This post contains recommendations from a CPL librarian. To get your own customized recommendation, just fill out the May We Suggest form — you can expect results within 10 days. All suggestions can be found on the May We Suggest blog or by liking May We Suggest on facebook.
National Poetry Month
Award Winners
The wild iris by Louise Gluck — 1993 — Gluck's sixth collection presents a series of spare, somber lyrics that has always invested his best work.
Neon vernacular: new and selected poems by Yusef Komunyakaa — 1994 — A collection of poems from the author's earlier books combined with a dozen new poems.
The simple truth: poems by Philip Levine — 1995 — The controlled pathos of every poem in this volume is immense and gives one a new sense of the poet's strength.
Black zodiac by Charles Wright — 1998 — An unusually perceptive anthology of poetic reflections on faith, religion and spirituality are reflected in this book.
Blizzard of one: poems by Mark Strand — 1999 — Poet Laureate Mark Strand writes with particular detail and unexpected humor.
Repair by C.K. Williams — 2000 — In these 40 poems, award winner Williams talks about keeping the self in repair despite love, death and social disorder.
Practical gods by Carl Dennis — 2002 — Many of the poems in this book involve an attempt to enter into dialogue with pagan and biblical perspectives, to throw light on ordinary experience through metaphor borrowed from religious myth and to translate religious myth into secular terms.
2003 — May Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon
Walking to Martha's Vineyard: poems by Franz Wright — 2004 — Wright shares his regard for life in all its forms and his belief in the promise of blessing and renewal.
Delights & shadows: poems by Ted Kooser — 2005 — Kooser lives in eastern Nebraska and is described by BookList as "a poet of place."
Late wife: poems by Claudia Emerson — 2006
Native guard by Natasha Trethewey — 2007
Time and materials: poems 1997-2005 by Robert Hass — 2008
The shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin — 2009
Versed by Rae Armantrout — 2010
The best of it: new and selected poems by Kay Ryan — 2011
Timeless Poetry Collections
The 100 best poems of all time. Through the 1850s by edited by Leslie Pockell — Authors through the 1850s are each represented by one of his or her best known and best loved works. Each poem is introduced by a brief head note which details the poet's life history as well as the poem's significance.
The best-loved poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy — Jaccqueline's daughter offers a selection of the former First Lady's favorite poems, plus a few of her mother's own verses.
The hell with love: poems to mend a broken heart by edited by Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Velez — This collection of love poems is for anyone who has ever suffered the pain of breaking up and everyone who believes in the unique power of poetry to console and transform.
My song is beautiful: poems and pictures in many voices by selected by Mary Ann Hoberman — Fourteen poems celebrate the power of childhood from the perspective of a rich variety of cultures.
Poems for the millennium: the University of California book of modern & postmodern poetry by edited by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris — International in its coverage, this volume brings together the poets and poetry movements that radically altered the ways that art and language express the human condition.
World poetry: an anthology of verse from antiquity to our time by Katharine Washburn and John S. Major, editors ; Clifton Fadiman, general editor
All Time Great Poets
Blake, William (1757-1827): Blake was one of the great lyric poets. His early work was in a classical style and his later work was marked by the romantic style made popular by Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Browning, Robert (1812-1889): Robert Browning was a English poet and dramatist, especially noted for perfecting the dramatic monologue. Although Although he did not enjoy huge popularity during his time, he is now regarded as one of the most creative poets of his time.
Burns, Robert (1756-1796): Robert Burns was born in Scotland. Sometimes referred to as a peasant poet, Burns worked with simple concepts, but applied them across a number of forms. He wrote and published satires, scenes of rustic life, epistles to friends, epigrams and nature poems, both in a composite poetic form made up of a number of Scottish dialects and in English.
Byron, George (1788-1824): Byron was a romantic and satirist. At the forefront of the Romantic Movement, he had a profound influence on English literature.
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1772-1834): English lyrical poet, critic, and philosopher, Coleridge, along with Wordsworth, was one of the founders of the Romantic Movement. The exquisite perfection of his meter, the subtle alliance of his thought and expression, and his anticipation of modern existentialism, has also gained him reputation as an authentic visionary
Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886): Dickinson's poetry reflected her loneliness and deep inner struggle as well as her recollection of inspirational moments. She and Walt Whitman, at opposite ends of the spectra of "poet" and "personality," are now regarded as the founders of a uniquely American poetic voices of the 19th century.
Eliot, T. S. (1888-1965): Elliot's poems stand out for their radical innovations in poetic technique and subject matter. His poems in many respects articulated the disillusion of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and convention of the Victorian era.
Keats, John (1795-1821): One of England's greatest poets, Keats was a key element in the Romantic Movement. Known especially for his love of the country and sensuous descriptions of the beauty of nature, his poetry also resonated with deep philosophic questions.
Longfellow, Henry W. (1807-1882): Longfellow, an American poet and linguist, was probably the best loved of all American poets. The attraction of his poetry is its melodic quality, its spirit of optimism and faith in the goodness of life.
Mare, Walter de la (1873-1956): English poet, novelist, anthologist, and writer for children, Mare's favorite themes include childhood, fantasy, mystery and dreams often with an undercurrent of melancholy.
Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963): An American poet, Plath's poetry is intensely personal, often based on everyday experiences. Most of her work had almost an ominous style of writing filled with passiveness and fatalism.
Shakespeare, William (1564-1616): Shakespeare, an English poet and dramatist, is regarded as the greatest of all dramatists. Shakespeare used poetic and dramatic means to create unified aesthetic effects. His ability to communicate the intricacies of human nature maintains a resonance and a power to evoke emotion of the readers of all time.
Shelley, Percy (1792-1822): Shelley, the English lyric poet and essayist, created masterpieces of Romantic poetry. His most characteristic image is of sky and weather, of lights and fires. His poetic stance invites the reader to respond with similar outgoing aspiration.
Whitman, Walt (1819-1892): American poet and journalist Whitman was the first American poet to achieve a truly international reputation. He invented free verse, a new kind of poetry, full of great personal and political feeling, making use of the vigorous rhythms of both everyday speech and Bible.
Wordsworth, William (1770-1850): Wordsworth was a defining member of the English Romantic Movement. The universal appeal of his poetry is perhaps best explained by his own words on the role of poetry what he called "the most philosophical of all writing" whose object is "truth… carried alive into the heart by passion".
Yeats, William Butler (1865-1939): Yeats, an Irish poet and dramatist, is one of the most widely read. Yeats's poetry has a unique musical quality and his verse a harbinger of magazines.