“I’m trying to find ways to get students to be interested in (poetry). Because what I do find is that we’re so used to essay writing and short responses that it takes a minute to break us out of that habit,” Duenas said.
In seventh grade, Febvre-Attry was scrolling on TikTok when she came across Raegan Fordemwalt’s TikTok account. Fordemwalt is one of many poets who share and read their poetry on social media.
“TikTok really kinda helped me get into poetry … Now I love reading poetry. But I also think that it can also influence you into not reading at all because, like, there’s so many other things that push you away from reading … It depends on the way that your ‘for you page’ is built,” Febvre-Attry said.
After discovering Fordemwalt’s account, Febvre-Attry found more poets on TikTok and eventually bought their books, including her favorite book of poetry, “Lover Girl,” published by Fordemwalt in 2023. Her ninth grade English teacher, Julie Panebianco, gave her a book filled with recent works by female poets, which, as she put it, made her “even more excited to read more poetry.”
Febvre-Attry prefers newer and shorter poems, as she finds them more accessible than longer, confusing, and older poems. She also finds herself attracted to poems centered around mental health — often being poems that she can relate to. “I’m a very happy person, but I can also relate to very sad things. And so when poems get a little bit on the darker side, then you can see that there’s a way to get better,” Febvre-Attry said.
For Quintanilla, relatability is also an important aspect of his favorite poems. “My favorite types of poems are usually made by Latinos. It’s for the Latino community. Those are poems that I (can) relate to,” Quintanilla said. Perhaps, this desire for relatable text may be what makes poetry a more appealing genre to students than other forms of writing. Quintanilla explained, “Sometimes (poems) touch on simple topics that just mean a lot to you … maybe something others don’t understand.”
Febvre-Attry echoed that sentiment, “Poetry kind of gets straight to the point and you can really relate to it. The words that you are reading, they really cut deep. And a lot of poems that I’ve read, they really stick with me and a lot of books don’t have that same effect.”
All in all, both the students and Duenas find it unfortunate that not many of their peers enjoy poetry as much as they do. Febvre-Attry said, “I think that more people should be introduced to poetry … I used to think that poetry was really boring and really heavy and was just something that you learned in school. But then as I got older, I realized that there’s all types of poetry, and you can really find anything that you like.”
Duenas brings up the possiblity that people enjoy poetry more than they think or let on. She said, “Some people are super open about saying ‘I love poetry,’ but I think some people find it to be cheesy,” Duenas said.
Sharing poetry can also be extremely vulnerable for some people. As Quintanilla put it, “Reading other people’s (poetry) is like taking a look into their mind in a way.”