Top 10
Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes
Langston Hughes. Legacy Lit, Nov. 5 ($25, ISBN 978-1-5387-6891-4)
This collection showcases the Harlem Renaissance poet’s writings from 1919 to 1929, including poems published in the NAACP magazine The Crisis and a play he cowrote with W.E.B. DuBois.
Dear Yusef: Essays, Letters, and Poems, for and About One Mr. Komunyakaa
Edited by John Murillo and Nicole Sealey. Wesleyan Univ., Nov. 5 ($24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8195-0134-9)
Featuring new works by Toi Derricotte, Carolyn Forché, Terrance Hayes, Major Jackson, and Sharon Olds, this anthology celebrates Komunyakaa’s legacy and his impact on the lives of poets around the globe.
Go Figure
Rae Armantrout. Wesleyan Univ., Aug. 6 ($27, ISBN 978-0-8195-0079-3)
Armantrout casts her attention to the world’s unexpected occurrences and unusual species in poems that celebrate humanity’s relationship to words in a time of global catastrophe.
I Love Hearing Your Dreams
Matthew Zapruder. Scribner, Sept. 24 ($26, ISBN 978-1-6680-5980-7)
Dreams, aspirations, and disenchantments are at the center of Zapruder’s ruminations on sleep, potential, and many aspects of contemporary life and culture.
Joy in Service on Rue Tagore
Paul Muldoon. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Sept. 10 ($27, ISBN 978-0-374-61421-8)
Poems about Ireland, loss, and history complement reflections on Standard Oil, Ukrainian pogroms, and modern warfare.
Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology
Edited by Rigoberto González. Library of America, Sept. 3 ($40, ISBN 978-1-59853-783-3)
Gathering works by more than 180 poets—including Sandra Cisneros, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Pedro Pietri—from the 17th century to the present day, this compendium celebrates the great variety of Latino poetry.
Load in Nine Times
Frank X Walker. Liveright, Oct. 1 ($26.99, ISBN 978-1-324-09493-7)
Walker contemplates the experiences of Black Civil War soldiers—his own ancestors among them—in poems that range from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.
Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems: 1961–2023
Margaret Atwood. Knopf, Oct. 8 ($40, ISBN 978-0-593-80264-9)
Full of myths, fauna, and the mundane, this career retrospective highlights Atwood’s lasting influence and evolution as a writer.
Reconstruction of the Poet: Uncollected Works of Zbigniew Herbert
Zbigniew Herbert, edited and trans. by Alissa Valles. Ecco, Aug. 13 ($30, ISBN 978-0-06-288319-3)
Spanning from 1950 to 1998, these previously untranslated poems and plays document the prolific Polish author’s reckonings with post-WWII Europe.
The Twenty-First
Jacob Eigen. American Poetry Review, Sept. 17 ($16 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-9875852-2-1)
Eigen debuts with a study of the nature of time, illustrating its many facets in prose poems and lyric meditations that draw on memory, history, and the natural world.
Poetry longlist
Acre
The Alcestis Machine by Carolyn Oliver (Oct. 15, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-946724-80-9). Drawing on the Greek myth of Alcestis (who descends to the kingdom of death in place of her beloved), Oliver’s second collection explores loss and queer love.
Akashic
Kumi: New Generation African Poets: A Chapbook Box Set, edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani (Dec. 3, $36.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63614-188-6). This 10-volume, limited-edition boxed set includes the work of nine African poets, among them Nurain Oládeji, Sarpong Osei Asamoah, and Claudia Owusu.
Amistad
Every Where Alien by Brad Walrond (Aug. 13, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-337799-8). In poems that contemplate how today’s culture was shaped by the past, Walrond explores Blackness, queerness, and desire in portraits of 1990s and early 2000s New York City underground art movements, including the new Black arts movement and Black Rock Coalition.
Andrews McMeel
Glass Hearts & Unspoken Goodbyes: Poems of Healing and Hope by Kayla McCullough (Aug. 6, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5248-9026-1) is a collection celebrating love and the bonds that connect all people.
Autumn House
Book of Kin by Darius Atefat-Peckham (Oct. 25, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63768-096-4) draws on the poet’s Iranian heritage for poems that reckon with identity, loss, and tragedy, telling the story of a boy’s coming-of-age after a car accident that killed his mother and brother.
Backwaters
Dear Wallace by Julie Choffel (Oct. 1, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4962-4006-4) addresses the poet Wallace Stevens in poems that reevaluate art, authority, and creativity as they consider the connections between modernism, motherhood, and writing.
Beacon
Field Guide for Accidents by Albert Abonado (Oct. 22, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8070-2051-7) ruminates on death, god, and the natural world in a collection examining daily life, intimacy, the ecosystem, transformation, and lineage.
Beehive
The Inferno: An Illuminated Edition by Dante Alighieri, illus. by Sophy Hollington (Oct. 29, $100, ISBN 978-1-948886-37-6). Linocuts by British artist Hollington bring Dante’s tale of revenge and suffering to life in this illustrated volume.
Black Lawrence
Us from Nothing by Geoff Bouvier (Sept. 6, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62557-071-0). From the Big Bang to the moon landing in 1969, Bouvier’s poems reflect on the history of humanity to find answers on its past and future.
Book*hug
Walking and Stealing by Stephen Cain (Oct. 22, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77166-910-8) comprises a triptych of serial poems on baseball and Toronto that address urban life and culture.
Carnegie-Mellon Univ.
Those Absences Now Closest by Dzvinia Orlowsky (Oct. 29, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-88748-704-0). The Ukrainian American poet bears witness to intergenerational trauma and history in poems that seek to humanize such tragedies as the ongoing war in Ukraine.
CavanKerry
In Inheritance of Drowning by Dorsía Smith Silva (Nov. 5, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-960327-07-9) tackles colonial and generational trauma in the aftermath of Hurricane María in Puerto Rico, ruminating on the natural world and the marginalization of Puerto Ricans.
Central Avenue Poetry
From Sand to Stars by Shelby Leigh (Oct. 1, $16.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77168-388-3). The third collection from Leigh addresses themes of renewal, joy, and self-acceptance in the face of existential struggle. 75,000-copy announced first printing.
City Lights
City Bird and Other Poems: City Lights Spotlight Series No. 24 by Patrick James Dunagan (Sept. 17, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-87286-933-2). These poems about San Francisco challenge the media narrative of a city in decline, paying tribute to its joys. Dunagan weaves in allusions to artists, including Joan Brown and Jay DeFeo, poets Bill Berkson and Lew Welch, and local landmarks O’Farrell Street and St. Anne of the Sunset.
Copper Canyon
Blade by Blade by Danusha Laméris (Sept. 10, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-55659-703-9). Pain, loss, and reflection are central to Laméris’s third book, which evokes California’s natural landscapes as it charts a path back to happiness in the aftermath of tragedy.
Ecco
Pills and Jacksonvilles by Jillian Weise (Sept. 17, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-328855-3) explores disability, sexuality, and queerness in poems that adapt text and chat language, blending and layering personal stories with cultural observation and technology.
Everyman’s Library
Cold Mountain Poems by Hanshan, edited and trans. by Peter Harris (Nov. 12, $20, ISBN 978-1-101-90845-7). One of the earliest Zen Buddhist poets, Buddhist monk Hanshan (whose name means “cold mountain”) wrote on trees, rocks, and walls. Organized by theme, this edition collects the best of his work.
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Far District by Ishion Hutchinson (Nov. 12, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-374-60482-0). Hutchinson writes about his childhood in Jamaica, confronting the West Indian wariness of European writing and myth. Weaving two cultures through memory and imagining, these poems address art, music, and literature, and include both English and Jamaican patois.
Four Way
TRANZ by Spencer Williams (Sept. 15, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961897-16-8). The debut from Williams celebrates the bravery, resilience, and self-actualization of trans people in a society that often endangers them.
Griffin
A Bit Much by Lyndsay Rush (Sept. 17, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-32346-0) spotlights feelings, confessions, and hard-won wisdom in humorous poems that reflect on the female experience.
Harper Perennial
Here to Stay: Poetry and Prose from the Undocumented Diaspora edited by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Janine Joseph, and Esther Lin (Sept. 3, $18.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-322434-6). This anthology of writing by currently and formerly undocumented writers casts light on their talents, pushing against stereotypes about this demographic in the U.S.
Haymarket
Ankle-Deep in Pacific Water by E. Hughes (Oct. 15, $17 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88890-260-8) questions the generational consequences of the migration of Black Southerners to Northern California through a personal and historical lens.
House of Anansi
Great Silent Ballad by A.F. Moritz (Sept. 24, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4870-1296-0). In seven short sections, the 22nd collection from Moritz explores childhood, maturation, and the avant-garde nature of poetry.
Hub City
The Girl Who Became a Rabbit by Emilie Menzel
(Sept. 10, $16 trade paper, ISBN 979-8-88574-037-1) is a hybrid prose poetry debut that investigates the body’s response to grief after trauma.
Iron Pen
Glory, Too by Nikki Grimes (Jan. 7, $21 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64060-964-8) draws on lessons from sermons and scriptures in poems that address the realities of being a Black woman.
Alice James
The Holy & Broken Bliss by Alicia Ostriker (Oct. 8, $24.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-949944-67-9). The 17th collection from Ostriker is a postpandemic reflection on death, meaning, and collective experiences.
Laurence King
The Book of Bird Poems by Ana Sampson et al., illus. by Ryuto Miyake (Oct. 29, $21.99, ISBN 978-1-3996-2563-0). Gathering 60 poems by Percy Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow, and Keats, among others, this collection celebrates the timeless inspiration birds have offered poets.
Knopf
Find Me as the Creature I Am by Emily Jungmin Yoon (Oct. 22, $29, ISBN 978-0-593-80118-5). Yoon reflects on family stories, humanity, the natural world, and language in poems that showcase the complexities of feeling.
Liveright
What Remains: The Collected Poems of Hannah Arendt by Hannah Arendt, edited by Samantha Rose Hill, trans. by Genese Grill (Dec. 10, $26.99, ISBN 978-1-324-09052-6). Known for her writings on totalitarianism, the human condition, and the banality of evil, German-Jewish political philosopher Arendt also wrote 74 poems between 1923 and 1961, which are presented here in chronological order.
Mandala
The Flame of Love: Rumi’s 100 Most Passionate Poems by Rumi, trans. by Muhammad Ali Mojaradi (Dec. 17, $22.99, ISBN 979-8-88762-106-7). Gathering 100 love poems by Rumi and complemented by illustrations, this collection explores passion and desire, bringing previously untranslated works to a modern audience.
MCD
The Future of Everything by Aleksandar Hemon (Dec. 3, $27, ISBN 978-0-374-60640-4). With humor and candor, novelist Hemon’s debut collection reflects on war and America as it addresses a crumbling world, humanity’s connections, and the everyday.
New Directions
Mojave Ghost by Forrest Gander (Oct. 1, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8112-3795-6). The poet, who trained as a geologist, traveled along most of the 800-mile San Andreas fault from Northern California toward his birthplace in the Mojave Desert. These poems catalog that physical and psychic journey.
Norton
The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems by Kimiko Hahn (Oct. 15, $27.99, ISBN 978-1-324-08606-2). Setting 43 new works alongside poems chosen from Hahn’s 10 previous collections, this volume highlights her formal range and themes informed by her Japanese American heritage.
Omnidawn
Sur by David Koehn (Oct. 6, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63243-158-5). Interpersonal connections are central to this collection’s investigation of wildness, nature, humanity, and meaning.
Other Press
Wild by Ben Okri (Oct. 15, $21.99, ISBN 978-1-63542-292-4) studies humanity’s beauty and experiences in poems that allude to other writers and myths while recollecting Okri’s own family life, landscapes, and loves.
Random House
Water, Water by Billy Collins (Nov. 19, $28, ISBN 978-0-593-73102-4) celebrates joy and the quotidian in 60 new poems that draw their inspiration from the everyday and life’s mysteries.
Sarabande
Book of Potions by Lauren K. Watel (Oct. 22, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-956046-35-9). Watel’s prose poems reflect on middle age, stereotypes, and societal norms and expectations for women through fairy tale, allegory, satire, and surreal imagery.
Scribner
Helen of Troy, 1993 by Maria Zoccola (Jan. 14, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-6680-4633-3). Homeric Helen is a disgruntled housewife in 1990s Tennessee in Zoccola’s debut, a retelling of Homer’s myth and a character study of one of its most complicated characters.
Seagull
Ever Since I Did Not Die by Ramy Al-Asheq, edited by Levi Thompson, trans. by Isis Nusair (Aug. 5, $15 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-80309-454-0). Syrian Palestinian poet Al-Asheq offers an autobiographical account of living in wartime. Raised in a refugee camp in Damascus, he was imprisoned in 2011 during the Syrian revolution, released, then imprisoned in Jordan.
Soft Skull
Strange Beach by Oluwaseun Olayiwola (Jan. 21, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-59376-776-1). Rendered through a queer, Nigerian American lens, this debut confronts the idea of social
performance as it reflects on themes of masculinity, sex, lineage, love, and death.
Tin House
Good Dress by Brittany Rogers (Oct. 15, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-959030-83-6). The debut from Rogers explores themes of belonging and identity in poems about Black Detroit, Black womanhood, and lineage.
Tupelo
The Opening Ritual by G.C. Waldrep (Nov. 1, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-961209-14-5). The final entry in Waldrep’s trilogy exploring chronic illness deals with the body, faith, spirituality, questions about healing and wholeness, and the role of mercy.
Univ. of Chicago
The Great Zoo: A Bilingual Edition by Nicolás Guillén, trans. by Aaron Coleman (Oct. 7, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-226-83479-5). Originally published in Spanish in 1967, these works by Afro-Cuban poet Guillén are presented in a Spanish-English edition that highlights his humor and imaginative range.
Univ. of Nebraska
Leaked Footages by Abu Bakr Sadiq (Nov. 1, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4962-4013-2). Set in northern Nigeria and reflecting on death, memory, and grief, these Afrofuturist poems bear witness to technological advancement, terrorism, and the aftermath of war.
Univ. of Wisconsin
Cowboy Park by Eduardo Martínez-Leyva (Nov. 12, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-299-35084-0) details a queer Latinx speaker’s experience in the border town of El Paso, Tex., casting a new light on cowboy iconography while exploring masculinity, sexuality, and border politics.
Wayne State Univ.
What Can the Matter Be? by Keith Taylor (Aug. 6, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8143-5140-6) observes and ruminates on nature and humanity, the process of aging and dying, and the role of place in shaping perception.
Wesleyan Univ.
Deed by Torrin A. Greathouse (Aug. 20, $26, ISBN 978-0-8195-0130-1). The second collection from Greathouse reflects on queer sex and desire in candid and formally innovative poems.
This article has been updated with new bibliographic information for the book Dear Yusef.
