Respect the Mic: Celebrating 20 Years of Poetry from a Chicagoland High School

Some anthologies are made of pure love; it’s palpable. Peter Kahn, a longtime English teacher and spoken word educator at Oak Park and River Forest High School in Illinois, founded the Spoken Word Club there in 1999. To say this changed countless lives would be an understatement. His coeditors, all marvelous writers, educators, and presenters of poetry, banded together to select 76 terrific poems from club members across the years—Kahn says, “We could have included at least 500.”

That’s what poetry does: it stirs a sense of abundant life in all. In one of the numerous introductions to this book, Sully Sullivan mentions “befriending [his] bewilderment” as one of the gifts of growing up with such poetry experiences. What a great description. This is a book for teens, teachers, workshop leaders, and poetry readers of all ages. Sections include “Coming of Age,” “Monsters at Home,” and “Survival Tactics.” A different editor gracefully introduces each one.