Crush: Love Poems

Crush: Love Poems
By Kwame Alexander
Word of Mouth Books, 2007. 72 pages. Young Adult Nonfiction

This collection of poems is broken into 3 parts: First Love, Kupenda (swahili for to love), and Crushed and covers the gamut of teen relationships. It also includes a variety of styles, including free verse and haikus. As a bonus, the book concludes with poems from five popular poets that Alexander mentions in his poems.

Alexander captures teenage emotion very well--the anticipation and fear of revealing emotions, the joy of a relationship and the despair at the relationship's end. Just about anyone can find a poem to relate to in this collection.

AE