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✍️Poetry/Short stories/Essays
40
items These collections blew me away and the lyricism of each of these books is something to be celebrated.
Sections
3
Poetry
Short stories
Essays
Poetry
My favorite poetry books.
An incredibly important work of memoir, journalism, and poetry
Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems
Loved the lyricism and rhythm of this collection. I do think it could have been a bit more cohesive.
Time Is a Mother : Vuong, Ocean
A super powerful collection about war, being a refugee, abuse, and family.
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head
This was an incredible exploration into grief and death that was so powerful. It made me feel all the things. Can't recommend this one enough (just be prepared to be heartbroken).
Obit : Chang, Victoria
The best poetry book I’ve read this year.
A Cruelty Special to Our Species: Poems : Yoon
Akwaeke Emezi does is again 💔
Content Warning: Everything : Emezi, Akwaeke
Not going to lie, I'm biased with this one. It's mine ;)
Of Bricks and Breath: Luckow, Kaitlyn
I thought this was a really lovely exploration of what it means to be a woman through friendship, marriage, and motherhood. I adored the marriage section and definitely would have connected to it more deeply if I was a mother. I’m looking forward to ...
What Kind of Woman: Poems : Baer, Kate
I thought this was a really powerful collection exploring grief, violence, and relationships. The best part of this collection was the imagery, especially involving nature. The toxic relationship at the core of this piece was similar to one in my pas...
Brute: Poems : Skaja, Emily
Such a powerful collection of essays and poetry that explore the Black experience. It’s also an incredible call for empathy. I absolutely LOVED the multi-media part of this collection. Rankine included photos, data, and screenshots to prove her point...
Just Us: An American Conversation - Claudia Rankine
A really powerful and well-written collection about growing up as a Pakistani-Muslim in America. I loved how this explores themes of family, identity, home, and chosen family. I thought how she played with different forms throughout this collection w...
If They Come for Us: Poems : Asghar, Fatimah
A really powerful and well-written collection. It explores mass incarceration and the the cyclical nature of the “justice” system. I particularly loved the blackout poetry. It was brilliant.
Felon: Poems - Reginald Dwayne Betts
Such a brilliant poetry collection that focuses on being Black and queer and living with HIV. Smith's mastery of form is breathtaking.
Don't Call Us Dead : Smith, Danez:
This collection tears through you, leaving you breathless in your pain and hope. I loved this so much. It was so well put together and the poetry forms were genius and yet still accessible. It explored themes of pain, abuse, race, sexuality, faith, a...
The Tradition : Brown, Jericho
I loved the imagery and form used in this collection. I thought it was super clever and powerful. Not all of the pieces made me feel something, but it’s nearly impossible for every piece to in a collection.
A Fortune for Your Disaster - Hanif Abdurraqib
This was one of the best books of poetry I have ever read. It was a brilliant exploration of society's fascination with murder and the stories of victims, as well as being part memoir. I want everyone to read this.
Life of the Party: Poems - Olivia Gatwood
If y’all haven’t read this yet, what are you doing???
Where Does the Dark Live? : Meagan, Natalie
This is the first collection of Bitsui I have read and I was impressed. His poems are super rich in imagery based on punctuation and body parts, which I really loved.
His poems aren’t ones that you can read quickly. They take a while to digest and t...
Dissolve : Bitsui, Sherwin
This was so incredibly powerful. The words felt alive. I loved the style this was written in and I really appreciated Yrsa’s rawness and realness. She tells it like it is. One of my new favorite authors.
The Terrible - Yrsa Daley-Ward
One of the most powerful collections of poetry I’ve read. I can’t wait to read her new book. Daley-Ward is a POWERHOUSE of a storyteller.
bone : Daley-Ward, Yrsa
I was pleasantly surprised by this collection. I randomly picked it up from the library and had no expectations. I've been looking for a poetry collection that went deeper than surface level feelings and I finally found that in Sam Sax's collection. ...
Madness (Penguin Poets) Taschenbuch - Sam Sax
Oh my goodness! This is one of the best poetry collections I've read in a while. Mai Der Vang uses her poetry as a vessel for storytelling for her Hmong heritage and the refugee crisis from Laos. She opens the collection with stories of terror and fo...
Afterland: Poems : Der Vang, Mai
This is the first collection by Audre Lorde I've read and it is brilliant. She's a true poet and I loved her word choices and repetition. The themes and messages of this collection were heart-wrenching and still relevant today.
The Black Unicorn: Audre Lorde (Penguin Modern)
This is probably the best collection of poetry I have ever read. Absolutely stunning and brilliant. In love.
No Matter the Wreckage : Kay, Sarah
a short collection, but absolutely STUNNING.
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth
Really important book of poetry about current race issues in our society. Beautiful lines and heartbreaking stories.
However, I thought that the visuals added into the book were unnecessary and often distracted from the words themselves.
CITIZEN: An American Lyric : Rankine, Claudia
A beautiful collection exploring hunger, immigration, family, animals, and folklore.
Beast at Every Threshold by Wee, Natalie
[edit] So brilliant. These poems have such a powerful energy and presence. They’re accessible and invite you in to experience a life almost torn between two homes: US (and what that looks like post 9/11) and Yemen. Highly recommend
The Wild Fox of Yemen: Poems
A badass and fearless exploitation of racism, poverty, and sexism through brilliant wordplay, sharp humor, and poems that really punch you in the gut. With it being such a large collection, some poems hit more than other
Wicked Enchantment: Selected Poems
A deeply emotional eulogy and a call to action for the liberation of Palestine. Absolutely remarkable
Rifqa by Mohammed El-Kurd
wow. Such a short, but powerful collection. This explores the definition of terrorist and the real terrors in this world and how they’re all connected. I thought the word choice and wordplay in this collection was brilliant.
Diaries of a Terrorist by Christopher Soto
A raw and intimate look at life in different identities in so many ways: sexuality, relationships, home, etc. I really appreciated the poems exploring lies, trauma, and marriage.
The Twenty-Ninth Year by Hala Alyan
Short stories
My favorite short story collections.
Foster’s “Shine of the Ever” was a hard book to read. Not because of any faults, but because of its brilliance. Foster’s work is so raw that it can make the reader uncomfortable, but I struggle to think of any collection I’ve read that even comes clo...
Shine of the Ever : Foster, Claire Rudy
So many of these stories were incredibly powerful and like punches to the gut. The first one made me cry. But like with most short story collections, some stories were great, some were fine, and some seemed like fillers.
White Dancing Elephants : Bhuvaneswar, Chaya
Wow wow wow. I was blown away by this incredible collection about bodies, culture, storytelling, and history. I learned so much from reading this.
Drinking from Graveyard Wells
Again, another biased add because it's mine ;)
Bury Me into Diamonds
A really cohesive, strong, and moving collection that explores themes of immigration, false promises, and illusions. The way Engel writes characters is so raw and moving. Truly remarkable.
The Faraway World: Stories - Patricia Engel
Essays
My favorite essay collections
A really lovely and poetic look at the science and emotions behind crying. Some people may be thrown off by the organization and stream-of-consciousness style writing, but it worked for me here
The Crying Book - Christle, Heather
In Burn It Down, Dancyger complies a collection of essays from a diverse group of authors that explore their rage and their entitlement to not only feel it, but to express it. These essays explore themes such as chronic illness, racism, sexuality, so...
Burn It Down: Women Writing about Anger : Dancyger
A beautiful, lyrical, and vulnerable collection of the connection between selves, our bodies, community, and land. I was particularly struck by the piece about Whitehead’s aunt.
Making Love with the Land: Essays