Quintessential 21st Century Teenager
“In the twenty-first century, we use a nineteenth-century school model with twentieth-century values.”
~ Zander Sherman
He wakes up when the sun is highest,
He gets on to play with his friends,
His mood is jovial, until
the harsh reality of life kicks in.
His report of letters arrives when the sun is hidden,
into his parents’ inbox.
They charge into his room, pointing at
the countless C’s and D’s, expressing
their utter disappointment at
his abysmal performance,
but their vexation be justified.
However, the fault lies with neither child nor parent.
It lies with the dystopia they call ‘school’, said to be
a place where creativity flourishes.
Rather it is a prison, where we are
the inmates, who
follow a routine.
We enter the cell,
We sit,
We listen,
We write,
We watch the clock tick an hour later,
We leave.
We repeat this every day of our convivial youth.
Well, not convivial.
We become fatigued, apathetic, filled with angst,
anger, anxious.
Amidst this chaos, we find solace
in lyrics.
From Dylan, to Cobain, to Eminem, to Juice,
their raw emotion transforms our frustration to felicity
gives us calm in this storm of madness.
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Submitted on June 18, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 58 sec read
- 21 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AB XXXX BACXCXXX DXXXXXXBXXXXXXE EXXDE |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,125 |
Words | 196 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 2, 4, 8, 15, 5 |
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"Quintessential 21st Century Teenager" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/102980/quintessential-21st-century-teenager>.
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