Poetry enriches my life and alters my brain chemistry. Good poems stick in my head for years. They change the way I speak and think and feel.

American poetry, like every American art form, owes everything to Black poetics and traditions. I don’t think that any poetic education is complete without reading Black poets so I will always encourage people to read contemporary and living Black poets. Black women poets. Black queer and trans poets, Black disabled poets, Afro-Latinx poets and Black Caribbean poets and Black Muslim poets.

I have read every book listed here and I recommend them all. There is a wide variety of genres, forms, styles, voices, subjects, sensibilities and experiences in this list. If you want to bring more poetry into your life, you can bookmark this list and come back to it throughout the year, maybe even take on The Sealey Challenge in August (a challenge to read an entire book of poetry every day during the month of August, started by poet Nicole Sealey, listed here).

A. Van Jordan: M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A

Airea D. Matthews: Bread and Circus

Ashaki M. Jackson: Surveillance

Aurielle Marie: Gumbo Ya Ya

Aziza Barnes: i be, but i ain’t

bridgette bianca: be/trouble

Cameron Awkward-Rich: Sympathetic Little Monster

Camille T. Dungy: Smith Blue

Camille Rankine: Incorrect Merciful Impulses

Camonghne Felix: Build Yourself a Boat

Chaun Webster: GeNtry!fication: or the scene of the crime

Claudia Rankine: Citizen

Courtney Faye Taylor: Concentrate

Danez Smith: Bluff

Donika Kelly: The Renunciations

Douglas Kearney: Sho

Eve L. Ewing: Electric Arches

Hanif Abdurraqib: A Fortune for Your Disaster

Harryette Mullen: Sleeping With the Dictionary

India Lena González: Fox Woman Get Out!

Jericho Brown: The Tradition

Kevin Young: Jelly Roll

Khadijah Queen: Anodyne

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram: Negative Money

Mahogany L. Browne: Chrome Valley

Morgan Parker: There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé

Nicholas Goodly: Black Swim

Nicole Sealey: Ordinary Beast

Nikia Chaney: Ladies, Please

Nikki Wallschlaeger: Crawlspace

Rachel Eliza Griffiths: Lighting the Shadow

Saeed Jones: Alive At the End of the World

Safia Elhillo: Girls That Never Die

Safiya Sinclair: Cannibal

Samiya Bashir: Field Theories

Shauna Barbosa: Cape Verdean Blues

Shayla Lawson: I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean

Shonda Buchanan: Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?

Sonia Sanchez: Shake Loose My Skin

t'ai freedom ford: & more black

Terrance Hayes: American Sonnets For My Past And Future Assassin

Tracy K. Smith: Life on Mars

Vanessa Maki: The Chosen One

Warsan Shire: Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

Xandria Phillips: HULL

*In compiling this list, I learned that Aziza Barnes passed away in 2024 at the age of 32. May they rest in poetry.

Subscribe now