Flashback: YA Poetry

The following collection of YA prose poems have been designed to inspire and promote literacy among adolescents via its layers of depth and context while offering a productive and positive outlet for maturing emotions. By harnessing these emotional and psychological forces, we can inspire adolescents to use reading and writing to find meaning in their lives. These poems provide young adults with themes that reflect the growing pains and types of coming-of-age experiences that they can relate to and that helps them to make sense of their world. As educators, we want our students to fall in love with reading and writing. We must recognize that literacy is another significant developmental need of young adults and that YA poetry helps to bridge the gap between children's stories and adult classics thereby allowing for a smoother transition. This collection of poetry means to challenge our students to self-reflect and develop their own unique connections with the text. Adolescents need to be made to laugh and cry about issues concerning them, issues treated seriously and respectfully. Teenagers are on a journey of self-discovery and they are still trying to figure out who they are. Their need for peer acceptance must be balanced by their need for individuality. The following collection of poems makes use of a YA voice that transcends time and addresses issues concerning young adults of any multicultural generation.