Library Ninja

Hello again, everyone! :) Well, since it's National Poetry Month, I just wanted to share a sampling of my favorite quotes from some of the best YA poetry the Arlingotn Public Library has to offer. If you find something that tickles your fancy or sings to your soul, just click on the title and a new catalog window will pop-up where you can place the book of your choice on hold. (Just make sure you have your library card and know your password.)

She smiles to herself
and she is warm
and she is rain
and I lean into the weather
~ Jerry Quickley, Slam ~

What she doesn’t know would hurt her.
My mother and I look in the mirror together.
It’s a pity we see two different images.
~ Mel Glenn, Split Image ~

Oh, I know the names they call me-
Snob, Ice Princess, Tease, and worse-
But I can’t hear them above the whine of the tires.
I am thirty miles out of town in a second.
I am flying with the wind, trying to catch up.
~ Mel Glenn, Foreign Exchange ~

And then I think: too late now,
man. We couldn’t stop if we
wanted to.
~ Ron Koertge, The Brimstone Journals ~

It was then I realized I was hurting
Not only myself, but my team as well.
In the silent argument between us,
It was Coach with no words to say
Who had spoken loudest of all.
~ Mel Glenn, Jump Ball ~

“Let’s change places,” the teenagers said.
“For a week, I’ll be you and you be me.”
Knowing if they did, they could never fight again.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye, 19 Varieties of Gazelle ~

My poetry doesn’t sing the song of the sonnets, but then
I sing a different kind of music-
Which is what it’s all about anyway.
~ Angela Johnson, The Other Side ~

Sometimes you wonder if they care.
But when you mess up-WOOOMPH!-
they’re there, like air bags,
in your face.
~ Janet s. Wong, Behind the Wheel ~

Somewhere before the end,
Somewhere between childhood and adulthood,
I lost you.
~ Mel Glenn, The Taking of Room 114 ~

Together we are looking up
into all we do not own
and we are listening.
~ Naomi Shihab Nye, A Maze Me ~

You curl your hair and paint your face; not I;
I am curled by the wind and painted by the sun.
~ Julia de Burgos, Truth and Lies ~

Música es: el susurro de los vientos el
oleaje de las olas el suspirar de los tiempos
y el escuchar de los lamentos.
~ Moisés Reyes, Movin’ ~

Discreetly you slip inside
and listen, silent,
to their hysteria.
~ Cynthia Rylant, Boris ~

Girls buy the image,
die to be it.
I’ll die
before I live it.
~ Amber Tamblyn, Free Stallion ~

and they took me, melted my spirit
and squeezed until i was drained
morphing my frame
into a hollow lyric
~ Biko Eisen-Martin, You Hear Me ~

The secret of life, he said,
is love. You become what you lose.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian, What Have You Lost ~

Far beyond our monthly
tides and willful moon,
light years cut a path
to other embryos.
~ Christine Hemp, Seeing the Blue Between ~

Sometimes it seems like it don’t matter
if you lie or tell the truth.
People pick out what they want to believe—
All you can do is hope they pick
the things that count.
~ Helen Frost, Keesha’s House ~

It’s all completely different now
I been broken off,
Like part of her bad past.
~ Virginia Euwer Wolff, Make Lemonade ~

Everybody smiling at the camera but
me. I’m looking away from it
frowning
Like I see something coming
that ain’t good.
~ Jacqueline Woodson, Locomotion ~

Everything in my world
is relentless. Except you.
~ Eireann Corrigan, You Remind Me of You ~

I wish my words
were smoke
he could breathe in
then he would
know.
~ Ann Turner, Learning to Swim ~

But what kind of life is it
When the only sound you hear
Is the bass drum beating of your own heart?
~ Mel Glenn, Who Killed Mr. Chippendale? ~

Buddah told Him it
could be this way,
but He’d never really
believed it until now.
Life really was easier,
sitting under a tree.
~ Cynthia Rylant, God Went to Beauty School ~

I don’t want to see you.
I dread it.
There.
I’ve said it.
~ Sonya Sones, Stop Pretending ~

Zombies—
I can deal with
Now what about my
“friends”?
~ Shannon Kerner, The Pain Tree ~

You walk into class—
my head clears.
No kidding.
You are my aspirin.
~ April Halprin Wayland, girl coming in for a landing ~

A world of things only. Broken things.
Things and bodies. Swirl around me.
Bodies in iron scraps. The scream breaks
them, fuses them, melts them.
~ Juan Felipe Herrera, CrashBoomLove ~

And if this
was a scene in a movie,
it would definitely be the sappy montage.
~ Sonya Sones, What My Mother Doesn’t Know ~

my friend and i
got caught in a storm
with tears for rain
and shouts for thunder
~ Melissa Leigh Davis, Things I Have to Tell You ~

Listen: you’ve got to
root it out,
laugh last, push past,
pursue. Be you—
whoever that is—
dream intact.
And don’t look back.
~ Nikki Grimes, Bronx Masquerade ~

I sat alone on the steps,
The light too dim for reading,
Glad to remain twilight-hidden
~ Robert Cormier, Frenchtown Summer ~

Okay, that's it for this time around. I hope y'all find something you like! :)