In celebration of National Poetry Month, we’ve put together a list of some of our favorite books written by poets. Tweet us @curatormagazine and tell us your favorites.
The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle
Engle explores the tumult of 19th-century Cuba in masterful verse throughout this Newbery Honor Book of young adult poetry.
Stolen Air: Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam trans by Christian Wiman
Wiman brings to English speakers the delicious musicality of Mandelstam’s urgent poems. Mandelstam was, after all, a man with a bounty on his head in Soviet Russia, and Wiman translated these from a hospital ward. And still, the poems vibrate with vitality.
Beowulf by Unknown
I came to this classic of medieval literature only recently, daunted for years by its reputation, and convinced it would be a slog of epic (get it?) proportions. Instead I discovered a story with great pacing and a hero who, in fully embracing his destiny, is pleasantly at odds with our present-day tendency towards reluctant heroism and false humility (see Aragorn’s unfortunate retcon in the Lord of the Rings movies).
In Few Words/En Pocas Palabras by José Antonio Burciaga
Burciaga’s bilingual poetry gives both his English and Spanish readers a look into the wisdom and humor found in Latino dichos.
West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems by Mary Oliver
As tethered to the natural world as the imaginary, Oliver’s way with words prompts her readers to say — just as she does in one of her poems — “here is an amazement.”
Domestic Work by Natasha Trethewey
In unassuming style, Trethewey’s collection explores the complexities and tenderness of family life and memory–the ways in which history has not died.
Waiting on the Word by Malcolm Guite
This sublime collection of Advent poetry combines verse from some of today’s most introspective poets with Guite’s poignant reflections on their work, language and meaning, and the most contemplative season of the year.
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