Paying homage to the world and the epiphanies made possible by travel, these collections explore personal and political identity.

Top 10

Best Barbarian

Roger Reeves. Norton, Mar. 22 ($26.95, ISBN 978-0-393-60933-2)

Whiting Award–winning poet Reeves investigates climate change, violence, and racism, as well as the bonds of family and erotic love. Allusions to old texts (Beowulf’s Grendel) appear alongside explorations of contemporary issues of immigration and police brutality.

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

Warsan Shire. Random House, Mar. 1 ($17 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-13435-1)

Somali British poet Shire considers migration, the female body, and surviving trauma in her debut, in which pop culture and the news feature prominently.

Customs

Solmaz Sharif. Graywolf, Mar. 1 ($16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64445-079-6)

The second book from Sharif uses the motif of travel, specifically the airport arrivals terminal, to interrogate the obstacles of living in America today.

Dream Drawings: Configurations of a Timeless Kind

N. Scott Momaday. Harper Perennial, May 3 ($17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-06-321811-6)

Pulitzer Prize winner Momaday offers a collection that celebrates language, invention, humanity, and the natural world. These poems draw from the writer’s Native American heritage and oral storytelling traditions.

A Hundred Lovers

Richie Hofmann. Knopf, Feb. 8 ($28, ISBN 978-0-593-32098-3)

The second collection from Hofmann is inspired by French autofiction and is framed as a sensual journal in poems, providing glimpses into travel and romantic encounters. These entries explore the mysteries and intimacies of desire, as well as everyday objects.

The Hurting Kind

Ada Limón. Milkweed, May 10 ($22, ISBN 978-1-63955-049-4)

Connections are at the heart of Limón’s sixth collection as she investigates the natural and man-made worlds, as well as hardship, joy, and family life.

More Fiya: A New Collection of Black British Poetry

Edited by Kayo Chingonyi. Canongate, June 20 ($22, ISBN 978-1-83885-530-7)

Black British poets—including Raymond Antrobus, Malika Booker, Rachel Long, Roger Robinson, Inua Ellams, and Warsan Shire—contribute to this anthology selected by poet and DJ Chingonyi.

Time Is a Mother

Ocean Vuong, Penguin Press, Apr. 5 ($24, ISBN 978-0-593-30023-7)

Vuong’s second collection considers the reverberations of his mother’s death in poems that speak to grief, family, the power of memory, and the personal and public aspects of American life.

Vinegar Hill

Colm Tóibín. Beacon, Mar. 22 ($22.95, ISBN 978-0-8070-0653-5)

Tóibín tackles religion, sex, and family in his debut poetry collection. The book features a long poem at its center narrated by two friends reminiscing as they walk through Dublin.

Poetry Listings

Andrews McMeel

More Salt Than Diamond by Aline Mello (Mar. 1, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-5248-7102-4). In her debut, Mello explores life in the U.S. as a Brazilian immigrant and undocumented woman during a moment of political instability.

Archipelago

Distant Transit by Maja Haderlap, trans. by Tess Lewis (Feb. 8, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-953861-16-0). Slovenian-Austrian poet Haderlap writes about violence, survival, and traditions that evoke Slovenia’s landscapes and political history.

Arsenal Pulp

Beast at Every Threshold by Natalie Wee (Apr. 5, $14.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-55152-883-0). Revisiting folklore and myth, these poems address the notion of “otherness” and examine cultural stories, queer identity, and the body.

Astra House

Broken Halves of a Milky Sun by Aaiún Nin (Feb. 1, $23, ISBN 978-1-6626-0079-1). The debut from Nin speaks to colonialism’s impacts on their native country, Angola, through poems on exile, family, and queer love.

Beacon

Antes Que Isla Es Volcán/Before Island Is Volcano by Raquel Salas Rivera (Apr. 5, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8070-1457-8). Presented in both Spanish and English, the entries in this sixth book from Salas Rivera consider the possibilities for a decolonial future for Puerto Rico.

Blair

The Necessity of Wildfire by Caitlin Scarano (Apr. 5, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-949467-78-9). Set in the Pacific Northwest, Scarano’s second book wrestles with violence and desire, contemplating how the past shapes the future.

BOA

Casual Conversation by Renia White (Apr. 19, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-950774-55-5). Discourse—what is said and what isn’t—lies at the center of White’s debut, a consideration of daily speech and interactions.

Two Brown Dots by Danni Quintos (Apr. 12, $17 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-950774-51-7). Written from the perspective of an Asian American woman growing up in Kentucky, the debut from Quintos asks what it means to be mixed race and have multiple ethnicities in America.

Book*hug

Cane Fire by Shani Mootoo (Mar. 15, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77166-741-8). Writer and visual artist Mootoo offers a poetic memoir that places memory in conversation with current events, and family history in dialogue with the present.

Carnegie Mellon Univ.

Anthropocene Lullaby by K.A. Hays (Feb. 15, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-88748-675-3). Confronting environmental destruction, greed, and the digital age, Hays grapples with fear and motherhood, as well as with the loss of the natural world.

Changes

Earth Room by Rachel Mannheimer (Apr. 1, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-955125-10-9). Selected by Nobel laureate Louise Glück as winner of the inaugural Bergman Prize, the debut from Mannheimer is a book-length narrative poem that looks at the intersection of art and love.

City Lights

Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21 by D.S. Marriott (Apr. 12, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-87286-884-7). In these poems, British Jamaican poet Marriott addresses the Middle Passage of the Atlantic slave trade and the history of lynchings, while celebrating past African American poets.

Coach House

Whitemud Walking by Matthew James Weigel (Apr. 12, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-55245-441-1). Weigel’s relationship to his homeland and the colonial history of Canada and the North-West are central to this genre-bending combination of visual art and writing.

Coffee House

Fighting Is Like a Wife by Eloisa Amezcua (Apr. 12, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-56689-634-4). The visual poems of Amezcua’s second collection tell the story of two-time world boxing champion Bobby “Schoolboy” Chacon and his first wife, Valorie Ginn.

The Wet Hex by Sun Yung Shin (June 14, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-56689-638-2) delves into identity and evolution, as well as violence and grief, addressing adoption, family, and environmental catastrophe.

Deep Vellum

A Boy in the City by S. Yarberry (May 31, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64605-178-6). The debut from Yarberry questions inner thoughts and desires in poems that allude to other writers and Greek myths, as they take the reader on a tour of a city.

Down East

The Poems of Robert Nash by Robert Nash, trans. by Françoise Canter (May 1, $22.95, ISBN 978-1-68475-042-9). Nash disappeared in 1995. His poems, written in Maine and sent to the poet’s friend in France, were discovered in a basement. Written in French, these poems have been translated back to the poet’s native English.

Ecco

Canopy by Linda Gregerson (Mar. 22, $14.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-358-62225-3) considers the delicate state of the environment and ecosystem, police brutality, Covid-19, and the refugee crisis.

Fordham Univ.

Why the Assembly Disbanded by Roberto Tejada (Feb. 11, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8232-9925-6). Reflecting on the state of affairs between the U.S. and Latin America, Tejada writes on white supremacy, immigration, intersectional identity, and community.

Graywolf

Against Heaven by Kemi Alabi (Apr. 5, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64445-082-6). Alabi’s debut engages with Black queer identity and cultural traditions in poems that speak to resilience, transformation, and healing.

Haymarket

Dear God. Dear Bones. Dear Yellow. by Noor Hindi (May 31, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64259-696-0). These political poems of history and witness address colonialism and the patriarchy while exploring the complex nature of identity.

House of Anansi

My Grief, the Sun by Sanna Wani (Apr. 5, $19.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-4870-1084-3). The political and magical poems in Wani’s debut touches on Hayao Miyazaki’s 1997 film Princess Mononoke, German Orientalist scholarship on early Islam, and landscapes from Canadian rivers to Kashmiri mountains.

Invisible Publishing

Harbour Grids by Zane Koss (Apr. 5, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-988784-88-5). Opening on poems that contemplate New York Harbor, this debut celebrates landscape, history, and community.

Iron Pen

From Shade to Shine: New Poems by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner (Apr. 12, $19 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64060-598-5). This collection, which begins in November, draws on events in the Christian calendar as well as the stark landscape of the Scottish Orkney Islands.

Alice James

Museum of Objects Burned by the Souls in Purgatory by Jeffrey Thomson (May 10, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-948579-25-4). Taking its title from a small gallery in Rome, Thomson’s collection ponders religious relics and works of art and the stories associated with each.

Knopf

Zoom Rooms by Mary Jo Salter

(Mar. 29, $27, ISBN 978-0-593-32131-7) explores the oddities of the zeitgeist alongside its expected constants. Its title poem draws from a series of Zoom meetings (a classroom, a memorial service) rendered in sonnet form.

Library of America

Gary Snyder: Collected Poems by Gary Snyder, edited by Anthony Hunt and Jack Shoemaker (Apr. 5, $45, ISBN 978-1-59853-721-5). This marks the first collected edition of Pulitzer Prize–winning beat poet Gary Snyder, who writes on nature, Buddhist spirituality, and his roles as a father, husband, and friend to others.

McClelland & Stewart

Fast Commute: A Poem by Laurie

D. Graham (Mar. 22, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-7710-5197-5). The book-length poem tackles environmental destruction, colonialism, and capitalism, taking the reader across the country in an attempt to understand the ecological crisis.

Milkweed

The Kissing of Kissing by Hannah Emerson (Mar. 8, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-57131-549-6). Emerson’s debut explores neurodivergence, desire, dreams, and the ways that language can be manipulated to convey the largest variety of experiences.

A Year & Other Poems by Jos Charles (Mar. 8, $22, ISBN 978-1-57131-547-2). Surveying the California wildfires, political turmoil, housing insecurity, and death, the third collection from Charles considers the role of resilience and hope in survival.

Misfit

Quiet Night Think: Poems & Essays by Gillian Sze (Apr. 5, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-77041-625-3). Sze investigates her origins as a person and poet in this collection of verse and prose that takes its inspiration from experiences of new motherhood.

One World

Dream of the Divided Field by Yanyi (Mar. 1, $16 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-593-23099-2). Pain and evolution are central themes in Yanyi’s second book. These poems look at the past, immigration, violence, and heartbreak to see how suffering leads to rebuilding.

Penguin Books

All the Flowers Kneeling by Paul Tran (Feb. 8, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313684-2). Exploring historical trauma, sexual violence, and U.S. imperialism, the debut from Tran addresses emotional and psychological development through the lens of violence and struggle.

O by Zeina Hashem Beck (July 5, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-14-313689-7). The body is at the center of Beck’s third collection, which explores the meeting place of the sacred and secular in candid poems, some of which use both English and Arabic.

Phoneme Media

Time Stitches by Eleni Kefala, trans. by Peter Constantine (July 12, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64605-184-7). The bilingual edition of experimental linked poems spans time, connecting a young Cypriot to the past. Kefala alludes to literary characters, Christopher Columbus, and 16th-century Scotland, among others.

Princeton Univ.

The Owl and the Nightingale by Simon Armitage (Apr. 12, $19.95, ISBN 978-0-691-20216-7). U.K. poet laureate Armitage offers a complete verse translation of one of the earliest literary works in Middle English. The anonymous poem tells the tale of two birds who embark on a war of words that’s recorded by a nearby poet.

Red Hen

Plainchant by Eamon Grennan (June 27, $15.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-63628-013-4). Observation is central to Grennan’s collection, which draws details from the natural world while exploring memory and the coastal landscape of Connemara, Ireland.

Seven Stories

Always Alwaysland: New Poems by Stanley Moss (June 21, $17.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-64421-201-1). Now 96, Moss returns with a collection of poems that draw from music to address politics and religion, among other themes.

Soft Skull

Path of Totality by Niina Pollari (Feb. 8, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-59376-703-7). The loss of a child and the arc from hope to suffering is central to Pollari’s second collection. These poems examine hope and joy, followed by grief and shock, and the resilience required to move on.

St. Martin’s Essentials

The Gift of Rumi: Experiencing the Wisdom of the Sufi Master by Emily Jane O’Dell (July 26, $17.99 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-250-26137-3). Collecting several new Rumi translations, O’Dell’s selection serves as an introduction to the 13th-century Persian mystic poet.

Univ. of Chicago

No Sign by Peter Balakian (Mar. 21, $20, ISBN 978-0-226-78407-6) grapples with national and international politics, looking at the history of the Earth and the climate crisis, and alluding to the film Hiroshima Mon Amour, the Vietnam War, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Proceed to Check Out by Alan Shapiro (Mar. 21, $18 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-226-81754-5). The 14th collection from Shapiro reflects on recurring dreams, politics, technology, aging, and personal struggles, among other timely subjects.

Univ. of Georgia

South Flight by Jasmine Elizabeth Smith (Feb. 15, $19.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8203-6090-4) draws from Oklahoma’s Black history and explores themes of Black feminism, the blues, migration, and the ways Black Americans have improved the regions they’ve settled in.

Univ. of Kentucky

Marrow by Darlene Anita Scott (Mar. 8, $29.95, ISBN 978-0-8131-8361-9) reflects and honors the lives and voices of more than 900 children, teenagers, and adults who died in the mass murder-suicide at Jonestown, in Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

Univ. of Massachusetts

Dogged by Stacy Gnall (Apr. 29, $16.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-62534-642-1) explores the connection between humans and animals, questioning animal consciousness and engaging with Steven Spielberg’s Jaws and Peter Paul Rubens’s painting of Hercules’s dog.

Univ. of New Mexico

The Loneliest Girl by Kate Gale (Feb. 15, $18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8263-6369-5) examines Medusa’s turbulent past—raped in Athena’s temple, then transformed into a monster—to speak to the culture of victim blaming and the impossible demands placed on women.

Walking Uphill at Noon by Jon Kelly Yenser (Feb. 15, $18.95 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-8263-6373-2). In his second collection, free verse poems appear alongside forms invented by Yenser and explore neighborhoods, travel, current events, and magic.

Univ. of Notre Dame

Magnificent Errors by Sheryl Luna (Feb. 1, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-0-268-20182-1) addresses individuals living on the margins of society, tackling themes of homelessness, poverty and addiction.

White Pine

An Audible Blue: Selected Poems by Klaus Merz, trans. by Marc Vincenz (Apr. 26, $20 trade paper, ISBN 978-1-945680-54-0). Collecting work from Swiss poet Merz’s 15 books published between 1963 and 2016, this volume offers a sweeping view of the poet’s career.

Yale Univ.

Late Fragments: Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, Prose Poems, Belgium Disrobed by Charles Baudelaire, trans. by Richard Sieburth (Apr. 26, $30, ISBN 978-0-300-18518-8). For the first time, Baudelaire’s late poems, drafts, and prose fragments are collected in one volume, giving insight into the poet’s later poetic practice.

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This article has been updated to remove a title from the top 10 list. The book was originally scheduled to be published in spring 2022 but has moved to the fall season.