There are so many ways to celebrate poetry this April.
Check out a book of poetry! All the titles listed here are available through the Library.
ADULTS | TEENS & TWEENS | CHILDREN
Adults
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse
Anne Carson
A stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
Warsan Shire
With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own stumbling way towards womanhood. Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls. In Shire's hands, lives spring into fullness.
The Carrying
Ada Limon
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. The Carrying delves into the bloodstream, following the hard-won truth of what it means to live in an imperfect world.
The Collected Poems
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath's best poetry was produced, tragically, as she pondered self-destruction—in her poems as well as her life—and she eventually committed suicide. She had an extraordinary impact on British as well as American poetry in the few years before her death, and affected many poets, particularly women, in the generation after.
Crush
Richard Siken
Richard Siken's Crush, selected as the 2004 winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, is a powerful collection of poems driven by obsession and love. Siken writes with ferocity, and his reader hurtles unstoppably with him. His poetry is confessional, gay, savage, and charged with violent eroticism. In the world of American poetry, Siken's voice is striking.
Diving into the Wreck
Adrienne Rich
In her seventh book of poetry, the author searches to reclaim what has been forgotten, lost, or unexplored.
home body
Rupi Kaur
Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself - reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. Illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.
Postcolonial Love Poem
Natalie Diaz
Postcolonial Love Poem is an anthem of desire against erasure. Natalie Diaz's brilliant second collection demands that every body carried in its pages—bodies of language, land, rivers, suffering brothers, enemies, and lovers—be touched and held as beloveds. Through these poems, the wounds inflicted by America onto an indigenous people are allowed to bloom pleasure and tenderness.
Such Color: New and Selected Poems
Tracy K. Smith
Celebrated for its extraordinary intelligence and exhilarating range, the poetry of Tracy K. Smith opens up vast questions. Such Color: New and Selected Poems, her first career-spanning volume, traces an increasingly audacious commitment to exploring the unknowable, the immense mysteries of existence. Smith's signature voice, whether in elegy or praise or outrage, insists upon vibrancy and hope, even—and especially—in moments of inconceivable travesty and grief.
Time is a Mother
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle—and rewards—of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented tragedies to find not a restoration, but the epicenter of the break.
The Tradition
Jericho Brown
Poems of fatherhood, legacy, blackness, queerness, worship, and trauma are propelled into stunning clarity by Brown's mastery, and his invention of the duplex—a combination of the sonnet, the ghazal, and the blues—is testament to his formal skill. The Tradition is a cutting and necessary collection, relentless in its quest for survival while reveling in a celebration of contradiction.
The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One
Amanda Lovelace
The witch: supernaturally powerful, inscrutably independent, and now—indestructible. These moving, relatable poems encourage resilience and embolden women to take control of their own stories. Enemies try to judge, oppress, and marginalize her, but the witch doesn't burn in this one.
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Teens & Tweens
Ain't Burned All the Bright
Jason Reynolds
Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW.
Audacity
Melanie Crowder
A historical fiction novel in verse detailing the life of Clara Lemlich and her struggle for women's labor rights in the early 20th century in New York.
Brown Girl Dreaming
Jacqueline Woodson
Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and emotionally charged, each line a glimpse into a child's soul as she searches for her place in the world.
How I Discovered Poetry
Marilyn Nelson
The author reflects on her childhood in the 1950s and her development as an artist and young woman through fifty poems that consider such influences as the Civil Rights Movement, the "Red Scare" era, and the feminist movement.
Long Way Down
Jason Reynolds
As Will, fifteen, sets out to avenge his brother Shawn's fatal shooting, seven ghosts who knew Shawn board the elevator and reveal truths Will needs to know. Told in short, fierce staccato narrative verse, Long Way Down is a fast and furious, dazzlingly brilliant look at teenage gun violence, as could only be told by Jason Reynolds.
Please Excuse this Poem: 100 Poems for the Next Generation
Brett Fletcher Lauer and Lynn Melnick, editors
Please Excuse This Poem features one hundred acclaimed younger poets from truly diverse backgrounds and points of view, whose work has appeared everywhere from The New Yorker to Twitter, tackling a startling range of subjects in a startling range of poetic forms.
The Poet X
Elizabeth Acevedo
When Xiomara Batista, who pours all her frustrations and passion into poetry, is invited to join the school slam poetry club, she struggles with her mother's expectations and her need to be heard.
Shout: A Poetry Memoir
Laurie Halse Anderson
A memoir in verse shares the author's life, covering her rape at thirteen, her difficult early childhood, and her experiences surrounding her publication of Speak.
Skyscraping
Cordelia Jensen
Told in raw, exposed free verse, Skyscraping reminds us that there is no one way to be a family. Mira is just beginning her senior year of high school when she discovers her father with his male lover. Her world—and everything she thought she knew about her family—is shattered instantly. Unable to comprehend the lies, betrayal, and secrets that—unbeknownst to Mira—have come to define and keep intact her family's existence, Mira distances herself from her sister and closest friends as a means of coping. But her father's sexual orientation isn't all he's kept hidden. A shocking health scare brings to light his battle with HIV. As Mira struggles to make sense of the many fractures in her family's fabric and redefine her wavering sense of self, she must find a way to reconnect with her dad—while there is still time.
The Sound of Letting Go
Stasia Ward Kehoe
At seventeen, Daisy feels imprisoned by her brother Steven's autism and its effects and her only escape is through her trumpet into the world of jazz, but when her parents decide to send Steven to an institution she is not ready to let him go.
Poetry Movies | Celebrate Poetry at the Library
Children
Amanda Gorman
Megan Borgert-Spaniol
This biography highlights the life and accomplishments of Amanda Gorman. Readers learn about Gorman's early life in which she became Youth Poet Laureate of Los Angeles, her work at Harvard University where she became National Youth Poet Laureate, and her reading at the 2021 presidential inauguration.
Bright Brown Baby
Andrea Davis Pinkney
Cuddle up with your little one, read aloud, and REPEAT: This gorgeous picture book treasury is sure to become your favorite storytime anthem. Dive into these five beautiful poems that celebrate the tender, cozy, early days between parent and child, and the exuberant joy of watching a brand-new life take shape.
Dizzy Dinosaurs: Silly Dino Poems
Lee Bennett Hokins, editor
Collects humorous poems about dinosaurs, both real and fictional, including the muddy Triceratops, the pilot Pterodactyl, and the dancing Sauropods.
Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems
Kristine O’Connell George
Emma is Jess's little sister...and her dilemma. How can one small girl be sweet, funny, imaginative, playful, and affectionate as well as a clinging vine, brat, tattletale, and nuisance-all at the same time? Why is Jess supposed to be a good big sister while Emma doesn't have to be a good little sister? The highlights and low points of this sibling relationship are insightfully evoked in short and simple poems, some funny, some touching, and all resonant with emotional truth.
A Girl Like Me
Angela Johnson
Empower young readers to embrace their individuality, reject societal limitations, and follow their dreams. This inspiring picture book brings together a poem by acclaimed author Angela Johnson and Nina Crews's distinctive photocollage illustrations to celebrate girls of color.
Hair Story
NoNieqa Ramos
Illustrations and rhythmic, rhyming text follow a Boricua girl and a Black girl from birth through early childhood, culminating in a playdate where they celebrate their natural hair.
Inside Out and Back Again
Thanhha Lai
Through a series of poems, a young girl chronicles the life-changing year of 1975, when she, her mother, and her brothers leave Vietnam and resettle in Alabama.
Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons
Laura Purdie Salas
Haiku meet riddles in this wonderful collection from Laura Purdie Salas. The poems celebrate the seasons and describe everything from an earthworm to a baseball to an apple to snow angels, alongside full-color illustrations.
Poems I Wrote When No One Was Looking
Alan Katz
Presents a treasury of more than one hundred whimsical poems that frolic on the lighter side of everything from school and siblings to sports and friendship, in a volume complemented by black-and-white illustrations.
The Undefeated
Kwame Alexander
Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the accomplishments of the past, while bringing stark attention to the endurance and spirit of those surviving and thriving in the present.
Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein
Shel Silverstein
A boy who turns into a TV set and a girl who eats a whale are only two of the characters in a collection of humorous poetry illustrated with the author's own drawings.
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