SJPL Picks: PoetryLike this list

45 items

• Mojave Ghost

  a Novel Poem

  Gander, Forrest, 1956-

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  Mojave Ghost initiates an unusually tender bond with the reader as it chronicles an intimate relationship with arresting honesty and vividness. Moving through grief and loss, Gander's new collection discovers an articulate language for the…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Paper Boat

  New and Selected Poems, 1961-2023

  Atwood, Margaret, 1939-

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  Tracing the legacy of Margaret Atwood—a writer who has fundamentally shaped the contemporary literary landscapes—Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961–2023 assembles Atwood’s most vital poems in one essential volume. In pieces that are…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Forest of Noise

  Poems

  Abu Toha, Mosab,

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  Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Bluff

  Poems

  Smith, Danez,

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  Through new prose, an award-winning poet considers and comments upon recent events in modern America, from the Covid-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing nation-wide protests, to unchecked capitalism, mass shootings and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Mother Knows Best

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  From mama trauma to smother mother, this all-new women in horror anthology features stories about the scariest monster of them all— our mothers. New and exclusive short stories and poems inspired by bad mothers from some of today’ s…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Rangikura

  Poems

  Tibble, Tayi, 1995-

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  A fiery second collection of poetry from the acclaimed Indigenous New Zealand writer that U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo calls, "One of the most startling and original poets of her generation

• Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves

  Lanham, J. Drew (Joseph Drew),

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  Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves is a lush journey into wildness and Black being. Lanham notices nature through seasonal shifts, societal unrest, and deeply personal reflection and traces a path from bitter history to the present…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• New and Selected Poems

  Howe, Marie, 1950-

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  An indispensable collection of more than three decades of profound, luminous poetry from acclaimed poet Marie Howe. Characterized by “a radical simplicity and seriousness of purpose, along with a fearless interest in autobiography and its…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Modern Poetry

  Poems

  Seuss, Diane,

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  In poems of rangy curiosity, sharp humor, and illuminating self-scrutiny, Modern Poetry investigates our time’s deep isolation and divisiveness and asks: What can poetry be now? Do poems still have the capacity to mean? “It seems wrong /…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The Moon That Turns You Back

  Alyan, Hala, 1986-

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  From the author of The Arsonists' City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that traces the fragmentation of memory, archive, and family-past, present, future-in the face of displacement and war.

• Spectral Evidence

  Poems

  Pardlo, Gregory,

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  A beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning poet forces us to consider how we think about devotion beauty and art; about the criminalization and death of black lives; about justice and how these have been inscribed into our present, our history and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• This Is the Honey

  An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets

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  Exploring joy, love, origin, race, resistance and praise, this beautiful poetry anthology, featuring works from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, is filled with poignant and delightful imagery, music and…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Life on Earth

  Poems

  Laux, Dorianne,

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  Pulitzer Prize finalist Dorianne Laux returns with an insightful, compassionate, and spirited volume that celebrates the imperfect miracle of humanity. In her seventh collection, Dorianne Laux once again offers poems that move us, include…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• So to Speak

  Hayes, Terrance,

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  In this seventh collection from the 2010 National Book Award winner, the author maps the strange and lyrical grammar of thinking and feeling while exploring themes of fatherhood, history and longing with remarkable openness and humanity.

• Above Ground

  Poems

  Smith, Clint,

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  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. Above Ground wrestles with how we hold wonder and despair…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Trace Evidence

  Poems

  Shanahan, Charif, 1983-

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  Charif Shanahan continues his piercing meditations on the intricacies of mixed-race identity, queer desire, time, mortality, and the legacies of anti-Blackness in the US and abroad.

• Promises of Gold

  Promesas De Oro

  Olivarez, José,

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  A groundbreaking collection of poems addressing how every kind of love -- self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural -- is birthed, shaped, and complicated by the invisible forces of gender, capitalism, religion, migration, and so on.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• To the Realization of Perfect Helplessness

  Lewis, Robin Coste,

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  From the National-Book-Award-winning poet who changed the way we see the Black female figure, a continuation of that journey in a genre-bending coming together of poem and photography, toward a new definition of human migration.…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light

  Fifty Poems for Fifty Years

  Harjo, Joy,

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  "In this gemlike volume, Harjo selects her best poems from across fifty years, beginning with her early discoveries of her own voice and ending with moving reflections on our contemporary moment. Generous notes on each poem offer insight…Read moreRead more of this annotation

• The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes on

  Choi, Franny,

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  Choi’s third book features poems about historical and impending apocalypses, alongside musings on our responsibilities to each other and visions for our collective survival.