{"id":480,"date":"2026-06-25T14:41:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:41:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=480"},"modified":"2026-06-25T14:41:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T14:41:25","slug":"i-have-spent-the-past-6-months-reading-hundreds-of-poems-by-young-people-i-was-surprised-to-find-hope-not-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prorelocationteam.com\/?p=480","title":{"rendered":"I have spent the past 6 months reading hundreds of poems by young people \u2013 I was surprised to find hope, not\u00a0despair"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

If you\u2019ve read any commentary about younger people, none of the following statistics will surprise you. <\/p>\n

Read more The danger of US\u2011Iran ceasefire agreement is what it leaves\u00a0out<\/a><\/p>\n

Approximately 19% of Americans who are 12 to 19 years old are depressed \u2013 higher than any adult age group. Only about 58.5% of teens who are 12 to 17, meanwhile, say they consistently receive the emotional and social support they need. They often have little faith in institutions \u2013 be it the government or schools, or one another. And the average American child age 8 to 18 spends 7.5 hours a day watching or using screens.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, these statistics are understandable: Young people are facing a future shaped by climate anxiety, political extremism, economic instability and chronic loneliness.<\/p>\n

But those numbers may only be telling part of the story. <\/p>\n

I have spent the past six months reading hundreds of poems submitted by young writers age 10 to 21. In June 2026, we will publish an anthology of writing from 177 of these young people in the \u201c1455 Young Poets Anthology.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 300 young people submitted their poems to a nonprofit I run, called 1455 Storytelling Arts. The poets mostly come from the U.S., but nine other countries are represented. <\/p>\n

I continually found myself surprised, encouraged and inspired while reading their poetry. In a world that sometimes seems to reward the noisiest and the most aggressive, the wealthiest and the most selfish, these young poets understand something at once simple and profound that I think many adults have forgotten: Hope is not optimism. It\u2019s endurance. <\/p>\n

\u2018The only way through is through\u2019<\/h2>\n

For the young writers whose work crossed my desk, hoping for a better future seems to be both a personal and collective act of accountability. It\u2019s a refusal to accept a status quo in politics and other ways of life that might not work for some people. <\/p>\n

Again and again, young people submitted poems that wrestled with loneliness, fractured families, violence, identity, anxiety, grief and uncertainty. <\/p>\n

Layla Dwelle, age 15, confronts this tense atmosphere of information overload and anxiety, writing, \u201cI\u2019m tired of the cycle \/ I\u2019m tired of evil \/ I\u2019m tired of what is done \/ I\u2019m tired of what isn\u2019t.\u201d <\/p>\n

Yet many also revealed an unwillingness to surrender entirely to despair. Alicia Chow, age 14, writes, \u201cI realize the only way through is through \/ So I keep moving as defiance of loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

These poems acknowledge pain, but identify tenderness in the darker corners of life. They describe a world that has a soundtrack set on two extremes: chaos and silence. They grapple with real fear and insist that bearing witness to the world gives purpose and meaning to people\u2019s lives. <\/p>\n

These writers, in short, are not giving up \u2013 they are looking to create a future that revises the dysfunctional present, which they see as a work in progress.<\/p>\n

The titles of some poems speak volumes about the worlds and feelings these poems explore: \u201cSelf-Portrait as a Firefly,\u201d \u201cThe Cost of Rain,\u201d \u201cThe Ones Who Run,\u201d \u201cPrayer for a New Season,\u201d \u201cThe Grass That Grows in the Cracks\u201d and \u201cScars on Soul.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where reality meets urgency<\/h2>\n

What struck me most while editing this anthology was not the poets\u2019 honesty or vulnerability, though both of those qualities were present. <\/p>\n

Read more Pennsylvania coroners refuse to release autopsy reports \u2013 and that hinders research on deaths in\u00a0custody<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead, it was their maturity that really stood out. There\u2019s a focused seriousness present in their writing that combines political reality with a sense of urgency. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Emily Bennett, age 18, from her poem, \u201cFor the Love of the Sunk Cost Fallacy\u201d:<\/p>\n

Because,
\nnothing true aches forever.
\nAnd sometimes the bravest thing
\nyou can do is simply
\nopen your hands.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many of these young writers are trying to answer questions that adults themselves struggle with or avoid, including how to remain human in a culture that monetizes distraction.<\/p>\n

This is an issue the American writer Jenny Odell compellingly addresses in her 2019 book, \u201cHow to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy.\u201d Her thesis, simple yet radical, is that attention is people\u2019s most vital resource, and all people are being bombarded, 24\/7, with algorithmic strategies looking to distract and divide them. She astutely describes \u201cthe mindless traffic of information,\u201d which, not so coincidentally, is something poetry has always stood in quiet defiance of. <\/p>\n

The poems raise other questions. How do people care for one another without becoming uncomfortably numb to others\u2019 pain and suffering? How do people imagine and create a future while they are constantly reminded of growing inequality within many countries, and with the world\u2019s wealthiest people quickly growing richer?<\/p>\n

The fact that so many young people are still turning to poetry feels, to me, significant, if not momentous. <\/p>\n

Poetry is typically not a commercially rewarded art form. It obliges readers to slow down, sit with ambiguity and experience language in ways that plumb interior life. <\/p>\n

If today\u2019s algorithms reward speed, branding and certainty, poetry rewards reflection. This is the thesis of professor and Atlantic editor Walt Hunter\u2019s illuminating \u2013 and quite encouraging \u2013 recent article, \u201cStop Meeting Students Where They Are,\u201d which we recently discussed in detail on my podcast, \u201cSome Things Considered.\u201d<\/p>\n

Young Americans may not have given up after all<\/h2>\n

Younger people are not oblivious about the world\u2019s problems. The young poets I\u2019ve been reading see empathy not as weakness, but as a bold imperative to help make the world a kinder, more just place. <\/p>\n

I can hardly think of a better example than 16-year-old poet Dave Thompson\u2019s provocatively titled \u201cWhat if Jesus Was a Little Brown Boy in the USA\u201d:<\/p>\n

But you are here.
\nA little God walking to school,
\nstill foolish enough
\nstill holy enough
\nto believe love might mean
\nwhat it says.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As a podcaster and professor of storytelling, I can\u2019t count how many times I\u2019ve heard people my age or older lament that today\u2019s generation doesn\u2019t read or doesn\u2019t care. This issue comes up at almost every panel discussion I\u2019ve recently participated in.<\/p>\n

I think these kinds of assertions about young people are both simplistic and unhelpful. In some ways, while mental health is a real concern for young people, they are doing better than their predecessors in other ways. Youth arrest rates have been declining since the 1990s in the U.S., for example, and American high school students are more likely than ever to graduate. <\/p>\n

I think we should pay attention to some of the messages that these young poets are sending. We might even seek to emulate them.<\/p>\n

Read more How the US Supreme Court decides its cases \u2013 a step\u2011by\u2011step\u00a0guide<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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