The Contemporary Poetry You Need to Read Now
While poetry hasn't always had pride of place in mainstream American culture, the timeless power of the genre always finds its way to break through in each generation. Over the last decade, poetry began to enjoy something of a renaissance that is still going strong. As a guide for anyone looking to dig into the best poets working today, this list encompasses collections from some of the most prominent poets as well as some of the up-and-coming voices charting the path for new movements.
The Lights: Poems
Ben LernerThis new collection from the National Book Award finalist communicates through a variety of forms including verse, prose, song, and voice mails, exercising both intimacy and sprawling grandeur. These poems, written over fifteen years, look to be some of the most intensely personal, gorgeously unpredictable pieces Ben Lerner has produced.
Rishi Dastidar 🔱🌊 & Nathan GoldmanHardcover, 2023
$26.00$13.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
The Carrying: Poems
Ada LimónPowerful and beautifully rendered poems of youth, the body and acceptance from the US Poet Laureate, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Clint Smith & Ada LimónPaperback, 2021
$16.00$8.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Time Is a Mother
Ocean VuongOne of the most celebrated poets today searches for meaning amid personal loss, sifting through memory and fragmentation with gorgeous verse and a playful voice.
Hardcover, 2022
$25.00$12.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Borderland Apocrypha
Anthony CodyAnthony Cody’s debut is an experimental masterpiece of visual and concrete poetry tracing the emotions and structures of the borderlands through the history of US/Mexico relations from the end of the Mexican-American war to the present. Shortlisted for the National Book Award.
Danez & Ruben Quesada 🇨🇷Paperback, 2020
$17.95$8.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Customs: Poems
Solmaz SharifThis long-awaited follow-up to Solmaz Sharif’s terrific Look investigates the experience of an endless plethora of security, checkpoints and random searches, all the while asking us to consider what customs represent both linguistically and in the nation-states we live in.
The New York Review of Books & Los Angeles Review of BooksPaperback, 2022
$16.00$8.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Toska
Alina PleskovaDesire, liberation and alienation combine for this collection on rootlessness and diaspora from Moscow-born Alina Pleskova.
Ruth Madievsky & alina pleskova/ alinapleskova.bsky.socialPaperback, 2023
$16.95$8.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Repetition Nineteen
Monica de la TorreMónica de la Torre translates the same poem with twenty-five different approaches, leading to musings on displacement, language and code-switching.
Dr. Taylor Byas, Ph.D.Paperback, 2020
$18.95$9.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Hard Damage
Aria AberThis multilingual debut is a fragmentary exploration of the self, citizenship and trauma through the lens of Afghan-American relations.
Jamil Jan Kochai & Jericho BrownPaperback, 2019
$17.95$8.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Postcolonial Love Poem: Poems
Natalie DiazThe winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is a blooming landscape of bodies, lyric and suffering rallying against the erasure of indigenous America.
Los Angeles Review of Books & Dr. Keisha N. BlainPaperback, 2020
$17.00$8.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Be Holding: A Poem
Ross GayAn epic ode to the life and legacy of the legendary basketball player Julius Erving, also known as "Dr. J," connecting his famous move in the 1980 NBA finals to music, personal histories, state violence, surveillance and more.
Dr Emily Wilson & Alina StefanescuPaperback, 2020
$17.00$8.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book