The thing about poetry is it's best to let the kids' creative side come out and forget about the "judge" in everyone. students and teachers, for a while.   If the work needs grades, use rubrics.   I have a whole chapter about that in CONVERSATIONS WITH A POET.

I have a whole chapter about the "judge," too.   I mean, we all have one, even teachers, when teachers try to write.   I say, tell "the judge" to take a nap while the writing is going on.  Incidentally, the writers and readers in my anthologies have told me that they were never the same after writing honestly about what they have to say, or reading honest writing.   I think it gives them a sense that they're heard and that they aren't alone.   The boys by the way write the most vulnerable poetry and the girls write the most angry, not the other way around.

On a similar subject, I write young adult novels and those novels, such as METAMORPHOSIS, coming out in October, have poetry in them.

Metamorphosis is actually prose interlaced with poetry.   I have high school students read and make suggestions on my YA novels and I listen.   They were the consultants when I did my teen-written anthologies.   They know what they're talking about.   

So back to their writing:   When I compiled my anthology FALLING HARD, 100 love poems by teenagers, which incidentally got reviewed in the New York Times, I didn't think, "What do teenagers know about love?"   I thought, "I can't wait to see what they say." And they said plenty.   And it wasn't said through a filter the way some adult poets do it.   Their poems are gritty and funny and heart breaking and brutally honest.   And I love them.   And I got them published so everyone could hear them.

Ode to Her Skin

I want to walk out into the night
And cross the two streets
Between us.
I'll sneak into your room
And turn on every electric light.

Light will be everywhere, filling the corners,
From the ceiling, from your desk, up from the floor, beside your bed, out of the fishbowl,
Light, light, light, light dribbling down the walls and
Puddling into the folds of your warm blanket.

Then,
When I can look at you from every bright angle,
I'll find you a new name.
Something that fits close to the skin;
Smooth, sleek, low-cut-
Something, anything but
"beautiful-"

Tired, bruised-up "beautiful,"
Which has been dragged through the mud
By a thousand buffaloes in love.

                    Luke   M. Rickford, 17, Falling Hard

Jump. Don't Trip.
 
Lets jump to conclusions
Lay out all the expectations
Doubt each other from the start
Put up all our walls
Never open up
Let's try to forget were falling hard
Keep all our thoughts tied up
All our words at the back of our throats
Bite our tongues
Swallow the inevitable
Live for the days spent alone
Just us.
Pretending to be something were not
If only for a day
If only for a week
If only for a year
Let's take this one second at a time
Tread carefully
You don't stand a chance
If your going to take the fall
Jump.
Don't trip.
Make it count.
Do it with poise.
                Jessica C. Galente, 17, Falling Hard