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These volumes’ lyric and reflective lines cry out against oppression, war, and annihilation and praise the complexity and absurdity of human existence.
PREMIUM
Ten Indian Classics
This anthology delivers a profound exploration of history, literature, and emotions, but it requires some understanding of India’s many cultures to fully appreciate its depth. Still, it’s a rewarding read for those willing to engage with its complexities and dive into the worlds it explores.
Georges’s poems map the complexities of national identity with an immediacy especially relevant to the present day.
An excellent book for poetry beginners, students, and scholars. It will embolden readers to seek out new discoveries in Chinese poetry.
PREMIUM
A Bit Much: Poems
This poetry collection about self-discovery offers readers a sense of camaraderie in its down-to-earth humor and keen emotional insights. This lyrical blend will resonate deeply with readers. It’s a collection that’s both memorable and refreshingly real.
PREMIUM
TRANZ: Poems
This collection is a movingly honest exploration of what it means to be trans in the United States.
PREMIUM
Leaked Footages
The subject matter in this deeply moving, important collection is a heartbreaking reminder of the innocent lives that are constantly affected by violence and terrorism. Sadiq expertly illustrates these experiences, from the regret to the nightmares and the scars.
Accessible distillations of heart and mind; readers don’t have to know Arendt’s philosophy (or philosophy generally) to read this work profitably and with pleasure.
PREMIUM
The Alcestis Machine: Poems
The collection successfully bridges the ancient and the modern, creating a powerful dialogue that speaks to the enduring human need for unity and understanding.
PREMIUM
After Image: Poems
An emotionally devastating and formally dynamic collection, cementing that George is one of the most underrated working poets after only two collections.
PREMIUM
Being Reflected Upon
Heartfelt and affecting, Notley’s poetry leaps from the page and straight into the imagination. Essential listening for fans of Notley’s work. Those unfamiliar with her poetry will want to dive into her earlier collections.
PREMIUM
Instructions for Traveling West
A sincere and moving narration. Sullivan’s raw, enigmatic debut will easily win listeners over and will be a collection to revisit again and again. A marvel.
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PREMIUM
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Engaged, propulsive poetry for anyone concerned about U.S culture today.
Brimhall addresses life’s everyday suffering in astonishing language that will attract a wide range of readers. Highly recommended.
One mourns with Abu Toha as he asks his dead brother, “Will my bones find you when I die?” Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Mojave Ghost
A deeply engaging book of big poems that feels like a guide for self-reflection.
Borzutzky remains one of contemporary poetry’s most incisive surveyors of cultural and institutional rot, but a slightly scattershot style leaves his latest collection feeling occasionally disjunctive.
PREMIUM
DEED
Certain to make some readers uncomfortable, and sometimes somewhat overextended, this remains remarkable poetry.
PREMIUM
Go Figure
While a few of the poems here can feel too reductive, this is classic Armantrout in the nature of its language and the depth of its thought. Poetry fans will want.
PREMIUM
Hivestruck
Energized observations for both younger readers, who will gleefully pull apart the inferences, and those who, like Toro, number “among the last generation to remember a time before the hive plugged in.”
This brief, potent book offers a fresh understanding of diaspora; readers of contemporary poetry will seek it out.
This brief, potent book offers a fresh understanding of diaspora; readers of contemporary poetry will seek it out.
Speaking to Jew and Gentile, believer and nonbeliver, this poetry collection makes our hungers radiant. Highly recommended.
Speaking to Jew and Gentile, believer and nonbeliver, this poetry collection makes our hungers radiant. Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Daywork: Poems
These smart, readable poems are deceptively simple, with their implications emerging slowly as readers ponder along with the poet. A collection to dwell in; Fisher merits watching.
PREMIUM
Proverbs of Limbo: Poems
Memory and presence rub together beautifully in a rich patchwork quilt that sometimes doesn’t feel completely stitched together but whose immediacy is rewarding. A conversation starter from an important poet.
Slip into the evocative pleasures of language with stellar works of revelation, confrontation, and grace.
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The poems in Exits explore the beauty and frailty of life, the cycles of nature, and the potential for renewal. In a time of great uncertainty, Exits responds to prevailing anxieties and to the universal search for meaning. At its core, Exits is a meditation on mortality.
A highly recommended volume that can be equally appreciated by dedicated poetry readers and those for whom it might be that rare reading of verse.
PREMIUM
Fugitive/Refuge
A wide-ranging work of current import, shaped by an intimate and urgent tone that draws in the reader.
PREMIUM
Silver: Poems
From fox to car to misty morning, silver glints throughout this polished collection, woven in like meaningfulness in life. A strong entry, appealing for most readers.
PREMIUM
With My Back to the World: Poems
Though Chang finally concedes that “My error was to become what / I wanted to be, not its tone,” there’s no easy understanding here. She’s grappling, and readers will too, but her refusal to trade in cliché makes this book stand out.
PREMIUM
woke up no light: poems
Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, this brief collection of poems speaks volumes and merits much relistening. Poetry is meant to be heard, and Mottley’s voice resonates.
Tibble’s collection is at once sensual, playful, and contemplative. This can’t-miss audio fairly glows.
An intricate and richly varied collection that reveals new insight with every poem that’s read. Pardlo stuns with this relentless examination of race, prejudice, and fear.
PREMIUM
A Year of Last Things: Poems
A mesmerizing audio, enhanced by the author’s heartfelt narration. Recommended for listeners hoping to immerse themselves in a poetic escape that is beautifully written and raw.
Like one of his heroes, Bob Marley, Dawes changes not just the way readers look at the world but the lens through which they see reality. His is a transcendent vision, filled with tenderness, curiosity, and compassion for what has been and what might be.
Library Journal commissioned Houston Poet Laureate Aris Kian to write about her relationship to libraries and their mission. Her poem’s title is a reference to the world’s oldest tree.
Collections to celebrate National Poetry Month. Slip into blossom season and savor sound, lyric, and line.
PREMIUM
Root Fractures: Poems
At turns heartbreaking and breathtaking, this collection of poems and images stuns. Listeners will be eager for more from this talented poet.
PREMIUM
Tiny Extravaganzas
Braced by that ordinary tenderness and a crackling intelligence, this is work for anyone interested in contemporary poetry.
A groundbreaking and deeply passionate poetry collection that celebrates language and feminine power. Not to be missed.
This brief, quietly gorgeous audiobook reveals new meaning with every listen. A radiant addition to any poetry collection.
A powerful, thoughtful collection of observations and contemplations; a beautiful and valuable addition to the world of poetry by one of its most inspiring writers. Readers who love the work of W.S. Merwin, Mary Oliver, Billy Collins, and Louise Gluck will want to savor this new collection.
PREMIUM
Dream Apartment
At their best, these poems work their magic through just such a sequential movement.
PREMIUM
Grand Tour: Poems
Gonzalez’s collection is a strong debut that is sure to captivate a broad spectrum of readers.
A rich and thought-provoking collection. Poetry lovers and Dietzman fans will want to read these poems over and over again and can find something new to enjoy or admire each time.
PREMIUM
What Small Sound: Poems
Powerful and full of emotion, with themes that will engage readers from many different audiences.
A collection rich in knowledge about what it means to be human, the rewards and responsibilities of love, and how nature can assuage pain and fear. Highly recommended.
Accessible and sincere, Blanco’s poems may sometimes play tag with unmasked sentiment, but they are equally capable of sharp commentary (“History’s most constant conceit: that to love/ a country justifies killing everyone who does/ not love it exactly as we wish”) and a keen engagement with contemporary American life.
This amazing anthology may be the most important poetry collection of this decade. It is a book for poetry lovers, a book for the curious, a book of comfort, a book of prayer, a book of passion and a book of joy, a book of sorrow and a book of desire, but in the end, it is simply and wondrously a grand and glorious book.
A superb collection from a remarkable poet whose prodigious talent grows with every addition to her oeuvre.
Discover verse with style and substance, unsettling proclamations, and contained majesty in the best poetry collections of 2023.
PREMIUM
Girls from the County
This audiobook may be short, but it is seriously spooky. Recommended for those who love gothic poetry or true crime or listeners wanting to get in the Halloween spirit.
PREMIUM
Organs of Little Importance
An engrossing blend of the contemporary and classical, laced with irony, humor, and a deep sense of the now.
Miller is able to go inside her subjects and draw readers with her. That experience makes this collection one for all libraries.
Complex, linguistically rich, and unsparing in its analysis of both the current national psyche as well as the poet’s own, Pardlo’s poetry dares to ask: “What if we didn’t define ourselves according to our ability to know ourselves, but by our capacity to relate to others?”
Hayes successfully provides a multidimensional work that serves as an outline of American poetry history, a reflection on a poet’s life, and a thoughtful discussion guide for groups or classes.
PREMIUM
School of Instructions: A Poem
For patient, attentive readers, Hutchinson delivers a spoil of linguistic, philosophical, and spiritual riches.
PREMIUM
Up Late: Poems
While the poems in the last third of the book seem a shade lighter than those preceding them, this collection offers readers a satisfyingly rich palette of imagery and insight.
McCrae’s innovative stylistics and associative leaps take some getting used to, but his poetry echoes his hope that “what once seemed strange to you/ Becomes your heart.”
The poetics of spontaneity is not unusual, but McLane brings to it a honed sensibility and voice entirely her own.
Quietly devastating and exquisitely wrought, these poems are among the very finest of Hayes’s career.
Sometimes it can feel like a tale of two works, the junction not quite seamless, with some of the poetry here feeling a bit more academic and opaque next to the thrilling prose. But on the whole, this is another stunningly audacious work from Lerner that surveys life through the lens of art and vice versa, intimate and universal, challenging but deeply rewarding.
This powerful and accessible collection of poetry, amplified by Browne’s skilled narration, is ideal for both established fans of and newcomers to contemporary poetry, plus those who like Jasmine Mans and Jacqueline Woodson.
PREMIUM
I Love Information: Poems
Stringing together random-declarative sentences without periods, some seemingly related and others not, does not make for good poetry. Not recommended.
Occasionally, some one-word titles don’t do justice to the poems, and in a few the rhyming seems overdone, but this poet writes what is vital and necessary. These poems are raw, emotional, and fierce in their rush to get words out into the world. Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Ghost Apples: Poems
Appropriate for followers of Coles’s work and especially readers connected with nature.
There’s an artfulness of intention behind this work, but placing these anagrammed lines beside those of Shakespeare doesn’t enhance it. Ketner may have discovered an ingenious technique, but unfortunately their method does not result in ingenious poetry.
PREMIUM
Mare’s Nest
Ultimately, Mitchell’s language is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” and draws from a similar source: life bursting forth on the farm beside an undercurrent of death. As Thomas’s famed line says, “Time held me green and dying/ Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”
Deeply moving and personal while also celebrating Black Latina history and informing readers urgently needing to be educated, Marte’s book is a wonderful addition to any collection.
PREMIUM
The Diaspora Sonnets
Exciting in its combination of traditional form and accessibility, this collection offers a compassionate and poignant reflection on family in diaspora. Highly recommended.
PREMIUM
Console: Poems
A dreamy, vivid, linguistically alive collection that will reward the careful reader.
PREMIUM
Pig: Poems
Some readers unfamiliar with Sax’s work may flinch at its unabashed sexuality, but the poet’s sharp humor, imaginative breadth, and risky candor are expertly tuned to the varieties of human experience.
Seemingly tailor-made for audio, this powerful book is a must-purchase. Olivarez’s invitation to share moments of his history, culture, love, and joy is wholly affecting.
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