books books books!

If you didn’t attend AWP and bring home a huge stack of books (or even if you did!), here’s a new assortment of poetry-book recommendations:

• Book Riot – The Best Poetry Books of 2023
• CBC – 46 Canadian poetry collections to watch for in spring 2023
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• The New York Times – From Newcomers and Veterans, Four New Poetry Books Worth Your Time
• The New York Times – The New Black Canon: Books, Plays and Poems That Everyone Should Know
• read poetry – 10 Most Anticipated Poetry Collections in 2023

plenty to read

Further recommendations for your overburdened bookshelf:

• Book Authority – 20 Best New Poetry Books To Read In 2023
• little infinite – 5 Poetry Collections To Look Forward To in 2023
• read poetry – 7 January 2023 Poetry Collections to Start Off the Year
• read poetry – 6 Spectacular February 2023 Poetry Releases
• Shade Literary Arts – 2023 Forthcoming Poetry Books by Queer People of Color
• Vulture – 31 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2023

If you’ve been moved by a book of poetry, recent or otherwise, leave a comment with the author and title!

the last of the best

Here is the last of the 2022 best-of posts, and the last post of 2022.

• Alta Journal – Best Poetry Book
• Book Scrolling – The Best Poetry Books of 2022 (A Year-End List Aggregation)
• Kirkus – Best Teen & YA Poetry & Verse of 2022
• School Library Journal – 31 Days, 31 Lists: 2022 Poetry Books for Kids

Thank you for visiting The Poetry Department, for leaving your comments, and for adding your poetry to the riches of life here in Cascadia, here on Earth. More poetry in 2023!

recommended

We will probably have one more “best-of” list before the end of the year, but meanwhile, the pundits continue to suggest worthwhile titles for your overburdened shelf. Here are a few more:

• Electric Literature – 10 New Poetry Collections by Latinx and Caribbean Writers
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• Santa Barbara Independent – Poetry Books for the Winter Season
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: December 2022

‘Tis the season. Cozy up with a book.

Best-of season No. 3

Here’s the third round of recommendations for the best poetry books of 2022:

• Book Riot – 10 of the Best Poetry Collections of 2022
• Electric Lit – Electric Lit’s Favorite Poetry Collections of 2022
• Literary Hub – The Best Reviewed Poetry Collections of 2022
• Newsroom ReadingRoom – Xmas: the best poetry books of 2022
• read poetry – 22 of Our Favorite Poetry Books from 2022
• The Yale Review – Our Most-Read Poems of 2022

Your recommendations and comments are always welcome!

books, books, books!

Pretty soon we will start seeing the annual best-of lists, but for the moment we still have plenty of book recommendations jumping off the shelf. Here’s another batch:

• BookPage – 2022 gift ideas: Poetry is the best present
• Book Riot – Poetry to Get You Through the Winter
• The Bucknellian – Best poetry reads for November 2022
• Ereads – 12 Best Modern Poetry Books (2022)
• Goodreads – Best Poetry: Opening Round Nominees
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• The New Yorker – The Best Books of 2022 So Far
• The Washington Post – The 5 best poetry collections of 2022
• Year-End Lists – National Book Award: Poetry 2022

books for fall…

The poetry books, and lists of recommended titles, just keep coming!

• Academy of American Poets – 2022 Featured Fall Books List
• CLMP – Books Launching in October 2022
• Epic Reads – 31 Poetry Books & Novels in Verse Guaranteed to Take Your Breath Away
• Washington Independent Review of Books – On Poetry: October 2022

Cozy up with a poetry book (or two)… and happy reading!

The Sealey Challenge revisited

This is a guest post by Sheila Sondik

Do you have stacks of unread poetry books? If you’re reading this blog, I’d guess that you do. The poet Nicole Sealey pledged to read a book of poems every day in August 2017 and has inspired other poetry lovers to do the same every August since. I decided to give The Sealey Challenge a try this year.

I did it! I read 31 books in August! A half dozen or so were by friends, some were by very well-known poets (Ada Limón, Ilya Kaminsky), and the rest were mostly new to me. So many exciting discoveries from my own bookshelves! I was swept up in the glory of poetry.

The most delightful surprise was finding Short Journey Upriver Toward Ōishida, a book I don’t remember acquiring, a discard from the Penetanguishene Public Library in Ontario (in spite of its winning the 2004 Governor General’s Award for English-language Poetry). The whimsical Hiroshige print on the cover may have been what led them to misclassify it as a juvenile book. That print was what caught my eye, and the contents are filled with references to Bashō and his trip to the far north of Japan, as well as a Tanizaki short story. One section of this book is written in the haibun form, combining prose and haiku-like poetry. A multipage prose poem features a full-fruited persimmon tree, passed by chance on a drive. That reminded me of our persimmon tree in Berkeley, which gave our family so much joy. There are also many poems in Roo Borson’s book that were written walking along rivers on repeated visits to Australia. Before the pandemic, I visited Australia several times to see my grandchildren. The Sealey Challenge worked in its mysterious way to bring me to many books like this one that have special meaning for me.

There’s no bureaucracy overseeing The Sealey Challenge. Just gather your stash and read. I found it fun to join the Facebook group to get a glimpse of what others were reading. I posted a weekly photo of what I’d read. The only thing I might change next year is to read some longer collections, that may need more than one day to complete. After all, who’s counting?

. . . . .
Sheila Sondik’s Sealey Challenge list, alphabetically:

Hifsa Ashraf, her deep-rooted scars
Hifsa Ashraf, Wildflowers
Rick Barot, The Galleons
Allison Blevins, Letters to Joan
Roo Borson, Short Journey Upriver Toward Ōishida
Marianne Boruch, Bestiary Dark
Cid Corman, nothing doing
Geffrey Davis, Night Angler
Giorgio de Chirico, Geometry of Shadows
Deborah Digges, Rough Music
Nava Etshalom, The Knives We Need
Linda Gregerson, Canopy
Joan Naviyuk Kane, Dark Traffic
Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa
Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic
Laura Kasischke, Space, in Chains
Danusha Lameris, Bonfire Opera
Ye Lijun, My Mountain Country
Ada Limón, The Carrying
Ada Limón, The Hurting Kind
Nancy Chen Long, Wider Than the Sky
Amy Miller, Astronauts
Jim Moore, Prognosis
Joan Murray, Dancing on the Edge
Hoa Nguyen, A Thousand Times you Lose Your Treasure
Bethany Reid, Sparrow
Masayo Saito, Snow Bones
Caroline N. Simpson, Choose Your Own Adventure
Judith Skillman, Oscar the Misanthropist
Sarah White, Iridescent Guest
Charles Wright, Caribou

. . . . .

Sheila Sondik is a Bellingham printmaker and poet. Her poem “At Tennant Lake” was a Merit Award winner in this year’s Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest. Her website is sheilasondik.com.

books!

It’s a little terrifying to know how many poetry books there are to read. But we wouldn’t want you to miss out, so we’ll keep supplying these lists of recommended titles. (And by the way, we’ll hear soon from a poet who did the big gulp: 31 poetry books in a month as part of the Sealey Challenge.)

• Action Books – Micro-Reviews of Poetry in Translation (Part II)
• Book Riot – The Best Black Poets to Read (and Listen To!) Right Now
• 49th Shelf – Most Anticipated: Our 2022 Fall Poetry Preview
• The Guardian – The best recent poetry – review roundup
• Joel’s Books – 9 Wonderful Short Poetry Books (2022) To Lift Your Spirit
• little infinite – Poetry Books Perfect for Fall Nights
• Read Poetry – Poetry Releases to Start the Fall Season
• Write or Die Tribe – 14 New Poetry Collections Releasing This Fall

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.