II ULUSLARARASI ÇOCUK VE GENÇLİK EDEBİYATI SEMPOZYUMU

Let’s assume that we’re a group at a scene where we all see one another with our eyes,
but at the same time our ears and minds are at different places in this world. Maybe we
speak and comprehend a different language. Maybe we read and write in a different
language. Maybe we even use the same language, but we speak of and comprehend a
different world. Seeing is not enough for being together. We might see one another and
not be together.
Teenagers live with us. This “living with us” is apparently just a geographical notion.
Sometimes we see them through the door, wearing a headphone with their eyes glued to
their smartphones, laptops, or desktops. They might raise their head, and, if they’re
amicable, even smile at us, and pleased with this smile, we might nod happily, but this
is just a “moment”. They get out of their personal homeland for a “moment” to watch
the common “homeland”. Maybe this watching is still a fine link for having a common
homeland.
You may think that I am exaggerating, that I am making the issue bigger and darker
than it really is, but believe me that this is not a sci-fi story. It is a truth in our lives, or at
least in the lives of some of us.
Now we want to talk to these teens as writers and poets. We want to compose poetry for
them. What could be the quality of poetry for such teenagers? What about stories? Now
suppose we want to talk about old classics, our literary heritage, to these same teenagers
who has their eyes set on what is ahead.
In this article, I shall try to depict the characteristics of the generation I am discussing,
based on sociological studies, and then I shall seek to establish where poetry stands in
all this and what use this generation might have for poetry in such an era.
Being a Teenager: Is It a Matter of Age or Quality?
Some sociologists who study childhood, have expressed doubt about the idea that being
a teenager necessarily has to do with a certain age range. Rather, they have assessed it
as a quality distinguished from other qualities, with age being just one of its various
aspects (Childhood Sociology, p. 148). According to these sociologists, age, which is
time in passing, is considered as merely the time dimension among many dimensions
that help teenagers find their place or put them as a person in the social world (Childhood
Sociology, p. 148).
From this point of view, being a teenager or even a child is more regarded as an interpretation
of nature rather than a part of it (Ibid., p. 153). In other words, in any particular
culture or at any certain historical moment, a teenager is a product of ways used for explaining
the growth process in terms of quality and not just quantity (Ibid., p. 153).
Thus, even if we can reduce “the childhood experience” to being young and immature,
there is no doubt that a teenager cannot be explained completely by such a characteristic.
In other words, body and age cannot explain today’s teenager to the full and explaining
about this generation needs other qualities that are mostly a result of media development
and modern communication technology, although both age and body resist this
technology as two common factors, and if there remains any common characteristic
among teenagers, part of it is a result of this resistance.
Generation Z
Researches in the field of cultural studies are interested in teenagers from different aspects.
Teenagers as the consumers of new media are one of the most serious concerns of
cultural studies researchers. In the recent decades, the youth has been categorized with
260 II. Uluslararası Çocuk ve Gençlik Edebiyatı Sempozyumu