Have You Read a Good Poem Lately?

It’s National Poetry Month, a perfect time to enrich our lives with poetry. If you’re not sure where to start, here are some suggestions. We’ll be back with more next time; our shelves are full of verses and rhymes.
Click on the titles to check our online catalog.

Anthologies to Pick and Choose From
American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, selected and with an introduction by Tracy K. Smith
Essential Pleasures : A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud, edited by Robert Pinsky
A Family of Poems : My Favorite Poetry for Children, selected by Caroline Kennedy
Poetry 180 : A Turning Back to Poetry, selected and with an introduction by Billy Collins
The Top 500 Poems, edited by William Harmon

#OwnVoices Poetry
African American Poetry : 250 Years of Struggle and Song, Kevin Young, editor
Haiku : Poetry Ancient & Modern, an anthology compiled by Jackie Hardy
LatiNext, edited by Felicia Rose Chavez, Jose Olivarez, and Willie Perdomo
When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through : A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, editors, Joy Harjo, LeAnne Howe, and Jennifer Elise Foerster

Local Poets
1919 by Eve L. Ewing
Alive Together by Lisel Mueller
Behind My Eyes by Li-Young Lee
The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks, edited by Elizabeth Alexander
A People’s History of Chicago by Kevin Coval, foreward by Chance the Rapper
Selected Poems by Carl Sandburg, edited by Paul Berman