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From the Norton Anthology of Teen Poetry

Hwæt! Mid wætan bestemed.
Mihte feondas gefyllan, hwæðre ic fæste stod.
- From Morning Rood, Saxon, author unknown

Whanne that April with his shoures sote,
With a Prince of Wales I'll have perced my rote.
- Geoff Chaucer, age 15

At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal School at St. Paul's,
A locker-room horrible, on all sides round
Hordes by hormones flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather sulphuous stench,
Serv'd onely to discover sights of woe,
Asses whipped by Adamantine towels.
- John Milton, 1621, age 13

And Mother, how can you say
Is that Laudanum on your breath?
Like a spider and its prey
Your web confines me as death.
- Billy Blake, 1772, age 15

The grey seat and the long black side;
And the half-dead mares bellow and blow;
Veronica's bored and half asleep,
She says, "Your barouche makes my heart leap,
This creaky contraption is painfully slow."
The landau's all dad will let me drive.
- Bob Browning, 1829, age 17

Mother, you can't hold water in a sieve, --
What purpose my birth if not to live?
And so, tonight to the vicar's ball,
Only ten petticoats will I wear in all.
- from Cloth Upon Cloth, Lizzy Barrett, 1820 , age 14

The apparition of your face upon my plow;
Lick the petals off my wet, black bough.
- In a bathroom stall in a station of the metro, Ezra Pound, 1902, age 17

 


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"So I says to her I says, 'I don't care if it just cut off your only remaining hand, get back to work!' Kids these days!"