2024 RYPA

by The Rattle Foundation, Timothy Green (Editor)

The annual Rattle Young Poets Anthology (RYPA) returns for another year of delightful and insightful poetry that happens to be written by young people. As always, this is not a book of poems for children, but the other way around—these are poems written by children for us all, revealing the startling insights that are possible when looking at the world through fresh eyes. This 36-page chapbook is mailed to all Rattle subscribers along with our Summer 2024 issue. Eighteen poets age 15 or younger contributed to this volume, offering their perspectives on life in an impressive variety of poetic forms, including an abecedarian, a ghazal, a contrapuntal poem, and a haiku series.

37 pages, Paperback

First published May 25, 2024

About the author

Rattle is a publication of the Rattle Foundation, an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to promote the practice of poetry, and is not affiliated with any other organization.
Alan C. Fox is its founder.

Reviews

[Stef Rozitis]

This was one of the best Rattle chap-books I have read and much better than I expected.

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every year I look forward to reading this astonishing collection of poems by children. This year’s book showcases children from age 4 to 15. In many cases, I prefer their contributor notes about what poetry teaches them to the poems themselves. They have an incredible understanding of self.

This is a chapbook, only 37 pages, so I don’t want to quote very much. You should enjoy it front to back for yourself, but I do want to offer a few snippets to promote the journal. A great title can really pull a reader into a poem. My favorite titles were “Abecedarian for the Horses in a Trailer on Route 66” and “Six Steps to Becoming a Fossil.”

Here’s why a few of the children say they write. Iris Cai says, “I like to write poetry because I’m in love with words, people, books, and things. I love English, which is not even my first language.” Sarah Parmet says, “Sometimes, I’m going about my day and I just have the urge to drop everything and write all my ideas down. Obviously, this is not possible when I’m in the middle of a physics test….”

[Peter Longden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good short collection of young Rattle competition poets. Some of the future of contemporary poetry? Enjoyed reading them.