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Get Into Poetry in 2025: Essentials & Unique Picks 📚

27 items

sani ♡

You've always wanted to try reading poetry, but never knew where to start? Or you already love poetry, but you want some more niche recs? Either way, you'll find something for you here!

mary oliver is one of my favourite poets, and her work is guaranteed to touch your heart. not overly difficult to read, yet extremely emotional, it's a great start for someone who's just getting into poetry. this collection is an especially great cho...

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

now a more niche pick that not many have read just yet, but those who have read it found it emotional, touching, and thought provoking. written by the korean american author yun jihyun, these poems will inspire you to think more about culture, family...

Some Are Always Hungry

anne carson, this collection especially, is an absolute must read if you want to read about love, marriage, beauty, desire, devotion, and how it can all go wrong. one of the most inspiring and emotionally expressive collections i've ever read, i coul...

The Beauty of the Husband

ocean vuong is in my top 5 authors of all time and i genuinely believe you can't go wrong with reading his work, especially if you want something so emotional it's heart-wrenching. this is, in my opinion, his best work, and you might like it if you'r...

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

an absolutely stunning collection about love, romance, memories, family, war, the immigrant experience, language, loss, grief, being queer, and more. full of extremely powerful poems that you will keep on thinking about weeks after first reading them...

Night Sky with Exit Wounds

ocean vuong's second collection, once again full of intensely emotional and super intimate poems that will make you feel like you're personally connected to the author. very interesting writing and language, masterful ways of expressing various diffi...

Time Is a Mother

truly incredible, a collection of powerful poems about love, obsession, growing up, longing, and more. full of raw emotion and intriguing symbolism such as death in relation to obsessive love. it's a collection you'll never forget and keep coming bac...

Crush

a truly varied collection from one of my favourite authors of all time, who's typically known for the picture of dorian gray and his plays. if you enjoyed those works of his, you'll probably enjoy this collection too. written in wilde's signature sty...

The Poetry of Oscar Wilde

my personal favourite from emily dickinson, a classic collection from one of america's greatest poets. the poems focus on beauty, life and death, isolation, eternity. extremely emotional and thought provoking, a collection that will stay with you for...

My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun

more of a niche, rarely mentioned pick, but alice notley's best collection if you ask me. very atmospheric yet very powerful, a lyrical collection with some elements of prose, making this a genre-bending work. extremely creative writing, a masterful ...

In the Pines

the theme of this collection is literally the colour blue, so you might expect it to be simple. fortunately, you'd be wrong! these poems talk about so much more than just blue as a colour, the writing is great and the symbolism is well-explored. an e...

Bluets

mostly enjoyed by gen z readers, but an universal collection – anybody can find a relatable poem in this collection. an exploration of family, found/chosen family, love, struggle, the life of a queer person, and more. despite some difficult themes, t...

Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

my personal favourite collection from the incredible poet ada limón, whose name or work you might recognise from people who have posted emotional quotes by her on instagram and tumblr, mostly. if you like this, you'll definitely like all her other co...

Bright Dead Things

a very long yet super intriguing title, almost as intriguing as the poems themselves. a collection by one of china's best contemporary poets, this powerful and inspiring work explores themes such as love, desire, the body, compassion, and nature.

My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree

a collection of lyrical yet political poetry, a masterful and creative exploration of colonialism, religion, the patriarchy, and intersectionality. noor hindi has a very specific tone, it is extremely direct and even people who read a lot of poetry m...

Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow.

a super emotional collection about womanhood, growing up, family, motherhood, the relationship between a mother and a daughter, societal issues, race, feminism, queerness, and more. a deeply inspiring read about the experiences of a young queer black...

Black Girl, Call Home

a gorgeous collection with a super pretty cover, a philosophical but not difficult to read book with an apocalyptic version of london as the backdrop. themes of transience, life and death, chaos, pleasure, vulnerability, and how life can be both swee...

Sweetdark

an accessible collection of poems just as pretty as the cover of this book. the author talks about culture, family, food, language (mostly the mandarin language), belonging, communication, identity, and more. my favourite aspect is definitely the aut...

Magnolia

possibly the most niche and rarely discussed pick on this list, an extremely underrated gem of poetry. this collection is focused on growing up as a queer woman in a red state. the poems are very atmospheric as well, with the backdrop of churches, li...

Landlocked

another gorgeously atmospheric collection, focused on liminal spaces such as arrival terminals and various checkpoints in america. some of the poems are very critical, and they're all very analytical of the society we live in today. an extremely crea...

Customs

gorgeous poems celebrating the beauty of the black vernacular and how meaningful it truly is. it's about culture, how pop culture is influenced by black culture, language, how language shapes our lives and experiences. an extremely impactful collecti...

Finna

a collection of super creative and unique poems, opens with a poem about police brutality and the experiences of black people in such a system. other themes include love, family, safety, desire, the body, mortality, life and death. extremely inspirin...

Don't Call Us Dead

symbolic, lyrical and charming poems that you'll want to revisit again and again once you're done reading. the book includes an introduction with some historical information that will definitely help you better understand and connect with the poems. ...

The Poems of Nakahara Chuya

a collection of dreamy and haunting poems about life and death, full of wonderful symbolism and metaphors. beautifully written and guaranteed to stay with you for a long time. though i generally enjoy anything by laura kasischke, i believe this is he...

Space, in Chains

a collection of beautiful poems about death, written by japanese monks and haiku poets who were nearing their deaths. since it's a collection of works from various different authors, you have the opportunity to read many different styles here. some p...

Japanese Death Poems

very unique in both style and theme, this collection focuses on love, culture, survival, grief, betrayal, politics, and more. the author writes in a very unique, witty tone that i haven't quite seen anywhere else. sometimes there is even a certain do...

Alive at the End of the World

a pretty cover for a pretty collection, an exploration on telling life stories, and how choosing whether or not to tell them shapes us as people. a combination of prose and poetry, this book follows a young girl called ruby who is growing up with a m...

Somebody Loves You