April 21, 2025 – April is National Poetry Month. Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters.
Whether you're a poetry enthusiast or are using April to dive into poetry, here are some new volumes of poetry in our collection. Browse the list below, and put titles on hold in our catalog by clicking on their covers.
"A Century of Poetry in the New Yorker: 1925-2025" (2025)
This poetry anthology from the past 100 years of the New Yorker magazine explores decades of poetry in sections themed by time of day, showcasing verse that reflects cultural moments and the evolving voice of modern society.
"Another Day: Sabbath Poems 2013-2023" by Wendell Berry (2024)
A companion to his beloved volume "This Day" and Wendell Berry's first new poetry collection since 2016, this new selection of Sabbath Poems are filled with spiritual longing and political extremity, memorials and celebrations, elegies and lyrics, alongside the occasional rants of the Mad Farmer, pushed to the edge yet again by his compatriots and elected officials.
"Beautiful Chaos: On Motherhood, Finding Yourself and Overwhelming Love" by Jessica Urlichs (2024)
Upon becoming a mother, Jessica Urlichs was reminded that the everyday ordinary is extraordinary. As sacred and tender as early motherhood is, it also comes with its struggles. "Beautiful Chaos" is a collection that chronicles it all - the highs, the lows, the confusion, the loss of identity, the becoming, and the brutal but beautiful ways our children hold mirrors up to us. This collection inspires vulnerability and will be a cathartic, healing read for anyone who needs it. These poems will remind you of a time gone by or ground you in the current moment. Either way, they will make you feel seen and comforted amidst the beautiful chaos that is motherhood.
"Exit Opera" by Kim Addonizio (2024)
A new volume by acclaimed poet Kim Addonizio, whose work is known for its streetwise, unflinching explorations of love, lust, and mortality. Set in locations from dive bars to Montparnasse Cemetery, from an ancient Greek temple to a tourist shop in Assisi, "Exit Opera" explores the ever-vexing issues of time, mortality, love, and loss, and considers the roles of art and human connection. Whatever their nominal subject – jazz, zombies, Buddhism, Siberian tigers – these poems make for a compelling mix of humor and pain, difficulty and solace.
"Forest of Noise" by Mosab Abu Toha (2024)
Barely thirty years old, Mosab Abu Toha was already a well-known poet when the current siege of Gaza began. After the Israeli army bombed and destroyed his house, pulverizing a library he had painstakingly built for community use, he and his family fled for their safety. Not for the first time in their lives. Somehow, amid the chaos, Abu Toha kept writing poems. These are those poems. Uncannily clear, direct, and beautifully tuned, they form one of the most astonishing works of art wrested from wartime.
"I am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home" by Maria Shriver (2025)
"I am Maria" is a powerful collection of Maria Shriver’s own poems that grapple with identity, grief, love, loss, longing, heartbreak and healing. Her deeply personal poems address life’s transitions, challenges, successes and failures. Vulnerable and deeply moving, Shriver’s words are a collection of her life experiences woven into poetry to inspire everyone on their own journey. It is also an invitation for readers to write their own personal poetry, reclaiming the art as accessible to everyone and a tool to look within.
"Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems, 1961-2023" by Margaret Atwood (2024)
In pieces that are at once brilliant, beautiful, and hyper-imagined, Atwood gives voice to remarkably drawn characters – mythological figures, animals, and everyday people – all of whom have something to say about what it means to live in a world as strange as our own. “How can one live with such a heart?” Atwood asks, casting her singular spell upon the reader and ferrying us through life, death, and whatever comes next. Atwood, in her journey through poetry, illuminates our most innate joys and sorrows, desires and fears.
"The Best American Poetry 2024" (2024)
Here, guest editor Mary Jo Salter, whose own poems display a sublime wit "driven by a compulsion to confront the inexplicable," has picked seventy-five poems that capture the dynamism of American poetry today. The series and guest editors contribute valuable introductory essays that assess the current state of American poetry, and this year's edition is certain to capture the attention of both "Best American Poetry" loyalists and newcomers.
"Washing My Mother's Body: A Ceremony for Grief" by Joy Harjo (2025)
This illustrated edition of the celebrated poem includes lyrical prose with Dana Tiger's evocative watercolors to explore a daughter's journey through grief, reflecting on her mother's life, love, and resilience and honoring their enduring bond in the face of loss.
"When You See My Mother, Ask Her to Dance" by Joan Baez (2024)
An intimate, autobiographical poetry collection from legendary artist and activist, Joan Baez. Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.