree with Ode to a Nightingale, but it's sooooo long

thanks joan will look at those and talk to her about them too, agree wth short, anything longer and she will switch off!

Where to start?

Ok, well Shakespeare, take a sonnet. My mistress eyes are nothing like the sun, it is not hard to understand.

Jerusalem by Blake, ( and did those feet), or else The Tiger.

I think ogden nash is master of the short nonsense verse, but also in that vein Dorothy parker, how about one perfect rose? Another poem about love to contrast with the shakespeare.

Utterly agree williams' plums. How about e e cummimgs, such as next to of course god ?

Story poems, the listeners, the journey of the magi by Elliott, the ride of Paul revere.

Leonard Cohen?

Something by Benjamin Zephaniah to show a difference in style?

If she hasn't already tell her to watch Dead Poets Society - that was the film that sparked my love for poetry!

Tennyson - Ulysses, Tithonus, Mariana
Christina Rossetti - Cousin Kate, Goblin Market
Carol Ann Duffy (bit more modern and very angsty I feel) - Valentine, Hour, Elvis' Twin Sister (although am bias cause I love Elvis!)
Seamus Heaney - Digging, Death of a Naturalist, Blackberry Picking, Mid-term Break

Oh and Sylvia Plath!!

My faves of hers are:

Blackberrying
Lady Lazarus
Tulips
Poppies in July
Jilted
Family Reunion

I would say look at Carol Ann Duffy, Plath and Heaney, too.
WHat about the war poets? Owen, Sasson, Rosenburg all wrote moving poems about their experiences.
And from a female perspective, Teresa Hooley's 'A War Film' makes my hair stand on end every single time.

She should try Gez Walsh. He has written some mighty emotional epics such as 'don't wee in the bath Terry' and 'The spot on my bum'.

Poems which appealed to my teenage self:

Stevie Smith
Leo Marks

Roman Wall Blues - WH Auden.

Carol Ann Duffy: Warming her Pearls
Shakespeare: When in Disgrace with Fortune (v teenage angsty)
Roger McGough: Summer with Monika
Robert Frost - Fences
Louis MacNiece: Prayer of the Unborn Child
Keats: Bright Star
Robert Browning: My Last Duchess or Porphyria's Lover
Simon Armitage: Book of Matches

It does sort of depend on how easy your niece finds English.

Some of the ones suggested e.g 'My Last Duchess' are very difficult.

Shakespeare's sonnets are easier for cultural heritage and Emily Dickinson is good for American heritage (and they are quite short) . Simon Armitage is also very popular amongst the teens I teach. There is an amazing one called 'The convergence of the twain' about 9/11.
I agree on Zephaniah though she may have trouble with the London/Caribbean dialect and there aren't any study guides.

It sounds like a difficult assignment if she is supposed to find and analyse the poems herself.

Try Metaphors by Sylvia Plath - I love that one, so clever.

Sophie Hannah Your Dad Did What.

Refugee Blues WH Auden.

John Agarde Half Caste.

Stevie Smith Not Waving but Drowning.

What's her focus in the assignment?

Wendy Cope has done some great humorous poetry. Not sure she culd get away with Bloody men are like bloody buses though... :)

When I was about that age (and still) I loved the poem "When You Go" by Edwin Morgan.

It appealed to my teenage fondness for doomed romance

Seamus Heaney Mid Term Break, very simple but very sad.
Lady of Shalott by Tennyson.
Any Grace Nicholls poem.
Little boy lost/found by Blake.

Isn't Mid-term break absolutely heart wrenching Aphra?

Yes but I think it's a good one for young people because it's moving without being fussy or stuffy.

How about "He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by WB Yeats as a short romantic poem
I agree about the Heaney the line "A four foot box,a foot for every year" makes my blood run cold.
Carol Ann Duffy's "Valentine" is good too..."I give you an onion"

I agree with Robert Frost. I loved TS Eliot at 15, and John Betjeman.

Or what about some John Hegley ?!

I loved The Lady of Shalott at this age. We also studied a poem at school called "First Love" by Mary Dorcey which really moved me as a GCSE student when I first read it and it still makes me cry today!