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National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month. Check out our collection of poetry-related books to inspire your own creation.

Books for Kids

The Poet of Piney Woods bookcover

The Poet of Piney Woods

by Raczka, Bob

The Poet Wolf loves to write pithy verse in the pine forest, but his forest friends see not a poet, but a hungry wolf. That is, until they listen to his lovely poems about life in the woods and discover that behind this apex predator is a sensitive soul who prefers to eat not his furry fellow creatures, but crisp pears.

Rappy and His Favorite Things bookcover

Rappy and His Favorite Things

by Gutman, Dan

Rappy's class has to write poems about their favorite things for Poetry Week, and the best poet will win a cupcake! Will Rappy discover he's a poet and he didn't even know it

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom bookcover

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

by Engle, Margarita

It is 1896. Cuba has fought three wars for independence and still is not free. People have been rounded up in reconcentration camps with too little food and too much illness. Rosa is a nurse, but she dares not go to the camps. So she turns hidden caves into hospitals for those who know how to find her. Black, white, Cuban, Spanish--Rosa does her best for everyone. Yet who can heal a country so torn apart by war?

La Poeta del Piso de Arriba bookcover

La Poeta del Piso de Arriba

by Cofer, Judith Ortiz

When a poet moves into the apartment above hers, young Juliana asks to meet her and together they write poems of tropical birds and a river that flows to the sea, typing out words that change the world, if only for a while.

Imagina bookcover

Imagina

by Herrera, Juan Felipe

A buoyant, breathtaking poem from Juan Felipe Herrera -- brilliantly illustrated by Caldecott Honoree Lauren Castillo -- speaks to every dreaming heart.

On A Bat's Back: A Poetry Anthology for Children bookcover

On A Bat's Back: A Poetry Anthology for Children

A beautifully presented anthology of poetry, chosen with children in mind and designed to form a bedrock of knowledge to accompany them through life. Richly illustrated by Roland Pym, the poems range from nursery rhymes to mature and thoughtful themes, the poets ranging from the seventeenth century classics to twentieth century figures such as Auden, Belloc, Betjeman, and Eliot, amongst many others.

Delicious!: Poems Celebrating Street Food around the World bookcover

Delicious!: Poems Celebrating Street Food around the World

by Larios, Julie Hofstrand

Journey around the world with this poetry collection celebrating delicious international street food

Books for Teens

Ain't Burned All the Bright bookcover

Ain't Burned All the Bright

by Reynolds, Jason

Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW.

Amber and Clay bookcover

Amber and Clay

by Schlitz, Laura Amy

Welcome to ancient Greece as only genius storyteller Laura Amy Schlitz can conjure it. Blending verse, prose, and illustrated archaeological "artifacts," this is a tale that vividly transcends time, an indelible reminder of the power of language to illuminate the over- and underworlds of human history.

Brown Girl Dreaming bookcover

Brown Girl Dreaming

by Woodson, Jacqueline

For use in schools and libraries only. In vivid poems that reflect the joy of finding her voice through writing stories, an award-winning author shares what it was like to grow up in the 1960s and 1970s in both the North and the South.

If I tell you the truth bookcover

If I Tell You the Truth

by Kaur, Jasmin

Kiran flees her home in Punjab for a fresh start in Canada after a sexual assault leaves her pregnant. But overstaying her visa and living undocumented brings its own perils for both her and her daughter, Sahaara.

Sahaara would do anything to protect her mother. When she learns the truth about Kiran's past, she feels compelled to seek justice--even if it means challenging a powerful and dangerous man.

In Paris with You bookcover

In Paris with You

by Beauvais, Clémentine

Eugene and Tatiana could have fallen in love, if things had gone differently. If they had tried to really know each other, if it had just been them, and not the others. But that was years ago and time has found them far apart, leading separate lives.Until they meet again in Paris.What really happened back then? And now? Could they ever be together again after everything?

Living Beyond Borders: Growing up Mexican in America bookcover

Living Beyond Borders: Growing up Mexican in America

In this mixed-media collection of short stories, personal essays, poetry, and comics, this celebrated group of authors share the borders they have crossed, the struggles they have pushed through, and the two cultures they continue to navigate as Mexican Americans. Living Beyond Borders is at once an eye-opening, heart-wrenching, and hopeful love letter from the Mexican American community to today's young readers.

Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry bookcover

Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry

This stunning anthology of favorite poems visually interpreted by comic artist Julian Peters breathes new life into some of the greatest English-language poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

These are poems that can change the way we see the world, and encountering them in graphic form promises to change the way we read the poems. In an age of increasingly visual communication, this format helps unlock the world of poetry and literature for a new generation of reluctant readers and visual learners.

Apple: (Skin to the Core) bookcover

Apple: (Skin to the Core)

by Gansworth, Eric

The term "Apple" is a slur in Native communities across the country. It's for someone supposedly "red on the outside, white on the inside."

In Apple (Skin to the Core), Eric Gansworth tells his story, the story of his family—of Onondaga among Tuscaroras—of Native folks everywhere. From the horrible legacy of the government boarding schools, to a boy watching his siblings leave and return and leave again, to a young man fighting to be an artist who balances multiple worlds.

Somebody Give This Heart a Pen bookcover

Somebody Give This Heart a Pen

by Thakur, Sophia

On the 200th anniversary of Baudelaire's birth comes this stunning landmark translation of the book that launched modern poetry.

Shout bookcover

Shout

by Anderson, Laurie Halse

In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven among deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. Praised as "captivating," "powerful," and "essential" by critics, this searing and soul-searching memoir is a denouncement of our society's failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts.

Books for Adults

The flowers of evil = (Les fleurs du mal) bookcover

The flowers of evil = (Les fleurs du mal)

by Baudelaire, Charles

On the 200th anniversary of Baudelaire's birth comes this stunning landmark translation of the book that launched modern poetry.

Pushcart prize XLVI : best of the small presses 2022 bookcover

Pushcart prize XLVI : best of the small presses 2022

The 46th annual edition of the most celebrated literary series in America.

Call us what we carry : poems bookcover

Call us what we carry : poems

by Gorman, Amanda

Including The Hill We Climb, the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, this collection of the same name reveals an energizing and unforgettable new voice in America poetry.

Goldenrod : poems bookcover

Goldenrod : poems

by Smith, Maggie

From the award-winning poet and bestselling author, a stunning poetry collection that celebrates the beauty and messiness of life.

The poetry of Emily Dickinson : philosophical perspectives bookcover

The poetry of Emily Dickinson : philosophical perspectives

This brings philosophers and literary theorists together in a sustained, coherent conversation about the philosophical status and implications of Emily Dickinson's poetry. Written in an accessible, jargon-free way, the volume's six chapters demonstrate that Plato's famous quarrel between poetry and philosophy can in fact be a productive and enjoyable one, and that both modes of thought can make a practical difference in how we live and make sense of our everyday lives.

100 poems to break your heart bookcover

100 poems to break your heart

100 of the most moving and inspiring poems of the last 200 years from around the world, a collection that will comfort and enthrall anyone trapped by grief or loneliness, selected by the award-winning, best-selling, and beloved author of How to Read a Poem.

Greek Poems to the Gods: Hymns from Homer to Proclus bookcover

Greek poems to the gods : hymns from Homer to Proclus

The hymn--as poetry, as craft, as a tool for worship and philosophy--was a vital art form throughout antiquity. Although the Homeric Hymns have long been popular, other equally important collections have not been readily accessible to students eager to learn about ancient poetry. In reading hymns, we also gain valuable insight into life in the classical world. In this collection, early Homeric Hymns of uncertain authorship appear along with the carefully wrought hymns of the great Hellenistic poet and courtier Callimachus; the mystical writings attributed to the legendary poet Orpheus, written as Christianity was taking over the ancient world; and finally, the hymns of Proclus, the last great pagan philosopher of antiquity, from the fifth century AD, whose intellectual influence throughout western culture has been profound.

Antologia poetica bookcover

Antologia poetica

by Benedetti, Mario

Una antología personal con motivo del centenario del autor uruguayo, el poeta contemporáneo en español más querido por varias generaciones de lectores.

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