5 favorite poetry collections for National Poetry Month

Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver

by Mary Oliver

For anyone who might be at all inclined to enjoy poetry, Mary Oliver is always a safe bet. She's best known for her accessible themes, her close observations of the natural world, and drawing unexpected connections for her readers. The Pulitzer Prize-winner personally selected the poems in this collection, pulling from more than five decades of writing, and the result is an extraordinary overview of her long career, including favorites such as Wild Geese, The Journey, and I Wake Close to Morning. It’s always illuminating to see what creators think best exemplifies their work.

What Kind of Woman: Poems

by Kate Baer

I usually like to go through a poetry collection slowly over time, but I had a difficult time not inhaling this collection all at once—I had to force myself to put it down! By turns witty, tender, snarky, and gutting, always relatable, and never boring. Highly recommended, whether this is your first poetry collection or your hundredth.

Kyrie: Poems

by Ellen Bryant Voigt

I picked up Kyrie at the suggestion of an author friend who told me it was simply stunning and I had to read it—but when I began I had NO IDEA this collection of blank verse sonnets was about the 1918 influenza pandemic. The dedication, drawn from Alfred Crosby's book America's Forgotten Pandemic: The Influenza of 1918, reads, "Nothing else—no infection, no war, no famine—has ever killed so many in as short a period." I'm glad I read this, but emotionally, it was a tough go, with lines like, "The weeks of fewer cases were a tease" and "How we survived: we locked the doors and let nobody in." Published in 1995, this is already a modern classic, and I expect readers will be returning to this collection for decades to come.

Selected Poems

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, poet laureate of Illinois, and the first Black woman to serve as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. This is a compelling selection of standout poems from her first three collections, as well as some new poems. She offers insightful and illuminating portraits of Black Americans with her spare style and energetic warmth.

An American Sunrise: Poems

by Joy Harjo

Beloved Poet Laureate Joy Harjo offers a stunning collection about the forcible removal of her Mvskoke ancestors from Alabama in 1830 due to the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson. They traveled what is now known as the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. Nearly two hundred years later, Harjo returned to her family’s lands and these poems are the result. She interweaves personal experience with tribal history, examining loss, survival, and the connection she still has to her ancestors.