April is drawing to a close and with it, this year’s National Poetry Month. But, never fear! If you, like me, can’t get enough of poetry, today I am offering a quick list of some of my favorite collections. This list includes collections I often don’t see recommended as much, so hopefully at least one on this list will offer a poet or work new to you for you to enjoy (I will also include a favorite poem or two of mine from each collection in parentheticals). Here we go!
Geis by Caitríona O’Reilly (“Chiune Sugihara”)
The Galleons by Rick Barot (“The Girl Carrying a Ladder”)
Black Peculiar by Khadijah Queen (“Non-Sequitur [A Disjointed Chorus in Three Acts]”)
Odes to Lithium by Shira Erlichman (“On This End”)
Who Is Mary Sue? by Sophie Collins (“Healers,” also “Eight Phrases”)
L’Heure Bleue or The Judy Poems by Elisa Gabbert (“Some days I can’t escape the feeling”)
The Moon That Turns You Back by Hala Alyan (“Object Permanence,” also “Interactive Fiction: Werewolf”)
Goat’s Milk by Frank Ormsby (“Come As You Are,” also “The Crossing”)
The Carrying by Ada Limón (“Dandelion Insomnia”)
Multiversal by Amy Catanzano (“Notes on the Enclosure of Notes”)
I hope a title or poet or poem on this list offers you strength or comfort (or both). One of my favorite things about poetry is it’s almost kaleidoscopic opportunity - to broaden our perspective while remaining very specifically focused, and I hope a little piece of poetry here offered that to you as well. I hope your month was full of words that expanded the world as you read, that filled your cup and strengthened your bones. The poetry press I worked for in college, Wake Forest University Press, has, as their tagline, the quote: “The act of poetry is a rebel act.” Let the rebellion be one toward good in the world, toward the wider and empathetic views poets encourage us to build— I’ll be rebelling toward that world, with poems in my pocket.
Until next month!