h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

On a lighter note, one sympton of teenage depresion is teenage poetry, which at the time you think expresses your true feelings and the best poetry in the world. Most should be burned when you turn 20. Only one poem I wrote in that period I still have and I still think it is good.

KF

how true. of course, some teens actually succeed in writing decent poetry, so i would caution any poets out there to WAIT till your 20 to decide what to burn and what to frame on your wall.

Maybe I am still a little immature, but I wrote a fair bit of poetry when I was a teenager and still have them all written in a book and I am 25. I even write poems now from time to time, but I guess they aren't meant as a mirror to the unexplainable terrors and haunting episodes of my life (age 13-19). I love them all even though some are really lame - maybe even because of the lameness of them.

I call it teen angst poetry. My friend came up with the phrase, and we've both used it. I've only written a few poems, perhaps one of which wasn't about my boyfriend and I still liked the second time I saw it.

Yeah, even the lame stuff I create always has a special place in my heart--_except_ my poetry. For some reason it always seems so lame to me that I usually give up on it a few lines in.

Of course some people go on to make money from it, anyone remember Tanika Tikaram? Oh the Gallagher brothers, Javis Cocker and in fact most of the Brit Pop Brat bunch.

KF

I can't quite imagine making a career of poetry. Not without being something else as well. I'd probably start writing epics. Poetry's fun, but just writing it would be like only eating carrots....

of course, if you love carrots, then it's a wonderful life. trust me, i know.

I do love carrots....but not THAT much.

Perhaps you'd like to examine other examples of teenage poetry?
On my web site, I've got about 20 poems that I've written starting in early '98 (Just after my first girlfriend, I wrote one during, but it has since been lost, although it has nothing to do with her) up to... a couple months ago. So from the ages of 14 to 17. About the center age for teenagers.

If you'd like to examine them, they're at http://w1k.cjb.net/ I haven't omitted one poem. (Even tho I've wanted to..)

Fair warning: Some poems do use expletives, although they are certainly used in moderation.

+ ode to a lost lover +

take my blood from my veins
take me into your soul
entangle me in your arms
lose me in your dreams
find me when you wake up beside me
take myself from you
make me yours
make me bleed make me cry
you made me smile

tell me to f**k off
make me cry again
like you do so well
cut my skin, peeling away the layers
try to make me feel
(i'm dead
i'm too dead for you
you can't understand my love
you don't understand my life
i'm invisible

curl up in my body
use my flesh as your clothes
i'll let your blood clot through my veins
i would die for you
but you wouldn't notice me gone

unravel our strands of hair
tangled together
soaking and shivering. shimmering
gleaming in your sweat
(tell me to f**k off now.
like you're so used to doing).
or promise me you won't.
(lie again)

smell me on your breath
feel me crawl up your skin
you don't feel me).
my heart beats for yours.
near yours.
as a art of yours.
it's an art, really.
your love for me.
(we all have different interpretations).

it's all the same thing though
a f*****g game
you'll always win because
i'll let you win
because i love you so f*****g much
and you'll never see
i can't see through my salty tears

feel the salt on my cheeks
he says the tears make me look like an angel
but you just ignore them
like you ignore my love.