Thirteen year old grandson wants a book of poetry...

December 10, 2024 8:18 PM

He's an avid reader, reads well beyond his years and has asked for a poetry book "Well, i like poetry books, maybe ones that are a bit deeper? Not just where the sidewalk ends and that sort of stuff" I'm thinking Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, like that. What can you recommend?
posted by lois1950 to Education (47 answers total)

Billy Collins?
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 8:30 PM on December 10, 2024 [11 favorites]

Nikki Giovanni
posted by Toddles at 8:34 PM on December 10, 2024 [6 favorites]

Ross Gay
posted by Missense Mutation at 8:38 PM on December 10, 2024 [4 favorites]

I'd recommend an anthology collecting several writers, along with a personal note in the frontispiece recommending some specific favorites. That way if some of the writers are misses, either because he's still too young or they're just not to his taste, some may still be hits.

For a thirteen year old I'd pitch Rudyard Kipling (If), Billy Collins (Marginalia), Adrienne Rich (Diving into the Wreck), Percy Shelley (Ozymandias), Dylan Thomas (Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night), W.H. Auden (September 1, 1939), Tennyson (Charge of the Light Brigade), Elizabeth Bishop (One Art), John Cooper Clarke.

If you're willing to throw in some darker stuff, which he will thrill to and which you can pretend not to realize was in there, I'd pitch W.B. Yeats (The Second Coming), Wilfred Owen (Dulce et Decorum Est), T.S. Elliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock), Sylvia Plath (Daddy), Philip Larkin (This Be the Verse).
posted by foursentences at 8:41 PM on December 10, 2024 [14 favorites]

Ovid's "Metamorphosis", especially the translation by Mandelbaum. The translation is exquisite, the intertwining mythology and poetry would give him a lovely foundation in Greek Mythology and its relation to psychology.

Lucretius "On the Nature of Things" a great writer, very poetic, and great for critical thinking as well.

Not strictly poetry, but Marcus Aurelius "The Mediations" offer really wonderful gems on critical thinking a code of ethics.

All of these writings are written in discreet passages, and worth returning to for reflection.
posted by effluvia at 9:11 PM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

When I was about that age, a little younger, I had a fully illustrated copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. I liked his trippy art.
posted by phunniemee at 9:22 PM on December 10, 2024 [13 favorites]

Coke Machine Glow
A book of poems by Gord Downie
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:27 PM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

Try a new edition of the best American poetry.
posted by BlahLaLa at 9:40 PM on December 10, 2024 [3 favorites]

The Rattlebag https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/shop/books/the-rattle-bag-an-anthology-of-poetry/ an amazing anthology of poems edited by Ted Hughes & Seamus Heaney - it covers a lot of ground in terms of period and style. I suspect if it was made now, it would include more work by women and non-western authors but it’s still a pretty wonderful book and definitely got me and my kids into a whole range of poetry.
posted by melisande at 10:31 PM on December 10, 2024 [10 favorites]

Button poetry
posted by Erinaceus europaeus at 11:43 PM on December 10, 2024 [1 favorite]

Pablo Neruda
posted by matildaben at 11:59 PM on December 10, 2024 [2 favorites]

At that age, I had a beautiful illustrated copy of Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner that I cherished. I still wonder what became of it.
posted by matkline at 1:31 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

“music is suffering made powerful
...now, again, poetry...”

[the fact of a doorframe]

grolier
posted by HearHere at 2:48 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

I fondly remember discovering E.E. Cummings at around that age.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 3:36 AM on December 11, 2024 [12 favorites]

Bukowski!
posted by InkaLomax at 4:15 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Walt Whitman. The first edition of Leaves of Grass (obviously get a reprint) contains all the hits; the final edition is too weighty.
posted by rikschell at 4:21 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

At that age I loved the Poetry Out Loud anthology, which has a great mix of authors and styles. This Amazon review captures the appeal handily.
posted by merriment at 5:18 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Amanda Gorman!
posted by humbug at 5:24 AM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]

This might be too much of a muchness, but I bet you could find a gently used copy of the Norton Anthology of Poetry for a reasonable price (choose a more recent edition for a wider variety of authors outside the usual English 101 canon, perhaps). When I was that age I loved BIG, "grownup" books with a bit of everything, and often used what I discovered there as a springboard into deeper reading. So maybe an anthology and then a date to go to a bookstore or library to add to his collection?
posted by notquitejane at 5:37 AM on December 11, 2024 [6 favorites]

I was also really into ee cummings around that age.
posted by wormtales at 5:54 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

I was also going to suggest a nice used Norton Anthology of Poetry, which I got for a dime once and kept my brain busy for a long while.

Also maybe Louise Glück or Richard Siken for contemporary poets? Maybe Billy Collins? Thom Gunn, The Man With the Night Sweats? Anne Carson's translations?

I am only tangentially a poetry enjoyer.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 6:20 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

There are some older collections that might be easier to get into than the brick-weight of the Norton Anthology, like "Other Men's Flowers" (1944) by A. P. Wavell (Goodreads page) or "Seven Ages: Poetry for a Lifetime" (1995) by David Owen (Goodreads page).

Admittedly these are both dominated by now-dead, White Englishmen, but the poems in them are mostly bangers.

I was an English major who didn't much enjoy poetry, and these helped ease me into it; I have broadened my taste since then, but these were a solid foundation.
posted by wenestvedt at 6:42 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Another vote for The Rattle Bag
posted by snarfois at 6:44 AM on December 11, 2024 [5 favorites]

Gutenberg has the five anthologies of Georgian poetry, from 1911-1912 to 1922. Admittedly these poems are by white British men – the fifth volume has some Vita Sackville-West pieces but I think she's the only woman – but artistically it's an interesting passage of time, bridging from the placid post-Edwardian era through World War I – the 1916-1917 volume has war poetry from Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and others – up to the brink of modernism.

Anyway, they're all free and worth a skim, at least.
posted by zadcat at 6:44 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Perrine's Sound and Sense serves as a good anthology that's not too big, and also does a wonderful job of explaining what makes a poem a poem. It's the book that made me fall in love with poetry. I was 18 and in AP English. Thirteen might be a bit young for it, but he can skim through it and read the poems, at least. He'll probably find some he likes. And over time if he reads some of the teaching parts he'll come away with an excellent education in the elements of poetry. It looks like the most recent edition (no longer written by Perrine) came out in 2017 and is extremely expensive if bought new. Older editions are available for less if you don't mind a used book. I can't say whether all the editions are equally good. I imagine the newer ones have more recent poetry and I wouldn't be surprised if the language has been dumbed down somewhat, which might not be bad for a 13 year old. I have the 6th edition and I can assure you that it's excellent.
posted by Redstart at 7:17 AM on December 11, 2024

This won't be out until May, but the anthology Poetry Is Not a Luxury is based on the Instagram account of the same name which collects small and crowd-pleasing (but genuinely good) poems by a range of authors—Ada Limon, Ross Gay, and Ilya Kaminsky are some Poetry Is Not a Luxury favorites that he might like. I also think you can't go wrong with W.B. Yeats, who I loved at that age—I was also into E.E. Cummings, Nikki Giovanni, and the very weird collection Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle. The benefit of a collection, and this one really delivered, is that it will probably contain not only poems he loves but poems he hates, and both are valuable information for developing your aesthetic sense.
posted by babelfish at 7:42 AM on December 11, 2024 [4 favorites]

– the fifth volume has some Vita Sackville-West pieces but I think she's the only woman –

hard pass on any earlier anthology that misses emily dickinson [gutenberg:]

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, —
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.

also, around that age, emily collects flowers [wordpress] if affordable for you, the facsimile of that work would be a marvelous addition to a growing library (or, include a flower press with a book of poetry?)

+ second nature of things? [g:]

“None of the things therefore which seem to be lost is utterly lost...”
posted by HearHere at 7:44 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

When he was poet laureate, Billy Collins did a project called Poetry 180, which was a poem-a-day sort of project. There is a website at the Library of Congress, but a book was also published.

It's an excellent anthology, with a wide diversity of styles, topics, and poets, but also, for the most part, quite accessible. I think it's a wonderful introduction, and it's a great book to dip in and out of looking for the things that speak to you. Very appropriate for a teenager.
posted by Well I never at 7:46 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Paul Laurence Dunbar published his first poems as a teenager.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-complete-poems-of-paul-laurence-dunbar-an-african-american-poet-novelist-and-playwright-in-the-late-19th-century-paul-laurence-dunbar/6970420?ean=9780359032013
posted by subwaytiles at 7:47 AM on December 11, 2024

You are Here: Poetry in the Natural World edited by Ada Limon (Poet Laureate of the US) is a marvelous volume of contemporary, diverse, extrordinary, accessible poets. The classics are great, but so is contemporary poetry!
posted by Pineapplicious at 7:51 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

If I Could Tell You
by W H Auden.
(I'd let you know)
posted by hortense at 8:16 AM on December 11, 2024

Souvankham Thammavongsa, Laotian-Canadian writer. She's an incredible poet. I really like her first 3 books, not as familiar with the fourth. Disclosure: I've known her for about 20 years (not well though)
posted by foxjacket at 8:38 AM on December 11, 2024

I can recommend an anthology from a few years ago, called A Book of Luminous Things, selected by Czeslaw Milosz. Even though it is not super new, it has a fairly diverse geographical and time range for the poets selected, and Milosz includes some short commentary I thought was useful.
posted by gudrun at 8:45 AM on December 11, 2024

Kwame Alexander! He has some books that are geared toward kids, but others that are for everyone. He often speaks about his process, so kiddo might be into hearing his pieces on NPR and elsewhere.
posted by annaramma at 8:50 AM on December 11, 2024

When I was that age, I liked high school poetry compilations.

I wasn't familiar with Ogden Nash yet, but I would have liked his work.
posted by ovvl at 9:22 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

Edgar Allan Poe, esp. The Bells and A Dream Within a Dream. And yeah, Billy Collins.
posted by Rash at 9:26 AM on December 11, 2024

I love Good Poems for Hard Times one of the anthologies with poems selected by Garrison Keillor. Full of beautiful and accessible poems that both soothe and stick with you.
posted by root of the root at 9:59 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Walt Witman, Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, e.e. Cummings...There were my favorites in middle and high school, and my jr. high students enjoyed them, too.
posted by I_love_the_rain at 11:57 AM on December 11, 2024

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes poetry-like books that might sate that desire for something that's a bit deeper.
posted by Mirth at 11:58 AM on December 11, 2024

Andrea Gibson! (I don't have much contact with kids, so maybe double check the appropriateness, but they've won some awards, and have a lot of videos around that you can watch to see/hear them read, too.)
posted by glorybe at 12:06 PM on December 11, 2024

I was only a couple of years older when my sister left her Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry behind on a trip home from college. That book changed my life and a lot of the people listed above were in it (that edition anyway). It was like a tour through something that was so vast and so fascinating and while I remember being baffled by a lot of it, I was excited to understand what I did not.
posted by spibeldrokkit at 2:09 PM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

Ocean Vuong's Time is the Mother does get pretty dark in places but has pathos that a 13-year-old might like.
posted by SinAesthetic at 3:41 PM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

The really short poems of A.R. Ammons are great
posted by umbú at 6:04 AM on December 12, 2024

Poetry Unbound is an excellent collection of 50 poems by a diverse array of poets with thoughtful commentary from the poet Pádraig Ó Tuama. The poems and essays are great in their own right but have also taught me a lot about how to read poems in general. It's a companion to the equally lovely podcast of the same name.
posted by oakroom at 3:25 PM on December 12, 2024

"The Rattle Bag" is great. There is an anthology for young people by Kenneth Koch called "Sleeping on the Wing" that might be good for a 13 yo., though it isn't all complete poems, if I remember right.
posted by Vegiemon at 4:42 PM on December 12, 2024

Can I put in a good word for Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf? Why read modern fantasy when you can get the real thing. And it is a good read, and accessible, and maybe 13 year old could move on to Heaney's own work.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 11:15 PM on December 12, 2024 [1 favorite]

I loved The Complete Poems of Carl Sandberg when I was that age. Accessible but deep, working class. You could start with ">Selected Poems.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:45 PM on December 13, 2024