A Summer Poetry Reading List from our Partners, Sponsors, & Advertisers

Funeral Diva
by Pamela Sneed
City Lights Books
October 2020
Paperback, $16.95

2021 Lambda Award Winner for Lesbian Poetry

“Sneed's Funeral Diva is deft, defiant, and devastating . . . Through her brilliant mind it's evident that everything is truly connected. You just have to find the string.”—Tommy Pico

The Essential June Jordan
by June Jordan, ed. by Jan Heller Levi & Christoph Keller
Copper Canyon Press
May 2021
Paperback, $18.00

This definitive volume, featuring an afterword by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jericho Brown, distills the enduring legacy of a powerful voice for radical love and justice. June Jordan is a poet for the ages.

Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works
by John Ashbery 
Ecco
June 2021
Hardcover, $23.99

A stunning collection of work from beloved poet John Ashbery, his first posthumous book.

Renditions
by Reginald Gibbons
Four Way Books
February 2021
Paperback, $16.95 

An energetic exploration of the expanse of language translated and otherwise transformed.

Lace & Pyrite
by Ross Gay and Aimee Nezhukumatathil
Get Fresh Books, LLC
April 2021
Paperback, $10.00

What began as an unprompted poem correspondence between the two poets in the late July swelter of 2011 blossomed into a beautiful collection of epistolary poetry.

Water / Music
by Peter Filkins
Johns Hopkins University Press
April 2021
Paperback & e-Book, $19.95

A diverse display of formal dexterity, narrative power, and lyrical resonance, Peter Filkins’s latest collection of poems explores the fraught relationship between the natural world and the human.

What Water Knows: Poems 
by Jacqueline Jones LaMon 
Northwestern University Press 
June 2021
Paperback & e-Book, $17.00

LaMon’s stunning third collection shows the elements of life that unite us—and that separate us. This book transports the reader from drought to drowning, from the transatlantic Middle Passage to the breaking of water.

Wolf Lamb Bomb
by Aviya Kushner
Orison Books
June 2021
Hardcover & e-book, $16.00

Aviya Kushner, author of The Grammar of God, revives and reimagines the Book of Isaiah in her debut poetry collection, Wolf Lamb Bomb. These poems position the prophet Isaiah as a poet, crooner, and rival.

An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe
by Heidi Seaborn
[PANK] Books
June 2021
Paperback, $18.00 

Winner of the PANK Books Poetry Prize, An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe is a stunning, middle-of-the-night poetic conversation with the Hollywood star that explores obsessions, objectification, love, marriage, work and death.

Shellback
by Jeanne-Marie Osterman
Paloma Press
February 2021
Paperback, $16.00 

The daughter of a WWII combat veteran remembers her father, from childhood days trying “to be his boy” to being his caregiver in old age. A portrait of love, forgiveness, and the tragedies of war.

The Secret Gospel of Mark:
A Poet’s Memoir 
by Spencer Reece
Seven Stories
March 2021
Hardcover, $24.95

A powerful dynamo of a story that delicately weaves the author’s experiences with an appreciation for seven great literary touchstones: Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson, James Merrill, Mark Strand, George Herbert, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Demystifications
by Miranda Mellis
Solid Objects
June 2021
Hardcover, $18.00

With humor and grace, bite and tenderness, these ninety-nine poems structure an archive of a Miranda Mellis mind map... “Demystifications is a key ring,” each page a passkey. —Lynn Marie Kirby

Listen My Friend, This Is the Dream I Dreamed Last Night 
by Cody-Rose Clevidence
The Song Cave
June 2021
Paperback, $18.95

Unlike anything we’ve ever seen, this is a book of wonder in which poet Cody-Rose Clevidence layers the language of information with the language of the heart, constantly locating the connections between attention and perception.

On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing (50th Anniversary Edition) 
edited by Ben Estes & Joel Weishaus 
The Song Cave 
April 2021 
Paperback, $18.00

The Song Cave proudly presents an expanded edition of the long out of print City Lights Books classic On the Mesa: An Anthology of Bolinas Writing in celebration of its 50th anniversary.

Poetries 
by Georges Schehadé, translated by Austin Carder, introduction by Adonis
The Song Cave 
June 2021 
Paperback, $18.95

The first book-length English translation of works by this important Egyptian-born, Lebanese-French poet, Poetries presents the core of Georges Schehadé’s (1905-1989) œuvre, translated by Austin Carder, featuring an introduction by Adonis.

I am The Rage: A Black Poetry Collection 
by Dr. Martina McGowan
Sourcebooks 
February 2021
Tradepaper, $14.99

For those who were inspired by Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb, I am The Rage is a visceral, written-in-the-moment collection of poetry that captures the raw emotion of being a Black woman in America over the last year. 

How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope
by James Crews
Storey Publishing
March 2021
Paperback, $14.95

This beautifully curated selection of more than 100 uplifting poems by well-known and emerging poets, including Amanda Gorman, Joy Harjo, Naomi Shihab Nye, Ross Gay, and Tracy K. Smith, invites gratitude and includes reflective prompts.

Divine Fire
by David Woo
University of Georgia Press
March 2021
Paperback, $19.95

In Divine Fire, David Woo finds wisdom and spiritual sustenance in a time of crisis and uncertainty. He provides an astonishing vision of the world now through his exploration of themes of love, solitude, art, and death.  

When the Heart Needs a Stunt Double 
by Diane DeCillis 
Wayne State University Press 
April 2021
Paperback & e-Book, $16.99

This book takes us on a journey of what it means to be fully human and celebrates the beauty of our scars. These are love poems: to others, to the self, to the body.

Living Nations Living Words
edited by Joy Harjo
W.W. Norton
May 2021
Paperback, $15.00

A powerful, moving anthology that celebrates the breadth of Native poets writing today, edited by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo.