Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

Let the Old Poems Die: Contemporary Poems are Here to Stay

9/1/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
by Amanda Spadel

I didn’t always enjoy reading poetry the way I do now. There was a point in time when all I was interested in reading was fiction novels--especially when I first started having an interest in reading stories as a kid. Series such as Goosebumps, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Harry Potter intrigued my initial interest in reading fiction for young adults—particularly suspense and science fiction stories. But in recent years, I’ve become a frequent poetry reader too. Actually, I’ve decided that poetry holds the same meaningful impact that longer stories do, if not more. 
​

In my opinion, the meaning in poetry can hold even more weight to young readers, especially if they don’t already avidly read. I’m not talking about introducing more traditional poems to young readers and have them relive the high school torment of figuring out a Shakespearean sonnet. Young readers should read more contemporary poetry because it’s current, most likely more relevant to their lives, and more importantly, a lot of contemporary poems seem more personal and transferable to audiences in today’s world where we are all pressed for time.

The first and simplest reason why more young people should read more contemporary poetry is because it might spark an interest in their reading habits in general. Think of all the people you know personally who have told you they don’t read. We know they actually read, but what they mean is they likely find longer works of text a bit intimidating or too time consuming to even bother with. In our meme and gif filled timelines, it’s easy to see why. Most poetry is short in terms of length, which is inviting to someone who is turned off by huge blocks of text. It’s not uncommon for poets to play around with form as well, giving the page an intriguing look that other written works cannot replicate. Poetry can get the reading habit rolling, and if it’s a doorway into the reader considering longer works of writing too, then that’s another benefit. 

When poetry is introduced in public schools, students are already convinced that reading is boring and a waste of their time. It’s important that contemporary poetry is introduced along with the older works because the poems will be easier for students to follow who traditionally don’t read much—and especially do not read poetry. Thinking back to my grade school years, I was introduced to poetry formally around middle school when one of my English teachers showed us how to write a haiku. I remember it being a short lesson and after it was done, it wasn’t really mentioned again. Then of course in high school, we read Shakespeare’s plays—not too much of his poetry though. It wasn’t until early in college I remember taking an American Literature class that spent a decent amount of time covering poetry. But, in all honesty, most of that poetry was boring. If contemporary poetry was also introduced, maybe it would have stuck to me earlier on. So maybe the problem is that there aren’t enough ways contemporary poetry makes its way into our lives. 

It took some serious hunting, but I found A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein on an old bookshelf in the storage room—where we keep all the old things. Flipping through now, I remember the short funny little poems and illustrations from my childhood, but I had to have this book now only because one of my parents bought it for me when I was really young. Since poetry wasn’t really taught in my school, I guess it just fell off my radar completely as a reader.    

It wasn’t until I saw a video shared by Button Poetry a couple of years back that really intrigued my interest in poetry as an adult. When I followed their page, saw more content, branched out for more poetry sources, I found myself both reading more poetry and watching more performances. Hearing a really good poem might encourage someone to actively read more poetry—or at least attend more poetry slams. I’d say that’s how it happened to me. Write About Now Poetry is another good source for both slam poetry videos and poetry posts--usually relating to easily transferable issues related to personal mental health, social interactions, and unique self-expression. 

Which leads me to another reason why it's so important for younger audiences to read contemporary poetry—because a lot of contemporary poetry deals with themes involving mental health awareness and personal stories involving mental health. It's no secret that younger audiences struggle with mental health including depression, anxiety, PTSD, sleep disorders, and dealing with their social adjustments. Young audiences have a lot they can relate to. Another common motif in contemporary poetry is self-acceptance which is another aspect of life young adults may struggle with. Poetry can be an outlet—both reading and writing. 

There have already been numerous studies conducted to discover the correlations between artists and mental health. Mental health tends to decrease as creativity increases. But as artists/writers/poets, we know that creating and witnessing strong and successful art helps to ease the mind of the illness as well. Reading or even listening to a powerful poem that you can relate to your own life is a meaningful experience for a poetry reader—especially if it can create some sense of validation and understanding that is often appreciated by younger audiences. The best part about reading poetry is that it’s mostly subjective, so a reader can derive multiple meanings from one poem. Even if it’s not the intended message of the author, if the poem does something special for the reader, that’s all that matters. 
​

With open minds, young readers can significantly benefit from reading more contemporary poetry. It needs to be introduced sooner—either in households or in schools—in order to build that sense of interest early on. And if the interest in reading sticks, well, then we have done our job. 
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    September 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    September 2015
    August 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    October 2014
    April 2014
    January 2014
    March 2013
    February 2013


    Categories

    All
    Art
    Audio
    Bestseller
    Bibliotherapy
    Books
    Bookstores
    Career
    Cartoons
    Censorship
    Characters
    Cliche
    Code-switching
    Comedy
    Comics
    Controversy
    Culture
    Dyslexia
    Dystopian
    E-books
    Editorial
    Education
    Emoji
    Encyclopedia
    English
    Facebook
    Fandom
    Fanfiction
    Fantasy
    Fiction
    Film
    Future
    Gamebooks
    Gender
    Genre
    Google
    Grammar
    Habits
    Halloween
    Health
    Identity
    Journaling
    Kinesthetic Learning
    Language
    LGBTQ
    Library
    Literacy
    Literature
    Manga
    Marginalia
    Media
    Mental Health
    Multimodal
    Music
    New Media
    New York Times Best Seller List
    Nihilism
    Nonfiction
    Normalcy
    Nostalgia
    Obscenity
    Op Ed
    Opinion
    Pandemic
    Podcast
    Poetry
    Politics
    Process
    Pronouns
    Publishing
    Race
    Reading
    Rebuttal
    Research
    Rhetoric
    Rules
    Science Fiction
    Search
    Self-publishing
    Sequels
    Series
    Sexism
    Social Media
    Spoken Word
    Sports
    Standards
    Storytelling
    Student Writing
    Superheroes
    Teaching
    Technology
    Television
    The New York Times
    Trigger Warnings
    Trilogy
    Video Games
    Visual Novel
    War
    Wikipedia
    Workshop
    Writing
    Young Adult
    Zines


    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks
Photos used under Creative Commons from RomitaGirl67, ** RCB **, George Fox Evangelical Seminary