Good Idea.....Or No?

I have some advice, don't do the f-ed up capitalization thing. It hurts my head when I read it. I mEaN, hOw Is ThIs NoT hArD tO rEaD aNd TyPe? Have I been a big enough jerk yet? Probably, so here's my advice: nope. I think fiction and poetry are two way different things. Very different, which is why Twilight and Harry Potter can work, and something that you guys are shooting for, which sounds along the lines of those two, probably wouldn't. When I was a teenager, I read some great poets, Eliot, Bukowski, Ginsberg, and not one of them had a life I could relate to, yet for some reason their poetry struck such a cataclysmic nerve with me. It's not because they wrote about their parents not letting them stay out past midnight or the pretty girl in algebra class, but about loneliness, insanity, hatred, these large arching themes that came through so fluidly in their poetry even though the poems were about things I never experienced. Bukowski wrote a shit load of poems about being penniless and traveling across America doing odd jobs and drinking, something I wouldn't know a thing about or be able to survive doing, yet I could feel the loneliness, the sense of abandonment, the freeing nature of it. That kind of writing got me interested in poetry, and if I read something geared towards highschoolers, I would probably despise it on sight because I would feel talked down to. If you want to get teens interested in poetry, have them read Bukowski instead of the sickeningly overrated poetry that's assigned in junior year poetry sections, and if you want to make a buck off some kind of teen poetry niche (since you asked about agents and publishing companies right off the bat) then I think you're up shit's creek without a paddle. There's no money in poetry. Go to law school.

Also, try to write the best possible poetry you can without confining it to "teenagers" only. If it's good and the kid is smart, he/she will read it and love it. If it sucks, it could be all about some guy's prom date sleeping with his best friend and I still wouldn't give a shit (damn you Tyler).

Not to say there is no poetry for children that's good. Lewis Carroll could write most under a table, and proved so with The Walrus and The Carpenter. But teenagers are old enough to read poems for "adults," and making a concerted effort to write poems for kids in high school just sounds like trying to transform the Twilight craze into poetry form.

Bud, I'm not far out of high school, and poetry's not dying. Go to duotrope and look at how many poetry magazines are out there. Crazy stuff. And I know that I sound like a huge jerk, which is probably just the way I write (and talk), so let me address your concerns with my post.

1) I was talking about your username, which was rude of me and unnecessary. My apologies.

2) I understand you want to write poetry and not a story, but Twilight and Harry Potter and aimed at a younger audience, as is your poetry idea. That's the equivalency.

3) All the people I went to high school with who read poetry, read the old poets. I was in high school a few years ago, not 1972. People liked Frost, or Cummings, or Eliot, but they all liked someone, it wasn't until I got to college that I met people actually reading current poets. So I appreciate your advice, but if all of the people who read poetry in your school read current poets in small lit magazines, I would be shocked.

4) I don't want to get into a fight about this, that's just how I would feel. Personally. Not saying everyone would, just me.

5) As I said before, poetry's not dying.

So go ahead, write poetry to your heart's content, write it for all the teenagers out there, and I hope you post it here. I would love to get a chance to read it and be proven wrong.

I'm not getting into an argument about Twilight. If you want to write Twilight-level poetry, go ahead, and I wish you luck.

Edit: This is the second fight I've picked in as many days. I apologize to you, good people of the Absolute Write Poetry Section, and to you NeW WrItEr. And to you Seams, you know why. My argumentative tone and snappy sentences will be no more. And from now on, I love Robert Frost!

*NeW*WrItEr* said:

Yes, I agree teenagers are old enough to read poetry for adults, but that doesn't mean they will. Just like they are old enough to read books written for adults. But what do they read? Twilight. Impulse. Harry Potter. Evermore. They like teenagers books because they can relate to it. Why do many teens refuse to actually read and attempt at understanding poetry? Because it's not something they can relate to. My friends and I want to solve this problem.

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Some teenagers do, not all. I read Gone with the Wind in fifth grade. I read kids' books then too; I still do, because I refuse to let my age keep me away from a good book.

You can always try; my gut feel is that poetry books aimed at teenagers wlil sell roughly as well as poetry books aimed at adults, which is to say mostly not. I'd bet there are lots of teenagers reading poems online, though, a few at a time.

The other point is that I can still recite a lot of the poems I learned from fiction books at that time, like The Dark is Rising or Dragonsinger. They might not be great purely as poetry, but they were part of a story that resonated with me.

a good poem is a good poem regardless of age.

like many things, people will appreciate a well written poem when they are ready which might be young, might be old. imo if you try to write poetry for young people, it will end up being bad poetry which in the end does more harm than good.

Some poetry is ageless, some undying, but teenagers and the more loosely young have their modern poets nowadays in the more urban form of rap and hip-hop. That is culture based, however, and also does not appeal to all. One question, how do you specify a demographic audience in your poetry without it becoming unnatural and forced...could I write poetry if I geared toward a goal rather than just expressing myself?

I wonder...

I teach a poetry elective at the high school level, and the class is full with a waiting list. Certainly not all high school students like poetry, and sometimes it seems like more like to write it than to read it...which doesn't bode well for selling books of poetry.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0763634379/?tag=absolutewritedm-20

Hopefully that link works, I found about 20 compilations of books of poetry by teens for teens on Amazon. I remembered that one cause it had the same release date as Handcuffs.

I just bought a biography of the romantic poets, Wildly Romantic, that was aimed at teens, so somebody thinks teens read poetry.

Kborsden makes a very good point - gearing poetry towards a set goal could well hinder what you write. It certainly does with me - whenever I tried to fit a poem to a set form (i.e. villanelle), or subject, it just failed miserably. Because I was trying too hard.

I think your idea's a great one though, and wish you all the best for it.

Having said that, I am now going to contradict myself as I personally dislike the outside world dictating what is / is not geared towards my age-range; and if I was a teenager, would purposefully not purchase a book of poems aimed at teenagers for that very reason: Rebellion. But that is just me.

*NeW*WrItEr* said:

Yes, I agree teenagers are old enough to read poetry for adults, but that doesn't mean they will. Just like they are old enough to read books written for adults. But what do they read? Twilight. Impulse. Harry Potter. Evermore. They like teenagers books because they can relate to it. Why do many teens refuse to actually read and attempt at understanding poetry? Because it's not something they can relate to. My friends and I want to solve this problem.

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Poetry to me is an expression of one’s emotion.
You should write from your soul which can capture all audience.
Why sell yourself short by targeting only one particular age group?
Write for the world to experience your work.
You can also target teenagers by marketing/or reading your books at the schools and public Libraries.
Don’t waist too much time on this …just write.

Best wishes

TooJoyful00 said:

Poetry to me is an expression of one’s emotion.
You should write from your soul which can capture all audience.
Why sell yourself short by targeting only one particular age group?
Write for the world to experience your work.
You can also target teenagers by marketing/or reading your books at the schools and public Libraries.
Don’t waist too much time on this …just write.

Best wishes

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I agree with this user. Whenever I write for someone else, it comes off sounding very unnatural, rushed. It's also not enjoyable. Writing is a completely selfish thing, and I'm okay with that. You can't ever write for someone else (well, you can, it just may not sound as good.) If you are concerned about poetry being a dying art, why not organize a poetry club at school?

Idkwiaowiw said:

Writing is a completely selfish thing.

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Here, here...finally someone else who agrees - first and foremost write for yourself. It may not be great, but if you got out what you needed to, so be it. Pruning and catering for others always leaves a flat and empty work, and a rather nasty taste in the mouth. I work with 'problem kids' ot the YMCA, kids that can't go to proper schools anymore for whatever reason, angry, alienated and misunderstood kids. Their poetry, although not alway academically perfect, is truely amazing and expressive stuff - mostly written, again, because they had something they needed to say - for themselves thus...and all the better for it.