Related
With themes ranging from nature and climate change to love and war, these 18 resonant collections from debut and established poets make strong suggestions for reading during National Poetry Month.
Shanahan’s new work meets anguish and pain directly and ultimately proposes a tender and expansive possibility: “If you are on this earth/ You are of this earth.” Emotionally vulnerable and insightful; a work in which all readers likely will find something of themselves.
PREMIUM
Skeletons
In a book coursing with energy, Landau remains in control. “This is my fifth book of poems. I had my way with each of them.” Indeed she has! A good addition to most collections.
PREMIUM
Flickering
It’s easy to get lost in Rogers’s lush language, but there are larger issues here that will make the book appealing not just to poetry readers but to anyone concerned with the environment.
PREMIUM
Icelight
For poems probing deep ontological and existential concerns, these are remarkably free of lecture or cant. Sophisticated readers will grab especially, but this work is accessible to all.
Thrillingly bold, this collection is at once unique in approach, mischievous in its navigation of ideas, and lush yet controlled in its use of language, rupturing the division between the domestic and the primal to both delicate and brutal ends.
Occasionally, a phrase brushes improbability (“My horse and my notebook think// what I am thinking/ through an orgy of cadence”), but these poems breathe with life; even in a collection this large, the reader stays involved. “On the road,/ cars rarify, whisk by trees that explode/ in redbud, apple blossom, presage fruit”: a poetic journey not to be missed.
PREMIUM
A Fire in the Hills
An accessible collection from a poet who continues to probe the past, present, and interconnectedness of being.
PREMIUM
Door
Challenging reading for those who don’t know her work, but a welcome volume for those who do.
PREMIUM
West: A Translation
A remarkable collection offering history not typically told in textbooks; an accompanying website (westtrain.org) with video poems and historical images adds context.
PREMIUM
Still Falling: Poems
Coming from deep inside, these poems work by free association, often alluding to falling rain, snow, and even sunlight pouring onto a surface, all of which add a spiritual resonance to these hypnotic and meditative poems.
A fine exploration of nature and self in crisis; those familiar with Eilbert’s work will not be disappointed, while new readers will be eager to explore her further.
PREMIUM
Your Kingdom
An engaging collection, perhaps more contemplative than Sikelianos’s previous work, for nature lovers and beyond.
PREMIUM
Rose Quartz: Poems
A beautifully rendered sense of someone blown to bits by social and cultural injustices and still in the remaking.
While this collection will resonate most deeply with parents, its wisdom, humanity, and sheer eloquence speak to a time and condition all readers will recognize.
PREMIUM
Was It for This: Poems
Perhaps not as absorbing as her first work, though this may depend on the reader; still, Sullivan remains an original and observant writer.
Looking to celebrate World Poetry Day, National Poetry Month in April, or hoping to update your poetry collection? Take a look at this display shelf.
Listeners will experience and learn something different with every visit to this stunning collection. A necessary purchase for newcomers and seasoned poetry lovers alike. Suggest to fans of William Sieghart’s The Poetry Remedy.
This luminous collection from a treasured writer is a must-listen and a necessary addition to every poetry collection.
Youn does an extraordinary job of blending historical themes with haunting modern-day experiences to clarify sense of self. Readers will be captivated.
Readers who enjoy W.S. Merwin, Mary Oliver, and Jane Kenyon will feel quite at home with Zagajewski’s poems; like those writers, he is never obscure or tentative but always luminous and alive. Essential for academic libraries and a worthy purchase for contemporary poetry collections in public libraries.
Bernard has a sharp, critical eye and an ability to paint a scene quickly while also coloring it with social resonance. Similar word choices occasionally get repeated from poem to poem, but this collection is a marvel, gifting the reader with new subjects, unique perspectives, and an exuberant musicality that nearly leaps across the page. Highly recommended.
A powerful document of social injustice, BISACed as social science but of crucial interest for arts and poetry collections; pricey but worth it for many libraries.
It’s “time to write on the face of the earth/ the value and meaning of every name,” Okri writes. Globally engaged, accessible, and relevant.
With his intimate tone, Ó Tuama takes poetry out of the classroom and puts it back into the hands of the reader. He thereby makes the world a better place. Recommended for poetry collections everywhere.
Harjo is a national treasure, perhaps even a national resource, and this important book is an essential addition to contemporary poetry collections everywhere.
PREMIUM
Event Horizon
Many readers will appreciate the way Marvin’s bang-on honesty reframes the ordinary; an enlightening, accessible tome.
Highly recommended for readers interested in the details behind the creation of this literary landmark and the times in which it was composed.
PREMIUM
Content Warning: Everything
Though lacking the lushness of Emezi’s best fiction, these poems urgently communicate a relatable search for identity and safety and will resonate with a wide range of readers wanting to undertake that search, too. Especially important in presenting another dimension of this gifted writer.
PREMIUM
Now Do You Know Where You Are
Even as it lofts us on high to see the warp and weft of the universe and our own troubled place therein, this collection turns out to be a strangely reassuring read. A satisfying work from an accomplished poet.
PREMIUM
Harbinger: Poems
Though a few are not fully realized, in general these poems balance the dire and dystopian with the joyful and caring, inviting the reader to stay onboard for each new voyage. A collection that should not be missed.
PREMIUM
Relinquenda: Poems
Beautiful in form and content, Regalado’s lyrical work will appeal broadly to readers interested in emotional connection.
Readers will not find a direct narrative here, as the verses don’t always flow seamlessly from one section to the other, but they can nonetheless bask in a remarkable poetic experience.
PREMIUM
Draw Me After: Poems
Coming from Cole’s fascination with word play and paradox, the best of these poems are laced with alliteration and rhyme, shape-shifting as they focus on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the creative process. For poetry readers who like pondering deep questions.
PREMIUM
Ask the Brindled: Poems
Aiming high and occasionally staggering under the weight of its linguistic and formal experimentation, this vivid work should be read as an advance on aesthetics and the excavation of colonialism.
An elegy for Xie’s grandmother points out, “Nowhere goes clean through the static of decades without hitting a nerve,” and Xie hits nerves throughout in stunning and evocative language. Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
In a Few Minutes Before Later
Occasionally these poems feel full to overflowing, but Hillman’s majestic new work belongs in most poetry collections.
PREMIUM
The Hurting Kind
An accomplished volume highly recommended for both neophytes and poetry lovers.
PREMIUM
Belly to the Brutal
Givhan’s strong, vibrant writing can also be dense and layering, sometimes slowing up an understanding of her meaning, but the result is great for the word-hungry and readers interested in the female experience.
Lit up with sudden lyricism (“Her body releasing mist from the hurricane inside her”), Dower’s sharply observed quotidian detail will draw in even casual readers of poetry.
PREMIUM
Bad Poetry, Vol. 1: Tumbleweed
Recommended for those who want a straightforward, heartfelt read in tumultuous times, including YAs looking for resonance and anyone appreciating the insouciance of Rodriguez’s title.
For science readers who love poetry, poetry readers who love science, and feminists and students of all ages. [For more on this collection, see “Curating Creativity: Jessy Randall Finds Inspiration in the Archives | Peer to Peer Review.”]
It’s not often that fat women feel such thorough representation of themselves not only in poetry but in any media and not only in the beautiful moments but in the sorrowful ones, ranging throughout life. James does a brilliant job of portraying this and all her themes brilliantly; highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Your Face My Flag
In a collection that’s vividly detailed and layered, Gewirtz proves to be a wonderful storyteller, covering a wide range of subjects and frequently addressing social justice issues. Recommended for all collections.
A beautiful and accessible meditation on language and self, the very core of poetry, that will appeal to a wide range of readers.
Though Bennett’s poems seem effortless in their lyric grace (“the vanishing/ world of living things no louder than the sound/ of insects whimpering in their dust-sized sorrows”) and organic progressions, they are better described as effortful, given memorable presence by their intimacy, mindful craft, and visionary pursuit. Expect this work to appear on many “best poetry” lists for 2022.
PREMIUM
The End of Michelangelo
A timeless oasis of quietude in our contemporary maelstrom of uncertainty and apprehension, Gerber’s poetry vividly reminds us that while “the scale of pleasure ascends into terror…/ the pleasure is in being alive.”
PREMIUM
Flutter, Kick
Ross’s lovely, provocative work will appeal to a wide range of readers, whether for the way she finds larger issues within the personal or her singular use of language.
PREMIUM
Time Is a Mother
This is a timely collection of poetry and will make a great addition to any library collection.
Jones’s most free-flowing work yet, a centripetal collection where rage and pain and weariness swirl and coalesce with stunning emotional and conceptual clarity, yet so intimate it feels bled from the author’s very veins.
PREMIUM
In the Bowl of My Eye
The award-winning Garebian (including honors from the Scarborough Arts Council and the Ontario Poetry Society) offers a distinctive perspective on modern life that may well prove of interest to a number of readers.
PREMIUM
Turn Up the Ocean: Poems
Hoagland’s poetry earns the oft-misused adjective uncompromising for its directness in the face of reality’s “blithering whirlwind of wonder.” Though one wishes his life had not ended so soon, this collection will stand as a fitting capstone to a stellar poetic career.
PREMIUM
And Yet: Poems
An uneven poetry collection, but ultimately, the author’s pulse on social mores makes for an interesting read, as does her hard-earned understanding of married love and family life during bleak pandemic times. Recommended for public libraries.
PREMIUM
Bluest Nude: Poems
The collection’s organizing principle can feel a bit injudicious at times, with some poems easily bleeding into the next while others feel like slamming into a wall, but the potency of Codjoe’s language and keenness of her thematic renderings never fails to enthrall. Fiercely intelligent and both emotionally and formally rich.
PREMIUM
Normal Distance
Ultimately, Gabbert writes her memoir-like poems around quotidian events such as awakening from sleep, going shopping, and contemplating boredom, loneliness, or life during the pandemic, interspersing snappy comments like “Paper or plastic?” with profundities. All of which leaves readers on edge, which is Gabbert’s intention.
PREMIUM
O
Hashem Beck does a brilliant job of blending the personal with larger themes, and readers will find themselves transported by this collection, whether it be to a dermatologist’s office or Babel or an olive tree from the past, with initials carved into its trunk. For most collections.
PREMIUM
Ante body
Helal is a powerful voice in poetry, and this newest work does an excellent job of challenging readers to think differently about society. Those unfamiliar with Helal’s work may benefit from reading the author’s notes before diving into the poems, to get a better understanding of the collection and the formatting.
In Koethe’s relaxed, prose-like style, long sentences meander until his thoughts, taking a philosophical turn, dead end in a reverberant image or a metaphor like the enigmatic smile in “Daddy,” one of the best poems in this striking collection.
Woven with perspective, melded by dual languages and countries, attuned to sense and place, this generously alive collection--sin censura ni vergüenza--will delight both devoted fans and those who may not often read poetry.
PREMIUM
Before Island Is Volcano
The anti-imperialist theme, reminiscent of Neruda’s Canto general, will be especially appealing to Latinx readers in general and to the Borinquen community in particular.
PREMIUM
Sugar Work
A psychologically and narratively sophisticated exploration of desire, family, memory, pleasure, and love.
PREMIUM
Midwood: Poems
The mostly short poems featured here often exhibit lively, inviting language, but too many of the poems focus on description, leaving readers hungry for more narrative, more emotion, or the zinging of Prikryl’s best poems. Recommended for larger public libraries and some university collections.
Momaday’s poems are rich with description, lush with dreaming, and filled with magic. Essential for Indigenous collections and highly recommended for poetry lovers generally.
PREMIUM
The Place One Is
Slowly drawing readers into the subject with two or three scenes, Ronk doesn’t stop until all eyes and ears are opened to the narrator’s circumstance. Then, in the best of these poems, she makes the scene universal, taking readers by surprise as she launches into the stratosphere--which, as one can imagine, is breathtaking.
PREMIUM
The Necessity of Wildfire
In stunning language, with line breaks that lead readers to yet one more harrowing moment, Scarano shows us that it’s important to understand the nature of violence and its passage through a family. Violence always begets violence.
PREMIUM
Against Heaven: Poems
Alabi’s confident debut recommends them as a name to follow, but this collection is a mixed bag of forceful but too often scattershot and hyperactive poems.
Rich and cohesive, with remarkable depth and lyrical command, this work offers manifold discoveries. A book that reveals more with each reading.
PREMIUM
Gold
Both the authority and musicality of Gafori’s translation, and her artful selection of excerpts from Rumi’s vast and intensely personal Divan-e Shams-e Tabrizi amply justify this book’s place in any Rumi collection, where it is sure to provide seeds for contemplation and kindling for spiritual fire.
PREMIUM
Cain Named the Animal: Poems
Readers will marvel at McCrae’s ability to achieve Miltonic scope with such economy of expression. His is an original voice well worth close reading.
PREMIUM
Prelude: Poems
Built on a fascinating history while creating a fresh and heartbreaking perspective, Rebele-Henry’s poetry brings to life an LGBTQ+ experience. Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Vinegar Hill: Poems
A novelist’s poetry is, with a very few exceptions, a pleasure for the completist, but in this collection Tóibín supplies poems that should interest readers beyond his usual audience.
Threaded with myth and ghosts, marvelously present to the senses, with wordsmithing so inventive as to thrill, this exciting work is recommended wherever poetry is read.
PREMIUM
Zoom Rooms: Poems
Salter’s “fine high language of address and dress” may not appeal to everyone, but those who lament the current dearth of old-school verse will find much to admire here.
In intelligent, lyrical poems often tapping into deep emotion, Nurske brings humanity to his subjects. He could be describing the writing process itself when he says: “When I skipped rope before memory/ the song was already in my mouth.” Highly recommended.
Meeting the creator of Mma. Ramotswe in another guise, as a gentle guide through life in many climates, is likely to prove irresistible for Alexander McCall Smith’s dedicated fan base.
Enriching Vuong’s already sterling early career, this new collection feels abraded by both the weight of loss and of living, yet is cut with a profusion of affecting beauty and humor.
Blistering in its clear-sightedness (“No crueler word than return./ No greater lie”), this collection offers a fierce, beautiful closing that dares to imagine “a beckoning, a way.” A bold and uncompromising book with virtuosic emotional range; highly recommended.
Readers will be sure to find connection and refuge within Tran’s standout collection. Highly recommended for all collections.
PREMIUM
a Year & other poems
Not as strikingly original in concept and language as feeld, this new collection adheres to a more personal, intimate aesthetic (“Our separate smoke/ caught/ in the same ascent”) that may or may not connect with any given reader. Still, Charles remains a serious experimental poet who has tasked herself with the challenge of creating “a language capable of itself.”
articles
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
We are currently offering this content for free. Sign up now to activate your personal profile, where you can save articles for future viewing
ALREADY A SUBSCRIBER? LOG IN
Thank you for visiting.
We’ve noticed you are using a private browser. To continue, please log in or create an account.
