National Network for Equitable Library Service

Hard Damage works to relentlessly interrogate the self and its shortcomings. In lyric and documentary poems and essayistic fragments, Aria Aber explores the historical and personal implications of Afghan American relations. Drawing on material dating back to the 1950s, she considers the consequences of these relations—in particular the funding of the Afghan mujahedeen, which led to the Taliban and modern-day Islamic terrorism—for her family and the world at large.

A collection of 108 haiku poems to heighten awareness and deepen our appreciation for the ordinary in everyday life Haiku, the Japanese form of poetry written in just three lines, can be miraculous in its power to articulate the profundity of the simplest moment—and for that reason haiku can be a useful tool for bringing us to a heightened awareness of our lives. Here, the poet Patricia Donegan shares her experience of the haiku form as a way of insight that anyone can use to slow down and uncover the beauty of ordinary moments.

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 a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power.

A collection of haunting, image-rich poems about isolation, captivity, and vanishing. The poems in Paige Ackerson-Kiely's third collection are set primarily in the rural northeast of America, and explore rural poverty, entrapment, captivity, violence, and a longing to vanish. Ranging from free verse to a long noir prose poem, they examine who her, or our, "captors" might be. Ackerson-Kiely is interested in characters who are aware of their foibles, and who find ways to turn away from those problems in search of connection and freedom.

Now a Read With Jenna Book Club Pick. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career. "I love [Mary's] work. It's about nature and love and what it means to be human. I find her poetry to be so cathartic and beautiful." -- Jenna Bush Hager. "No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love." -- The Washington Post.

“Teems with sharp observation, profound moral insight, high satiric wit, and all manner of aesthetic delight.” –The New York Times Book Review A Penguin Classic This definitive edition brings together all the works that Pulitzer Prize-winning Marianne Moore wished to preserve, covering more than sixty years of writing, and incorporating the final revisions she made to the texts. The poems demonstrate Moore’s wide range of interests, moving from witty images of animals, sporting events, and social institutions, to thoughtful meditations on human nature.

An exquisite body of work celebrating the centennial of one of the most important African-American poets of the twentieth century. Robert Hayden was one of the most important American poets of the twentieth century. He left behind an exquisite body of work, collected in this definitive edition, including A Ballad of Remembrance, Words in the Mourning Time, The Night-Blooming Cereus, Angle of Ascent, and American Journal, which was nominated for a National Book Award.

The collected works of Adrienne Rich, whose poetry is "distinguished by an unswerving progressive vision and a dazzling, empathic ferocity" (New York Times). A Finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Adrienne Rich was the singular voice of her generation and one of our most important American poets. She brought discussions of gender, race, and class to the forefront of poetical discourse, pushing formal boundaries and consistently examining both self and society.

"Mort is a fireball. . . . Personal, political, and passionate, Mort's poetry will surely sustain many reading audiences. Highly recommended." — Library Journal. "A one-of-a-kind work of passion and insight." — Midwest Book Review. "Mort's style — tough and terse almost to the point of aphorism — recalls the great Polish poets Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska." — Los Angeles Times. Valzhyna Mort is a dynamic Belarusian poet, and Collected Body is her first collection composed in English.

In Clarity Between Clouds, Susan Ioannou's disarmingly intimate voice strikes piercingly close to the harsh realities of existence, revealing startling insights and sly bits of aphoristic wisdom. For Ioannou, poetry is a highly personal act which surfaces from everyday existence, permitting her to confront mortality and discover what is truly human. An ordinary act of cookery, for instance, can transport her "far off to hanging gardens, swollen bees / frankincense and ancients stones." But Ioannou's world is by no means narrowly composed.