Suicide Poem

This week I was a judge for a system-wide teen poetry contest. Almost all the teen poems were dark and "angsty" but one poem stood out from the rest, it was entitled "Suicide." The poem detailed the way this teen wanted to die and how much they wished to kill themselves.

I was disturbed by this poem and started contacting the other judges in the contest about it. To my surprise, they did not share the same reaction. One said she was not disturbed by the poem and another said that the teen was just "angsty" and being emotional. I insisted that this poem was a suicide threat and should be taken seriously but while I found agreement among my immediate coworkers the others who had judged the poem saw the situation differently.

I knew I could not just sit still and do nothing so I took the poem up to administration. They took the poem seriously and told me to contact the writer and provide them with the number of the employee counselor. I did this and also gave the writer the suicide hotline number. I have not heard back from this individual but I could not help from being unnerved from the whole incident. Have some of us as librarians become so jaded that we dismiss a teen's wish for death as "angst"? It is true that teens write depressing prose every day but it is also true that teens kill themselves every day.