You Don't Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves

Created and compiled just for young women, You Don’t Have to Be Everything is filled with works by a wide range of poets who are honest, unafraid, and skilled at addressing the complex feelings of coming-of-age, from loneliness to joy, longing to solace, attitude to humor. These unintimidating poems offer girls a message of self-acceptance and strength, giving them permission to let go of shame and perfectionism.

Diana Whitney’s first book, Wanting It, became an indie bestseller and won the Rubery Book Award in poetry. She was the longtime poetry columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and her essays, op-eds, and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Kenyon Review, Glamour, and many more. She won the 2015 Women’s National Book Association poetry prize and has received grants from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, the Vermont Arts Endowment Fund, and the Vermont Studio Center.

Stephanie Burt is the author of three poetry collections, Belmont, Parallel Play, and Popular Music, and several collections of critical works. Her essay collection Close Calls with Nonsense was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other works include Don’t Read Poetry; Advice from the Lights; The Poem is You: 60 Contemporary American Poems and How to Read Them; The Art of the Sonnet; Something Understood: Essays and Poetry for Helen Vendler; The Forms of Youth: Adolescence and 20th Century Poetry; Parallel Play: Poems; Randall Jarrell on W. H. Auden; and Randall Jarrell and His Age. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Believer, and the Boston Review.

Tamiko Beyer is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection Last Days, and We Come Elemental (Alice James Books). Her poetry and articles have been published or are forthcoming from Denver Quarterly, Idaho Review, Dusie, Black Warrior Review, Georgia Review, Lit Hub, the Rumpus, and others. She has received awards, fellowships, and residencies from PEN America, Kundiman, Hedgebrook, VONA, and the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund, among others. She publishes Starlight and Strategy, a monthly newsletter for living life wide awake and shaping change, and lives on Massachusett, Wampanoag, and Pawtucket land. More at tamikobeyer.com.

About 826 Boston

826 Boston is a nonprofit youth writing and publishing organization dedicated to empowering traditionally underserved students ages 6-18 to find their voices, tell their stories, and gain communication skills to succeed in school and in life. Find more at www.826boston.org.

826 Boston es una organización sin fines de lucro de escritura y publicación para jóvenes, la cual apodera a estudiantes tradicionalmente menos servidos de edades 6-18 a encontrar sus voces, contar sus historias, y aumentar sus destrezas de comunicación para lograr éxito en la escuela y en la vida. Visite nuestro sitio web en www.826boston.org.