Time You Let Me In: 25 Poets Under 25 was a book I discovered at the library earlier this year. The poems were selected by one of my poetry heroes, Naomi Shihab Nye. I pretty much have to own anything with her name on it. She's a gifted poet and, for my money, might be the best selector of poems for anthologies working today.
There are some wonderful poems within Time You Let Me In, most by poets you've probably never heard of--I know I hadn't.
Some of my favorites include "Photons" by Nicole Guenther, which has a glorious ending (I'm a sucker for poems with good endings), "foundling," a superb prose poem by Matthew Baker, and "Rootless" by Michelle Brittan, an excellent poem about much more than mung bean sprouts. You also will enjoy Baker's "Ode to Poetry," a hilariously sarcastic poem that turns the ode form on its head, to say the least. My students certainly loved it, although I had to read them a slightly edited version.
I think this book would provide some very teachable poems for middle and high school teachers, although the poems listed above were thoroughly enjoyed by my fifth graders this spring.
Do you know this collection? Do you have a favorite among them or maybe another anthology I should be sure to get my hands on? Please let me know.
I am actually student teaching in a ninth grade class. We are doing our poetry unit, and I begin every lesson with a bell ringer - freewriting response to a selected poem. I am using several of the poems from this anthology. It is a gold mine!!!
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