National Poetry Month 2025 - Books for Adults

Updated March 26, 2025
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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...
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...
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.<...
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 -...
Solutions for the Problem of Bodies in Space
Barnett, Catherine
Paper Book
The loneliness that collects in mirrors and faces--at bedside vigils and in city streets--quickens Catherine Barnett's metaphysical poems, which are like speculative prescriptions for this common human experience. Here loneliness is filled with belonging, which is in turn filled with loneliness,...
Something about Living: National Book Award Winner
Khalaf Tuffaha, Lena
Paper Book
2025 ALA Notable Book Winner of the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry Winner of the 2022 Akron Poetry Prize It's nearly impossible to write poetry that holds the human desire for joy and the insistent agitations of protest at the same time, but Lena Khalaf Tuffaha's...
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...
A year of last things : poems
Ondaatje, Michael
Paper Book
From one of the most influential writers of his generation, a gorgeously surprising poetry collection about memory, history, and the act of looking back Following several of his internationally acclaimed novels, A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje's long-awaited...

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