50 poetry books to read right now

 https://www.abebooks.com/books/best-poetry-books/

Poetry is not all Milton and Shakespeare, despite our high school curriculum's best efforts to make us think so. Brimming with new names and modern content inspired by today's ever changing cultural and policital landscapes this list of 50 poetry books is meant to be a departure from the classics. Among a few icons - Sylvia Plath, Frank O'Hara, and Maya Angelou to name a few - discover up and coming poets and recent award winners like Justin Philip Reed and Frank Bidart. Discover poems about race, oppression, and feminism alongside poems that explore love, loss and personal growth. For seasoned poetry readers and those new to the genre, our list of 50 poetry book to read right now has something for everyone.

Essential books of poetry

The Sun and Her Flowers

By Rupi Kaur

Bright Dead Things

By Ada Limón

My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter

By Aja Monet

When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Further Possibilities

By Chen Chen

Not Here

By Hieu Minh Nguyen

Don't Call Us Dead

By Danez Smith

There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce

By Morgan Parker

Milk

By Dorothea Lasky

If They Come for Us

By Fatimah Asghar

There Should be Flowers

By Joshua Jennifer Espinoza

Citizen Illegal

By Jose Olivarez

So Far So Good

By Ursula K. Le Guin

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

Pillow Thoughts

By Courtney Peppernell

2Fish

By Jhené Aiko Efuru Chilombo

Dolefully, A Rampart Stands

By Paige Ackerson-Kiely

Days & Days

By Michael Dickman

The Octopus Museum

By Brenda Shaughnessy

The Bees

By Carol Ann Duffy

The Crazy Bunch

By Willie Perdomo

Brown

By Kevin Young

Collected Poems

By Sylvia Plath

Lunch Poems

By Frank O'Hara

Devotions

By Mary Oliver

The Weary Blues

By Langston Hughes

Voyage of the Sable Venus

By Robin Coste Lewis

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth

By Alice Walker

Float

By Anne Carson

The Rain in Portugal

By Billy Collins

Forever Words

By Johnny Cash

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin

By Terrence Hayes

Birthday Letters

By Ted Hughes

Dart

By Alice Oswald

Indecency

By Justin Phillip Reed

Wobble

By Rae Armantrout

Ghost Of

By Diana Khoi Nguyen

Eye Level

By Jenny Xie

Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016

By Frank Bidart

In the Language of My Captor

By Shane McCrae

Citizen: An American Lyric

By Claudia Rankine

The Big Smoke

By Adrian Matejka

feeld

By Jos Charles

Incendiary Art

By Patricia Smith

The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

By Gwendolyn Brooks

Alive: New and Selected Poems

By Elizabeth Willis

Four-Legged Girl

By Diane Seuss

Olio

By Tyehimba Jess

the princess saves herself in this one

By Amanda Lovelace

semiautomatic

By Evie Shockley

Registers of Illuminated Villages

By Tarfia Faizullah