The Nightlife

Elise Paschen

In this collection are infidelities and funerals, umbrellas hurtled by the wind, landmines hidden in sand, and tightly wound rhymes that hint of a spirit coiled, waiting in the dark.

Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers

Jake Skeets

In Drift(er), Jake Skeets addresses the Richard Avedon photo that adorns the book’s cover: “to drift is to be carried by a current of air or water / but men are not the teeth / of their verbs.”

Girls Are Coming Out of the Woods

Tishani Doshi

In the opening poem in this collection, Tishani Doshi addresses her reader: “I agree to turn my skin inside out, / to reinvent every lost word, to burnish, / to steal, to do what I must / in order to singe your lungs.”

Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu & Ursula K. Le Guin

Turning to these poems at the end of many a dark day has felt like holding the gift of a small, fierce light.

Beowulf

Maria Dahvana Headley

“Bro!” begins Headley’s delightful new translation of Beowulf, and from there unravels a tale of heroism and machismo and masculinity that honors the origins of the epic poem while also carrying it forward.

Citizen

Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine’s book-length lyric poem is adorned with an image of a torn black hood—a reference that could be any of the many black men and women who have been abused by the white state.

Prelude to Bruise

Saeed Jones

Thirsty and fierce. There are lines in here that absolutely floored me.

Love, An Index

Rebecca Lindenberg

Lindenberg’s words touch on darker days, but the form and style are extraordinary even if held apart from the event that triggered them.