The task of selecting 100 poems and poets for this anthology must have felt both limiting and liberating. Limiting because if these poems are any example—and they surely are—the talent pool of young poets in America is deep and diverse. That isn’t a surprise, but it must have made the number 100 feel like a huge challenge at times. Yet as hard as choosing must have been, 100 poems also allowed for remarkable inclusiveness. The result feels like a gathering you might find in any large city, and certainly across America: multicultural and diverse in all senses of the words. The poets’ experiences and observations here are always personal, sometimes intimate, sometimes deeply unsettling. The poems themselves are often thick with images and full of surprises. These selections are more challenging as a whole than what is often found in young adult anthologies (a genre that has languished in recent years), but their wide range of subjects provide many possible points of connection for a wide range of readers. It’s impossible to not come away from such a rich collection appreciative not only of the poets’ talents, but of the ways language is flexible enough to be bent and shaped and crafted to speak so many distinct and powerful truths. For young adults whose inclination is to write poetry themselves, it’s impossible not to come away from this volume with words—their own words—sounding. (Age 14 and older)

One hundred poems. One hundred voices. One hundred different points of view.

Here is a cross-section of American poetry as it is right now--full of grit and love, sparkling with humor, searing the heart, smashing through boundaries on every page. Please Excuse This Poem features one hundred acclaimed younger poets from truly diverse backgrounds and points of view, whose work has appeared everywhere from The New Yorker to Twitter, tackling a startling range of subjects in a startling range of poetic forms. Dealing with the aftermath of war; unpacking the meaning of "the rape joke"; sharing the tender moments at the start of a love affair: these poems tell the world as they see it.

Editors Brett Fletcher Lauer and Lynn Melnick have crafted a book that is a must-read for those wanting to know the future of poetry. With an introduction from award-winning poet, editor, and translator Carolyn Forché, Please Excuse This Poem has the power to change the way you look at the world. It is The Best American Nonrequired Reading--in poetry form.