National Poetry Month 2025 - Books for Adults

Updated March 26, 2025
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100 poems to break your heart
Hirsch, Edward
Paper Book
100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, a collection that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief or loneliness, selected by the award-winning, best-selling, and beloved author of How to Read a Poem Implicit in poetry is the...
[...]: Poems
Joudah, Fady
Paper Book
Finalist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry Winner of the 2024 Jackson Poetry Prize From one of our most acclaimed contemporary writers, an urgent and essential collection of...
An American sunrise : poems
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo returns to her family's lands and opens a dialogue with history. In An American Sunrise, Harjo...
The annotated Emerson
Emerson, Ralph Waldo
Paper Book
A brilliant essayist and a master of the aphorism ("Our moods do not believe in each other"; "Money often costs too much"), Emerson has inspired countless writers. He challenged Americans to shut their ears against Europe's "courtly muses" and to forge a new, distinctly American cultural identity...
Bluff : poems
Smith, Danez
Paper Book
Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and...
The complete poems of Philip Larkin
Larkin, Philip.
Paper Book
This entirely new edition brings together all of Philip Larkin's poems. In addition to those inCollected Poems (1988), and in theEarly Poems and Juvenilia (2005), some unpublished pieces from Larkin's typescripts and workbooks are included, as well as verse (by turns scurrilous,...
Don't call us dead : poems
Smith, Danez
Paper Book
Finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry Winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection "[Smith's] poems are enriched to the point of volatility, but they pay out, often, in sudden joy."--The New Yorker Award-winning poet Danez Smith is...
Don't read poetry : a book about how to read poems
Burt, Stephanie
Paper Book
An award-winning poet offers a brilliant introduction to the joys--and challenges--of the genre In Don't Read Poetry, award-winning poet and literary critic Stephanie Burt offers an accessible introduction to the seemingly daunting task of...
Forest of Noise : Poems
Toha, Mosab Abu
Paper Book
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK * "A powerful, capacious, and profound" (Ocean Vuong) new collection of poems about life in Gaza by an award-winning Palestinian poet. You are alive for a moment when living people run after you.<...
If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose
Alareer, Refaat
Paper Book
"If I must die, let it bring hope, let it be a tale." This rich, elegiac compilation of work from the late Palestinian poet and professor, Refaat Alareer, brings together his marvelous poetry and deeply human writing about literature, teaching, politics, and family. The renowned...
Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves
Lanham, J. Drew
Paper Book
From J. Drew Lanham, MacArthur "Genius" Grant recipient and author of Sparrow Envy: A Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts, comes a sensuous new collection in his signature mix of poetry and prose. In gorgeous and timely pieces, Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves is a lush journey into...
Life on Mars : poems
Smith, Tracy K.
Paper Book
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize * Poet Laureate of the United States * * A New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * * A New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book...
Rangikura : poems
Tibble, Tayi
Paper Book
A fiery second collection of poetry from the acclaimed Indigenous New Zealand writer that U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo calls, "One of the most startling and original poets of her generation." Tayi Tibble returns on the heels of her incendiary debut with a bold new follow-up....
Shakespeare's poems : Venus and Adonis, the rape of Lucrece, and the shorter poems
Shakespeare, William
Paper Book
In 1593 Shakespeare awoke and found himself famous. Lines from his comic, erotic, tragic poem Venus and Adonis were on everyone's lips.The appearance in 1594 of the darkly reflective and richly descriptive Rape of Lucrece confirmed his fame as 'Sweet Master Shakespeare', Elizabethan England's most...
So far so good : final poems, 2014-2018
Le Guin, Ursula K.
Paper Book
"Ursula K. Le Guin, loved by millions for her fantasy and science-fiction novels, ponders life, death and the vast beyond in So Far So Good, an astute, charming collection finished weeks before her death in January, 2018. Fans will recognize some of the motifs here--cats, wind, strong women -...
The sun and her flowers
Kaur, Rupi
Paper Book
From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one's roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.<...
Things you may find hidden in my ear : poems from Gaza
Abu Toha, Mosab
Paper Book
Winner of the Palestine Book Award and the American Book Award  National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry Finalist Shortlisted for the 2022 Walcott Poetry Prize "Written from his native Gaza, Abu Toha's accomplished debut contrasts...
This is the honey : an anthology of contemporary Black poets
Alexander, Kwame
Paper Book
A breathtaking poetry collection on hope, heart, and heritage from the most prominent and promising Black poets and writers of our time, edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author Kwame Alexander. In this comprehensive and vibrant poetry anthology,...
Wade in the water : poems
Smith, Tracy K.
Paper Book
Shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize Finalist for the Forward Prize for Best Collection The extraordinary new poetry collection by Tracy K. Smith, the Poet Laureate of the United States Even the men in black armor, the ones Jangling...
Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years
Harjo, Joy
Paper Book
Over a long, influential career in poetry, Joy Harjo has been praised for her "warm, oracular voice" (John Freeman, Boston Globe) that speaks "from a deep and timeless source of compassion for all" (Craig Morgan Teicher, NPR). Her poems are musical, intimate, political, and wise, intertwining...
A Year of Last Things : Poems
Ondaatje, Michael
Paper Book
INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER * Included on The Guardian's Best Recent Poetry * Longlisted for the 2024 UK Poet Laureate's Laurel Prize * One of the Globe and Mail's most anticipated books of 2024 * Named a Best Book of 2024 by Winnipeg Free Press With A...
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World
Limon, Ada
Paper Book
NATIONAL BESTSELLER A 2025 National Endowment for the Arts Big Reads Selection A 2024 NPR "Books We Love" Selection "Whoever you are, you will find yourself and your own world in the expansiveness of this collection." -Margaret Renkl, New York Times ...

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