“What are the best Poetry books released in 2023?” We looked at 92 of the top Poetry books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 17 books, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Poetry” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 75+ titles, as well as the sources we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.
Our other Best Of 2023 Articles:
Previous Years: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015
Happy Scrolling!
Lists It Appears On:
In All Souls, Saskia Hamilton transforms compassion, fear, expectation, and memory into art of the highest order. Judgment is suspended as the poems and lyric fragments make an inventory of truths that carry us through night’s reckoning with mortal h…
Lists It Appears On:
“At the time of have-not, I look at myself in this mirror,” writes Olds in this self-scouring, exhilarating volume, which opens with a section of quarantine poems, and at its center boasts what she calls Amherst Balladz (whose syntax honors Emily Dic…
Lists It Appears On:
Restless, contradictory, and witty, Megan Fernandes’ I Do Everything I’m Told explores disobedience and worship, longing and possessiveness, and nights of wandering cities. Its poems span thousands of miles, as a masterful crown of sonnets starts in …
Lists It Appears On:
I’m Just No Good at Rhyming is this century’s most acclaimed comedic poetry collection so far, described as “a worthy heir to Silverstein, Seuss, and even Ogden Nash” (PublishersWeekly), “wildly imaginative…inspired and inspiring” (Kirkus), and as …
Lists It Appears On:
So begins the picture book adaptation of the renowned poem that encourages young readers to reflect on family, nature, and their heritage. In simple and direct language, Harjo, a member of the Mvskoke Nation, urges readers to pay close attention to w…
Lists It Appears On:
Deep-dyed in language both sensuous and biblical, Ishion Hutchinson’s School of Instructions memorializes the experience of West Indian soldiers volunteering in British regiments in the Middle East during World War I. The poem narrates the psychic an…
Lists It Appears On:
In 1908, Eliza Showell, twelve years old and newly orphaned, boards a ship that will carry her from the slums of the Black Country to rural Nova Scotia. She will never return to Britain or see her family again. She is a Home Child, one of thousands o…
Lists It Appears On:
When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017―rendering the ancient poem in contemporary language that was “fresh, unpretentious and lean” (Madeline Miller, Washington Post)―critics lauded it as “a revelation” (Susan Chira, New York…
Lists It Appears On:
In The Kingdom of Surfaces, award-winning poet Sally Wen Mao examines art and history―especially the provenance of objects such as porcelain, silk, and pearls―to frame an important conversation on beauty, empire, commodification, and violence. In lyr…
Lists It Appears On:
Unshuttered is a vessel for the voices of their incendiary and critical era. Smith’s searing stanzas and revelatory language imbue the subjects of the photos with dynamism and revived urgency while she explores how her own past of triumphs and losses…
Lists It Appears On:
Welcome to the Wonder House, a place to explore the cornerstone of every great thinker—a sense of wonder. This Wonder House has many rooms—one for nature, one for quiet, and one for mystery, among others. Each room is filled with poems and objects co…
Lists It Appears On:
A remarkable poetry collection with “inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom” (Monica Youn) from Clint Smith, the #1 New York Times bestselling and National Book Critics Circle award-winning author of How the Word Is Passed. Clint Smith’s vib…
Lists It Appears On:
Monica Youn’s From From brilliantly evokes the conflicted consciousness of deracination. If you have no core of “authenticity,” no experience of your so-called homeland, how do you piece together an Asian American identity out of Westerners’ ideas ab…
Lists It Appears On:
Gabrielle Bates’s electric debut collection Judas Goat plumbs the depths of intimate relationships. The book’s eponymous animal is used to lead sheep to slaughter while its own life is spared, and its harrowing existence echoes through this spellbind…
Lists It Appears On:
In this groundbreaking collection of poems, José Olivarez explores every kind of love―self, brotherly, romantic, familial, cultural. Grappling with the contradictions of the American Dream with unflinching humanity, he lays bare the ways in which “lo…
Lists It Appears On:
The Lights is a constellation of verse and prose, voice mails and vignettes, songs and felt silences, that brings the personal and the collective into startling relation. Sometimes the scale is intimate, quiet, and sometimes the poems are sweeping, O…
Lists It Appears On:
Jorie Graham’s fifteenth poetry collection, To 2040, opens in question punctuated as fact: “Are we / extinct yet. Who owns / the map.” In these visionary new poems, Graham is part historian, part cartographer as she plots an apocalyptic world where r…
18) A Working Life – Eileen Myles List: (Electric Lit)
19) Bad Diaspora Poems – Momtaza Mehri List: (The Guardian)
20) Beijing Sprawl – Xu Zechen, translated by Jeremy Tiang and Eric Abrahamsen List: (NPR)
21) Birth Canal – Dias Novita Wuri List: (NPR)
22) Black Observatory: Poems – Christopher Brean Murray List: (NYPL)
23) Bright Fear – List: (The Guardian)
24) But She Is Also Jane – Laura Read List: (NPR)
25) By and By – Alan Shapiro List: (Shepherd)
26) Champion Chompers, Super Stinkers and Other Poems by Extraordinary Animals – List: (School Library Journal)
27) Chrome Valley – Mahogany L. Browne List: (Electric Lit)
28) Colin Channer – Farrar, Straus & Giroux List: (New Yorker)
29) Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays – R. Eric Thomas List: (NPR)
30) Contraflow – List: (The Guardian)
31) Couplets: A Love Story – Maggie Millner List: (Electric Lit)
32) Crisis Actor – List: (The Guardian)
33) Deborah Landau – Copper Canyon List: (New Yorker)
34) Disruptions: Stories – Steven Millhauser List: (NPR)
35) Dragon Palace – Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen List: (NPR)
36) Elements – Jamesie Fournier List: (Shepherd)
37) Enter the Water – List: (The Guardian 2)
38) Famous Hermits – Stacy Szymaszek List: (Largehearted Boy)
39) Fixer: Poems – Edgar Kunz List: (Electric Lit)
40) From Our Own Fire – William Letford List: (The Guardian 2)
41) Gay Poems for Red States – Willie Edward Taylor Carver Jr. List: (Largehearted Boy)
42) Girlfriends – Emily Zhou List: (NPR)
43) Have You Been Long Enough At Table – Leslie Sainz List: (Largehearted Boy)
44) How to Write a Poem – Kwame Alexander List: (School Library Journal)
45) I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times: Poems – Taylor Byas List: (Electric Lit)
46) Indelible, Miraculous – List: (The Guardian 2)
47) indiom – List: (The Guardian)
48) Isdal – List: (The Guardian)
49) Love and Other Flight Delays – Denise Williams List: (NPR)
50) Mapping The Future – List: (The Guardian)
51) Mothersong – Amy Acre List: (Financial Times)
52) Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories – Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses List: (NPR)
53) No Sweet Without Brine – Cynthia Manick List: (NYPL)
54) Observer – Robert Lanza & Nancy Kress List: (The Guardian 2)
55) Octopus Mind – List: (The Guardian)
56) Otherlight – Jill McEldowney List: (Shepherd)
57) Pig – Sam Sax List: (Electric Lit)
58) Pitch & Glint – List: (The Guardian)
59) Quiet: Poems – Victoria Adukwei Bulley List: (NYPL)
60) Quietly Hostile: Essays – Samantha Irby List: (NPR)
61) Roman Stories – Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz List: (NPR)
62) Self-Portrait As Othello – List: (The Guardian)
63) Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco – K. Iver List: (NYPL)
64) Side Notes from the Archivist: Poems – Anastacia-Reneé List: (NYPL)
65) Sidle Creek – Jolene McIlwain List: (NPR)
66) So to Speak – Terrance Hayes List: (Electric Lit)
67) Suddenly We – Evie Shockley List: (Publishers Weekly)
68) Taking Liberties – Leontia Flynn List: (Financial Times)
69) Temple Folk – Aaliyah Bilal List: (NPR)
70) The Beast You Are: Stories – Paul Tremblay List: (NPR)
71) The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer – Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane List: (NPR)
72) The Diaspora Sonnets – Oliver de la Paz List: (Electric Lit)
73) The End of the World Is a Cul de Sac – Louise Kennedy List: (NPR)
74) The Red Ear Blows Its Nose: Poems for Children and Others – List: (School Library Journal)
75) The Ruins of Nostalgia – Donna Stonecipher List: (NPR)
76) The Sculptors of Light: Poems About Cuban Women Artists – List: (School Library Journal)
77) The Shared World – Vievee Francis List: (Publishers Weekly)
78) The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption – Katy Kelleher List: (NPR)
79) The Wren, the Wren – Anne Enright List: (NPR)
80) To Be Named Something Else – Shaina Phenix List: (NYPL)
81) Today I Am a River – Kate Coombs List: (Shepherd)
82) Trace Evidence – Charif Shanahan List: (Electric Lit)
83) Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome – Aparna Nancherla List: (NPR)
84) Up Late – Nick Laird List: (NPR)
85) Ursula K. Le Guin: Collected Poems – Ursula K. Le Guin List: (Electric Lit)
86) Was It for This – List: (The Guardian 2)
87) We Play Here – List: (The Guardian)
88) Wearing My Mother’s Heart – List: (School Library Journal)
89) Wednesday’s Child: Stories – Yiyun Li List: (NPR)
90) West: A Translation – Paisley Rekdal List: (NPR)
91) Witness – Jamel Brinkley List: (NPR)
92) You Could Make This Place Beautiful – Maggie Smith List: (NPR)
| Source | Article |
| Electric Lit | Electric Lit’s Best Poetry Collections of 2023 |
| Financial Times | Best books of 2023 — Poetry |
| Largehearted Boy | Largehearted Boy’s Favorite Poetry Collections of 2023 |
| New Yorker | THE BEST BOOKS OF 2023 |
| NPR | Books We Love |
| NYPL | Best Books for Adults 2023 |
| Publishers Weekly | Best Poetry of 2023 |
| School Library Journal | Best Poetry 2023 |
| Shepherd | The 25 best poetry books of 2023 |
| The Guardian | Best poetry books of 2023 |
| The Guardian 2 | Kate Kellaway’s best poetry books of 2023 |
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