Monday Quotes: YA Books in Verse

April is National Poetry Month, so we wanted to highlight YA books in verse this week. I know some readers are hesitant to read books in verse, but in my experience they’re wonderful, poignant, and so descriptive. I hope you’ll read this quotes and be inspired to give books in verse a try, especially if you haven’t read one recently! Read more about National Poetry Month here.

Maybe love is like
a monsoon rain.
When it rains
really hard and heavy,
it seems like
it will never end
and we’ll swim in mud
forever.

But then the wind shifts
and the earth grows
dry and cracked.
Every gurgle and ooze
tiptoes away
and we’re left wishing
and waiting
for rain again.

Maybe love is like that.
Maybe the wind shifts
and love just tiptoes away.

THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET by Sandra Cisneros

When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.

——————-

Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake.

LOVE & LEFTOVERS by Sarah Tregay

Your arms ache to hold someone —
you move in slow motion from one hug to the next
so you won’t jostle the warm feeling off your shoulders
before the next hug comes your way.
Your heart feels hollow —
that emptiness screams like an addiction to be filled
even if it means doing hurtful, selfish things
to get a fix.
“I understand,”
I tell him. “Because
I’ve been lonely, too.”

——————-

Do you hate the person
who tapped the first domino down?
Or do you hate the domino
for not standing up for itself?
And if you are the second domino,
and you get toppled, do you hate yourself?”

THE SOUND OF LETTING GO by Stasia Ward Kehoe

The tips of my overgrown bangs
dip into the wet of my tears.
My fingers, forehead, moisten with sweat.
I fight the slipperiness, press the valves firmly,
play the love, the hate,
the misery, the hope,
the freedom that I wanted, never wanted, can’t have;
that doesn’t exist.

——————-

I’ve a long time trying to love
a brother whose only way of touching me is pain.
A long time escaping into music.
Practice, lessons, rehearsals that protect me
from the hurting parts of life.
I’ve been winning awards, applause,
acclaim for my trumpets since I was in grade school.

But love?
The word catches in my throat.
Do I love anything?
Have i forgotten how?

UNDER THE MESQUITE by Guadalupe Garcia-McCall

And the pomegranates,/
like memories, are bittersweet/
as we huddle together,/
remembering just how good/
life used to be

——————-

And I doubted los girasoles

would understand me anymore,

because now I was speaking

a different language.

I swallowed consonants

and burdened vowels with a sound

so dense, the works fell straight

out of my mouth and hit the ground

before they could reach the river’s edge.

 

Comments

comments