Spanning the time of colonial America through the present day, Poets for Young Adults examines the lives and works of seventy-five poets that are read and loved by teens. Readers will discover an eclectic mix of poets and their styles, from the modern songwriters such as Bob Dylan and Tupac Shakur, to the nineteen sixties icons Jack Kerouac and Sylvia Plath, to such traditional poets as Edgar Allan Poe and William Blake. Poets from all multicultural backgrounds are included, many of whom wrote about the immigration and/or protest experiences, from Colonial through contemporary times. Over half of the poets are women, and more than one third are women of color.

Poets include: -Maya Angelou -Gloria Evangelina Anzaldua -Anne Bradstreet -Lewis Carroll -E.E. Cummings -Emily Dickinson -Bob Dylan -Ralph Waldo Emerson -Paul Fleischman -Robert Frost -Nikki Giovanni -Langston Hughes -Paul Janesczko -Myra Cohn Livingston -Ogden Nash -Naomi Shihab Nye -Joyce Carol Oates -Lydia Omolola Okutoro -Gary Soto -Phillis Wheatley -Ray Anthony Young Bear

Mary Blanchard is an assistant professor of English at New Jersey City University. In summer 2004, her poem, Here was inscribed on a memorial built to commemorate former enslaved African Americans of Dallas County, Texas. In 1995, her poem, Quilting, was commissioned by the Children's Choir of Greater Dallas to commemorate its twenty-fifth year. Blanchard has published scholarly articles, fiction, and poetry.

Cara Falcetti received her B.A. from Fordham University and is pursuing graduate work at Queen's College in New York City. She has held several positions in middle school education and library science.