Must-Read Poetry

“It’s thrilling to encounter poetry this fresh, this undeniable.” —Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author

From “one of the most brilliant poets of his generation” (El Pais, Madrid) Spanish poet Luis Muñoz’s debut North American collection, translated by Idra Novey and Garth Greenwell.

A celebration and testament to the tenacity of life on the margins, brilliantly illuminating Black and queer experience.
 

24th Poet Laureate of the United States Ada Limón inspires us to see poetry as much more than just words—as a powerful force for healing, a call to action, and a vibrant celebration of humanity’s many voices.
 

Instant New York Times bestselling author and poet Maggie Smith returns with a new collection of poems on the sometimes-blurry distinction between mind and body, and how the self shifts and moves through time and space.
 

A raw, beautiful memoir of a girl born missing an ear, a medical system insistent on saving her from herself, and our culture’s desire to “fix” bodies.
 

WINNER OF THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

“Patricia Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last.” —Danez Smith, The Guardian

A collection of the finest new and selected poems from one of the most groundbreaking voices in contemporary poetry, a “masterful performer and poet of voices too little heard” (Poetry Foundation).

For fans of Rupi Kaur and Cleo Wade, this first collection of poetry from the viral TikTok poet Josie Balka evokes themes of nostalgia, love, envy, and hope, speaking to the universal longings that live deep in our souls.
 

From TikTok star and author of I Hope You Remember—which John Stamos called a “gift to the world”—Josie Balka comes this evocative collection of over eighty poems about the different types of love.
 

WINNER OF THE 2025 JAMES LAUGHLIN AWARD FROM THE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS

A stunning new collection exploring lineage and the legacy of survival as seen through the life of the poet’s grandmother Alice—a Black woman born in the Jim Crow South—using the King James Bible as a narrative framework.

The long-awaited sophomore poetry collection by award-winning writer Cathy Linh Che, on familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
 

The striking sophomore poetry collection from the award-winning author of the “beautiful, vulnerable, honest” (Ross Gay, New York Times bestselling author) I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood.
 

From actress Haley Lu Richardson—a raw, beautiful, and playful debut collection of poetry about the chaos of being a twenty-something girl in this world.
 

Guest edited by Terence Winch—NEA Fellow and editor of the “pick of the week” on the Best American Poetry blog—the 2025 edition marks a poignant farewell to series editor David Lehman, celebrating more than three decades of poetic excellence.
 

From a poet whose “poems don’t merely attempt beauty; they attain it” (Boston Review), an enchanting and harrowing journey through the landscape of dreams and twenty-first century hopes and disillusions.
 

A liberatory anthology of twenty-six writers—a community in book form—charting paths ahead for action and care in the face of political uncertainty, curated by Maggie Smith and Saeed Jones.
 

From the creator of the beloved @PoetryIsNotaLuxury Instagram account, a gorgeously wrought poetry anthology that is a gift and a guide for readers through every season of life.
 

NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2021 BY NPR

From the award-winning poet and bestselling author of Keep Moving and Good Bones, a stunning poetry collection that celebrates the beauty and messiness of life.

Part myth retelling, part character study, this sharp, visceral debut poetry collection reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer’s Iliad as a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee.
 

Feminist icon bell hooks reminds us of the full spectrum of feeling we spend in love through her inspiring collection of love poetry, with a new introduction by Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies.
 

National Book Award finalist Diana Khoi Nguyen’s second poetry collection, a haunting of a family’s past upon its present, and a frank reckoning with how loss and displacement transform mothers and daughters across generations.

A beautifully illustrated book from Cleo Wade—the artist, poet, and speaker who has been called “the Millennial Oprah” by New York Magazine—that offers creative inspiration and life lessons through poetry, mantras, and affirmations, perfect for fans of the bestseller Milk & Honey.

Also from Cleo Wade:

Writer, director, and actor Avan Jogia delivers a bright and acidic poetry collection on fame, rage, love, and sadness. A biting postmortem of the modern age, for fans of Lana Del Rey and Atticus.
 

William Evans, the award-winning poet and cofounder of the popular culture website Black Nerd Problems, offers an emotionally vulnerable poetry collection exploring the themes of inheritances, dreams, and injuries that are passed down from one generation to the next and delving into the lived experience of a black man in the American suburbs today.

Breathtaking in range, The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats includes all of the poems authorized by Yeats for inclusion and encompasses the entire arc of his career: reworkings of ancient Irish myths and legends, meditations on youth and old age, whimsical songs of love, and somber poems of life in a nation torn by war and uprising.

From a critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author and poet comes “a delightfully hybrid book: part anthology, part critical study, part autobiography” (Chicago Tribune) that is organized around fifty-one remarkable poems by poets such as Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, and Sylvia Plath.