My dear friend Sara asked for some poetry recs.
Here’s what I got (for now)! —
- Rita Dove, Collected Poems. Elegant, fiercely intelligent poems from a Pulitzer-Prize winner about beauty, language, and American life in all its twisted intricacies.
- Ada Limón, Bright Dead Things. Compassionate, funny, sexy, astounding poems about sexuality, family bonds, human frailties and connections across words divided by geography or human self-centeredness.
- José Olivarez, Citizen Illegal. Hyper contemporary poems on being first-gen, crossing (or not) languages and in-groups, the immense loves and epic failures of daily life.
- Adrienne Rich, Diving into the Wreck. Landmark collection on coming into one’s creative power, realizing the parameters of love and self-determination.
- Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings & She Had Some Horses. Powerful, clear-sighted poems on empowering one’s life and communities within and against the on-going effects of colonialism.
More greats
- Ari Banias, Anybody
- Meena Alexander, Atmospheric Embroidery
- Terrance Hayes, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassins
- Sylvia Plath, Ariel
- Richard Siken, Crush
- Frank O’Hara, Meditations in an Emergency
- Clint Smith, Counting Descent
- Gregory Pardlo, Totem
- Wisława Szymborska, Map
- Naomi Shihab Nye, Words Under the Words
Anthologies
- Nepantla: Queer Poets of Color, edited by Christopher Soto
- The Zoo of the New, edited by Nick Laird & Don Paterson
- A Book Of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited by Czeslaw Milosz
- When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by Joy Harjo
- Dear America: Letters of Hope, Habitat, Defiance, and Democracy, edited by Simmons Buntin, Elizabeth Dodd, and Derek Sheffield