The killing of own life purposely is referred as suicide. For many years, American society has been concerned and worried about this issue, especially youth suicide. The suicide rate among teenagers is not same for any period of time; it keeps increasing over time. Most of the time, suicide rate among boys is greater than that among girls.
In the poem “To the young who want die”, Gwendolyn Brooks is advising a young who want to die because he can not bear his pains anymore and he wants to die get relief from pains.
Brook is convincing him that you should wait and think, give yourself some distance and just because you feel like killing yourself doesn’t mean that you should do it right now. She is advising him that you should not die today, suicide is forever and it can come tomorrow, next month, it can come any moment, so why you should die today? There are various kinds of pain that may result in suicide. Whether or not the pain is bearable always differ from person to person. What might be bearable to someone else may not be bearable to other person.
The point at which the pain becomes intolerable always depends on what kinds of coping resources person have. But Brooks is advising the young that you should stay here, with all your pains, because life is all about facing and standing against pains and you should wait for some time to see what will happen, may be you would find solutions to your pains and you would get relief from you all pains. She is reminding him that relief is a feeling, and you have to be alive to feel the relief.
Gwendolyn Brooks’s poetry understands our national psyche. What has always been most special about Gwendolyn Brooks’s work for me, however, is the way she describes nuances of feeling, multi layers of emotion, in just few phrases. Her poetry holds up a mirror to the American experience entire, its nightmares, self-delusions and dreams.
Youth suicide has been a burning issue, it is very important to take efforts to prevent these incidents. Most important and common reason for teenage suicide is depression. Depression can occur due to various factors. Sometimes it is very difficult to eliminate or reduce a crisis completely from the society. Teenage suicide is also not quite easy to eliminate from our society. However, people in general, parents of adolescents, counselors, teachers, and other kinds of social workers can work together to fight against youth suicide.