Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-201) and index.
Contents:
"The Busy Clock" : Poetry and the Time of Youth -- "To bloom in its own time": Gwendolyn Brooks and the Poetic Vision of Very Young Poets -- "My future doesn't know / ME": Young Poets and Dynamic Temporality in Salting the Ocean: 100 Poems by Young Poets -- "My sole desire is to move someone through poetry, and allow for my voice to be heard": Young Poets, Children's Rights, and the Rattle Young Poets Anthology -- "We Speak to be Heard": June Jordan, Terri Bush, and The Voice of the Children -- Conclusion: "Poems are voiceprints of language".
Summary:
"Poems written by children are not typically part of the literary canon. Because of cultural biases that frame young people as intellectually and artistically immature, these works are often excluded or dismissed as juvenilia. Rachel Conrad contends that youth-composed poems should be read as literary works in their own right--works that are deserving of greater respect in literary culture. Time for Childhoods presents a selection of striking twentieth- and twenty-first-century American poetry written by young people, and highlights how young poets imagined and shaped time for their own poetic purposes. Through close engagement with archival materials, as well as select interviews and correspondence with adult mentors, Conrad discerns how young writers figured social realities and political and racial injustices, and discusses what important advocates such as Gwendolyn Brooks and June Jordan can teach us about supporting the agency of young poets. This essential study demonstrates that young poets have much to contribute to ongoing conversations about time and power"-- Provided by publisher.
Series:
Childhoods: interdisciplinary perspectives on children and youth
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.