Did you know? April is National Poetry Month! To celebrate, we have some books of poetry, as well as biographies of poets, on display in the Great Hall. Stop by to see what’s available, or ask our librarians to find you something specific.
We’d especially like to highlight the following new books, all of which have been purchased for our library patrons during the past year. From hip hop style rhymes to more traditional lyrics, and encompassing multiple different identities, these books offer a small, delicious slice of the diversity that is the genre of poetry.
New Poetry Books at the Ath
Against silence by Frank Bidart
For more than fifty years, Frank Bidart has given voice to the inner self and to unforgettable characters. In the Pulitzer Prize winner’s eleventh collection of poetry, he writes of the cycles we cannot escape and the feelings we cannot forget.
Playlist for the Apocalypse by Rita Dove
A piercing, unflinching new volume offers necessary music for our tumultuous present, from “perhaps the best public poet we have” (Boston Globe).
You better be lightning by Andrea Gibson
A queer, political, and feminist collection guided by self-reflection.
Call us what we carry by Amanda Gorman
Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, her poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning.
Eating salad drunk: haikus for the burnout age by comedy greats
Jokes and haikus have a common goal: to pack the greatest punch in the most succinct way possible. Today’s biggest names in comedy come together with these hilarious, poignant, and (sometimes) dirty haikus about living and coping.
The future of black: Afrofuturism, black comics, and superhero poetry
An anthology of poems and art exploring Afrofuturism, science fiction, and speculative fiction by Black writers and writers of color.
How to fly (in ten thousand easy lessons) by Barbara Kingsolver
In her second poetry collection, accomplished novelist Barbara Kingsolver offers reflections on the practical, the spiritual, and the wild.
Everyday mojo songs of Earth: new and selected poems, 2001-2021 by Yusef Komunyakaa
A selection of new and previously published poems from the celebrated poet.
Black earth: selected poems and prose by Osip Mandelʹshtam
Osip Mandelstam is an almost mythical figure of modern Russian poetry, his work treasured all over the world for its lyrical beauty and innovative, revolutionary engagement with the dark times he lived through during the Stalinist era.
Other people’s comfort keeps me up at night by Morgan Parker
The debut collection from this award-winning poet bobs and weaves between humor and pathos, grief and anxiety, Gwendolyn Brooks and Jay-Z, the New York school and reality television.
Bless the daughter raised by a voice in her head by Warsan Shire
Drawing from her own life and the lives of loved ones, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women, and teenage girls.
Goldenrod by Maggie Smith
The award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory.
Such color: new and selected poems by Tracy K. Smith
Collects the best poems from the author’s award-winning books, along with new poems that confront America’s historical and contemporary racism and injustices while urging us toward love as a resistance to everything that impedes it.
