more to read

Looking for something to read? Here are some more suggestions:

• Action Books – Action Books’ Micro-Reviews of Poetry in Translation (Part I)
• CBC – 48 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in fall 2022
• Columbia News – Here Are the Latinx Poets to Read Now
• Reader’s Digest – 9 Poets who will make you see poetry differently
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: September 2022

Feel free to add your must-read poetry titles in the Comments.

long list

The National Book Foundation has announced the long lists for the 2022 National Book Awards. The ten poets and titles in poetry are:

• Rio Cortez, Golden Ax (Penguin Random House)
• Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Look at This Blue (Coffee House Press)
• Jay Hopler, Still Life (McSweeney’s)
• John Keene, Punks: New & Selected Poems (Song Cave)
• Sharon Olds, Balladz (Penguin Random House / Knopf)
• Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian (WW Norton)
• Sherry Shenoda, Mummy Eaters (University of Nebraska Press)
• Quincy Troupe, Duende (Seven Stories Press)
• Shelley Wong, As She Appears (YesYes Books)
• Jenny Xie, The Rupture Tense (Graywolf Press)

The finalists will be announced on October 4, and the winners will be announced at the 73rd National Book Awards Ceremony and Benefit Dinner on November 16, 2022.

If these books aren’t already on your list, add them now!

prize time

The Poetry Foundation has just announced the winners of the 2022 Pegasus Awards, a family of literary prizes that include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Young People’s Poet Laureate, and the Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism.

In recognition of Poetry magazine’s 110th anniversary, the Poetry Foundation has decided to award 10 additional Ruth Lilly Poetry Prizes this year, resulting in $1,132,500 in prizes distributed to the 2022 winners. It is the greatest prize amount that the Foundation has ever awarded to a cohort of living poets at one time. The 11 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize winners are: Sandra Cisneros, CAConrad, Rita Dove, Nikki Giovanni, Juan Felipe Herrera, Angela Jackson, Haki Madhubuti, Sharon Olds, Sonia Sanchez, Patti Smith, and Arthur Sze.

The Poetry Foundation has also chosen Elizabeth Acevedo, the bestselling author of The Poet X, to serve as the 2022–2024 Young People’s Poet Laureate, and awarded The Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism to Kevin Quashie for his book Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being, which draws on Black feminist literary texts, including work by poets Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, and June Jordan.

reading September

If you scraped your bookshelves clean during the Sealey Challenge, here are a few more poetry book recommendations:

• The Berkshire Edge – Four by Four . . . the First Poetry Quartet presents four poets who should be better known
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – August review roundup
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – September review roundup
• Orion – 12 Recommended Poetry Collections
• The Portobello Bookshop – Bookseller Picks: New Poetry July-September 2022

Have poetry favorites to share? Leave a comment!

Washington State Book Awards finalists!

The Washington Center for the Book and The Seattle Public Library have just announced 39 finalists in eight categories for the 2022 Washington State Book Awards (WSBA) for outstanding books published by Washington authors in 2021.

In poetry, the finalists are

• Broken by Water: Salish Sea Years (Turning Point) by Gary Thompson
• Dialogues with Rising Tides (Copper Canyon Press) by Kelli Russell Agodon
• More American (Grid Books / Off the Grid Press) by Sharon Hashimoto
• Self-Portrait with Cephalopod (Milkweed Editions) by Kathryn Smith
• Stray Birds (Kelson Books) by Andrew Robin

Congratulations, poets!

See the complete list of 2022 finalists as well as winners and finalists from previous years, and stay tuned for the 2022 winners, to be announced on Tuesday, September 13, 2022.

Submissions are now being accepted for the 2023 book awards, for books published in 2022.

more books!

Here are more recommendations and titles for your Sealey Challenge pile:

• Autostraddle – In Verse: Poetry Collections for a Summer Picnic
• National Poetry Library – Staff picks Summer 2022 — Air, sun & father possibilities
• Orion – 12 Recommended Poetry Collections for Summer 2022
• The Seattle Times – 5 poetry collections we’re loving this summer
• Stuff – What I’m Reading: Poet laureate David Eggleton
• Town & Country – 16 Must-Read Poetry Books

Happy reading! And if you have a favorite new poetry book to recommend, do leave a comment!

books and a bonus

Here’s another batch of poetry book recommendations for your summer enjoyment:

• Book Riot – 15 Poetry Books for the Upcoming Sealey Challenge
• Brit & Co – The Best Poetry Books To Read If You’re New To The Genre
• The New York Times – Chance, Design and Inevitability in Three New Poetry Books
• The Times – Notable new poetry books of 2022: Ocean Vuong, Caroline Bird and more
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: July 2022
• Words Without Borders – 8 Poetry Collections in Translation to Read in 2022

And a bonus:

• Podcast Review – The 9 Best Podcasts for Poetry Lovers

The Sealey Challenge

The Sealey Challenge, started by poet Nicole Sealey in 2017, is back again for 2022. The idea is to read a book or chapbook of poetry each day of August. There’s no charge, no rules, and no signup, but LOTS of great book recommendations for August and all year round.

Visit the website and follow #TheSealeyChallenge on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

This is the perfect time to prepare your pile of 31 books. Here’s a list of titles posted by Jordan E McNeil. Here’s the Sealey Challenge page on Goodreads.

summer reading

We hope that your summer calendar has lots of space for reading and that your summer reading list has plenty of space for poetry. Here are some current recommendations:

• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• The Los Angeles Review of Books – A Tree of Many: A Review of Three New Poetry Anthologies
• Read Poetry – Poetry Releases to Heat Up Your Reading List
• Poetry Society of America – The Poet’s Nightstand (each edition features five recommended titles)
• Town & Country – A Guide to Ada Limón’s Poetry

Summer is also a good time for catching up with the book suggestions you may have missed. Here are links to some past what to read now posts.

books!

Well, The Rumpus beat us to the headline “What to Read When You’ve Made it Halfway Through 2022” but they didn’t include all of the book recommendations, so here you go:

• Compulsive Reader – June 2022 reviews
• Financial Times – Best summer books of 2022: Poetry
• Publishers Weekly – Fall 2022 Announcements: Poetry
• Read Poetry – Poetry Releases to Shop Now
• The Rumpus – What to Read When You’ve Made it Halfway Through 2022
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: June 2022
• World Literature Today – Verse

Happy reading! And if you have a poetry favorite, new or old, leave a comment for the benefit of other readers.