What do you think of when you think of poets? An all-black ensemble and furious typing in a dark, musty room with an old, rusty typewriter? There is so much more to it than that (although I’m sure some writers still like typewriters)! Step into a poetry awakening! Forget what you think you know about the genre. There has been a wide and eclectic group of poets that come from many different generations and backgrounds gracing the pages with their poetic masterpieces for quite some time now. On the list below there is a good mix of younger and older, men and women, lesser known and more established, and diverse cultural backgrounds represented.
This April (today!) marks the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month. It’s the largest literary celebration in the world and everyone’s invited! The purpose of the month is to celebrate poetry’s notable impact on our culture. If you just love poetry or if you are a poetry newbie, this list is a great place to start reading some of the literary works from great poets. Read on and discover, in no particular order, some (key word!) of the best poets writing today. Happy National Poetry Month!
1. Thomas Sayers Ellis; The Maverick Room, Skin,Inc.: Identity Repair
2. Julia Alvarez; Homecoming, The Woman I Kept to Myself
3. Carolyn Forche; The Country Between Us
4. Danez Smith; [insert] boy
5. Beth Ann Fennelly; Unmentionables, Tender Hooks
6. Ben Lerner; Angle of Yaw, Mean Free Path
7. Gerald Stern; This Time: New and Selected Poems, Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems
8. Tracy K. Smith; Duende:Poems, Life on Mars: Poems
9. Sandra Beasley; I Was the Jukebox: Poems
10. Deborah Landau; Orchidelirium
11. Brian Turner; Here, Bullet
12. Alicia Ostriker; The Imaginary Lover, The Crack in Everything
13. Michael Waters; Gospel Night, Darling Vulgarity
14. Kim Addonizio; Scary Movies (Poetry, March 2000), Eating Together (Poetry, June 2003)
15. Camille Dungy; Smith Blue
16. Kyle Dargan; Bouquet of Hungers
17. Dorianne Laux; The Book of Men: Poems
18. Jericho Brown; Please (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
19. Dave Lucas; Weather
20. Jennifer Chang; The History of Anonymity
21. Marie Howe; The Kingdom of Ordinary Time
22. Martin Espada; Vivas to Those Who Have Failed
23. Ellen Bass; Like A Beggar
24. Gregory Pardlo; Digest
25. Natasha Trethewey; Native Guard
26. Brian Teare; The Room Where I Was Born
27. Natalie Diaz; When My Brother Was an Aztec
28. Marilyn Chin; Hard Love Province
29. Charles Simic; The World Doesn’t End
30. Claudia Rankine; Citizen: An American Lyric
31. Louise Gluck; The Wild Iris
32. Aimee Nezhukumatathil; Lucky Fish
33. Billy Collins; Voyage
34. Angel Nafis; Be Blk! (Union Station Magazine 2011)
35. Katherine Larson; Radial Symmetry
36. Richard Siken, War of the Foxes
37. Erika Meitner; Ideal Cities
38. Claire Kageyama-Ramakrishnan; Shadow Mountain
39. Ricky Laurentiis; Boy with Thorn
40. Aracelis Girmay; Kingdom Animalia
41. Kevin Coval; The Breakfast Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop
42. Ted Kooser; Delights & Shadows
43. Warsan Shire; Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
44. Patricia Smith; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah
45. Naomi Shihab Nye; You & yours: poems
46. Kay Ryan; The Niagara River
47. W.S. Merwin; The Moon Before Morning
48. D.A. Powell; Lunch
49. Charles Wright; Black Zodiac
50. Juan Felipe Herrera; 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocuments 1971-2007
51. Sharon Olds; The Wellspring
52. Carl Dennis; Practical Gods
53. Rae Armantrout; Versed
54. Anna Journey; If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting
55. Paul Muldoon; Moy Sand and Gravel
56. Robert Hass; Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005
57. Paisley Rekdal; Animal Eye
58. Terrance Hayes; Lighthead
59. Philip Schultz; Living in the Past
60. Vijay Seshadri; 3 Sections
Know some more poets for readers to discover? Let us know in the comments below! Follow me on Twitter TheBookaholicBee for anything and everything about books!
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Filed under: Current Events
Tags: April, National Poetry Month, poetry, poets
