National Poetry Month
If you want to do something special to celebrate National Poetry Month this April but aren't sure where to start, check out this list of truly inspiring poetry collections from around the globe.
100 poems to break your heart
2021
Above ground : poems
Smith, Clint, 1988- author.
2023
Clint Smith's vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions.
After that : poems
Crozier, Lorna, 1948- author
2023
This is a book written from the dark hollow we fall into when we lose those we love. Lorna Crozier's sure poetry finds the words to engage with the grief that comes from the death of her partner, the writer Patrick Lane, whom she'd lived with for forty years, many of them tumultuous. With grace and precision, she illuminates sorrow. Without offering false comfort, the poems turn over our own grief so that we can catch a glimpse of the new life inside us again.
Ain't burned all the bright
Reynolds, Jason, author
2022
Prepare yourself for something unlike anything: A smash-up of art and text for teens that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now.
The all + flesh : poems
Bird, Brandi.
2023
"Brandi Bird's long-anticipated debut poetry collection, The All + Flesh, explores the concepts of health, language, place, and memory that connect its author to their chosen kin, blood relatives, and ancestral lands. By examining kinship in broader contexts, these frank, transcendent poems expose binaries that exist inside those relationships, then inspect and tease them apart in the hope of moving toward decolonial future(s). Bird's work is highly concerned with how outer and inner landscapes move and change within the confines of the English language, particularly the "I" of the self, a tradition of movement that has been lost for many who don't speak their Indigenous languages or live on their homelands. By exploring the landscapes the poet does inhabit, both internally and externally, Bird's poems seek to delve into and reflect their cultural lineages--specifically Saulteaux, Cree, and Métis--and how these transformative identities shape the person they are today."-- Provided by publisher.
The berry takes the shapes of the bloom
bennett, andrea (Author of Canoodlers), author
2023
The berry takes the shape of the bloom originated as a gesture towards optimism after loss and pain, difficulty and fear. It began as a linear narrative, contented and secure, offering a window into one trans person's life after they felt contented and secure. But in the end these poems, which capture particular moments in time, may recur in any given present: sometimes what surfaces is anxiety or anger, sometimes love or eagerness. Some poems bear witness; others hold grudges or shake free of them. Together, they entwine around enmeshed experiences of gender, family, trans pregnancy, abuse, fear, and becoming: "Before blueberries grow, they grow a bloom that looks like a proto berry. The berry then takes the shape of the bloom that came before it. The berry displaces the bloom that came before it ... My mother bloomed and then I was a wave or a skateboard or a foraging deer. My mother bloomed and I did not displace her in the right way. Did I berry?"
Cast away : poems for our time
Nye, Naomi Shihab.
2019
"Poet Naomi Shihab Nye shines a spotlight on the things we cast away, from plastic water bottles to refugees"-- Provided by publisher.
Falling back in love with being human : letters to lost souls
Thom, Kai Cheng.
2023
A transformative collection of intimate and lyrical love letters that offer a path toward compassion, forgiveness, and self-acceptance.
I love you, call me back : poems
Benaim, Sabrina, author
2021
"Sabrina Benaim has connected deeply with readers and reached millions of viewers through her poetry, breaking down the stigma around mental illness. Now, in seventy-five original poems, she dives into emotional, relatable territory: grief over a relationship's end, loneliness in a world under lockdown, and the anxiety of caring for a loved one from afar in the wake of a serious illness."--Page 4 of cover.
Inheritance : a visual poem
Acevedo, Elizabeth.
2022
Elizabeth Acevedo embraces all the complexities of Black hair and Afro-Latinidad--the history, pain, pride, and powerful love of that inheritance.
Light filters in : poems
Kaufman, Caroline, author
2018
Kaufman's poetry started out as a diary for herself: completely honest, nothing censored out. Her poems talk about mental illness, self-harm, suicide, recovery, sexual assault, abusive relationships, violence, and other issues. In sharing her own pain and experiences, she asks that readers reach out, realizing that asking for help is not a weakness-- it's part of being human. -- adapted from author's note.
Muster points
Crawford, Lucas, author.
2023
"In March 2020, Lucas Crawford was quarantined at the Banff Centre for the Arts, coughing like a good fat asthmatic at high altitude, in the middle of a breakup, not knowing when or how he would get home, or where home would be when he got home. What does a depressed professor do, stranded in a dorm room? Write poems. Muster Points is a frank discussion of pleasure, plain, nostalgia, desire, and health from a "fancy academic" who refuses to shy away from the blood and sweat of depression or the glorious fluids of queer sex. These poems bring us on a trans boy's trips through the sharp-shard runs of heterosexual marriages, into weird rural masculinities and their fraught survival, into the love language of regret and persistent, inconvenient desire. As Crawford packs his two suitcases and bangs into past selves, tenuous futures, and a global emergency, he tracks his collisions toughly and tenderly, documenting every relic and clue. He travels to the core of his sexual politic, through the front door and to the back of his mind. Muster Points arouses thoughts and provokes them, using visceral language and unequivocal vulnerability to conjure a place where all who enter may be seen as they are seen."-- Provided by publisher.
My head has a bellyache : and more nonsense for mischievous kids and immature grown-ups
Harris, Chris, 1970- author.
2023
A witty, illustrated collection of humorous (and sometimes even heartwarming) poems and nonsense inspired by the absurdities of everyday life.
My shouting, shattered, whispering voice : a guide to writing poetry and speaking your truth
Vecchione, Patrice
2020
This guide encourages teens to find their voices, step up and speak their truths, and articulate what matters to them most--both personally and politically--whether it be boldly to an outside audience or just privately for themselves. Young adults are reading and writing and performing poetry more than ever before, and yet it's the most difficult form for schools to teach. Written in short, easy-to-digest chapters, My Shouting, Shattered Whispering Voice offers ways to express rage, frustration, joy, and sorrow, and to substitute apathy with creativity, usurp fear with daring, counteract anxiety with the joy of writing one word down and then another to express vital, but previously unarticulated, thoughts.
Robot, unicorn, queen : poems for you and me
Bramer, Shannon, author.
2023
A collection of poems that explore childhood experiences-from the whimsical to the poignant-by Shannon Bramer, with magical art by Irene Luxbacher. Shannon Bramer's follow-up to her much-loved poetry book Climbing Shadows is a collection of poems that explore a range of childhood experiences. Many poems reveal what it feels like to be a child-to pretend and dream and play with abandon, as well as to hurt and regret and feel sorrowful. The poems are varied in form, and while some are simple and direct, others invite children to see the potential for play and discovery in words and language. In the opening poem a child welcomes their newborn sibling, while the last poem is a surreal lullaby. In between we find poems about a child who listens to a toad, who feels left out, who loves the beach, who must practice piano, who accidentally breaks their mother's favorite plate, who doesn't want to eat their lunch, whose pet budgies have died, who visits their father on weekends, and more. Readers young and old will see themselves in these beautifully illustrated poems-a collection full of laughter, tears and wonder.
Somebody give this heart a pen
Thakur, Sophia, author
2020
"In her publishing debut, internationally acclaimed performance poet Sophia Thakur takes you on an intimate journey through love, loss, sacrifice, and self-discovery. In four parts -- titled Grow, Wait, Break, and Grow Again -- she shares her raw self and gives voice to experiences that connect people, inspiring readers to explore the tendencies of the heart." -- Provided by publisher.
Welcome to the Wonder House : poems
Dotlich, Rebecca Kai, author
2023
"In the Wonder House, each room is filled with poems and objects to inspire... The rooms in this house are a road map for finding wonder--twelve rooms in all, housing twenty-nine poems and wondrous images."-- Adapted from front jacket flap.
Xanax cowboy : poems
Green, Hannah (Author of Xanax cowboy), author
2023
Hannah Green's edgy, often darkly comedic debut, Xanax Cowboy, is a long poem that considers the romanticization of addiction and mental illness (particularly in relation to the notion of the artist) via the romanticization of the Wild West. Cowboys are supposed to be messed up, a bit raw around the edges. The speaker wants to be loved for this too, and doesn't care if she is the only one laughing. The long poem is known for its resistance to form and expectation. Xanax Cowboy is as obsessed with itself as other long poems. It is vain. It is ridiculous.
You don't have to be everything : poems for girls becoming themselves
2021
Created and compiled just for young women, You Don't Have to Be Everything is filled with works by a wide range of poets who are honest, unafraid, and skilled at addressing the complex feelings of coming-of-age, from loneliness to joy, longing to solace, attitude to humor. These unintimidating poems offer girls a message of self-acceptance and strength, giving them permission to let go of shame and perfectionism.