Eric Smith is the author of The Geek’s Guide to Dating and Inked. One of his five top YA reads in which poetry is part of the plot, as shared at the B&N Teen blog:Paper Towns, by John GreenRead about the other entries on the list.
Feels timely, what with the movie out, right? Walt Whitman plays a big role in John Green’s road trip novel. In Paper Towns, we meet Quentin, a boy who’s been smitten with Margo, the girl next door, since forever. When they surprisingly connect for one wild night, and she vanishes the next day, he has to follow a series of odd clues to find his way to her. One of them happens to be a poem from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass collection, “Song of Myself.” It’s a quick reference, but an important one.
--Marshal Zeringue