The Best New Poetry Collections to Read (or Preorder) Now

April 1 marked the start of National Poetry Month, and—coincidentally or not—it also happens to be the perfect time of year to sit outside with an iced coffee and a carefully selected snack and dive deep into your favorite poetry collection.

I tend to reach for one of my old standbys when I’m in the poetry-reading mood, but rereading the same John Berryman collection year after year can admittedly get old (no matter how perfect of a poet he was); to that end, we’ve rounded up eight of the most exciting poetry collections that are either out now or soon to be released. Find them all below:

Chrome Valley by Mahogany L. Browne (Liveright Publishing Corporation, February 7)

This collection dives deep into the experience of Black girlhood and womanhood in America, with Browne reflecting on everything from her own maternal lineage to the yearning-laden pleasure of young friendship to the true meaning of inherited trauma and the power that it can hold to shape our lives.

From From: Poems by Monica Youn (Graywolf Press, March 7)

The complex notion of Asian-American identity is spoken to directly in this collection, which ranges from a searing personal essay about surviving anti-Asian racism to a poem that acknowledges Dr. Seuss’s rarely remembered anti-Japanese propaganda campaign.

God Themselves by Jae Nichelle (Andrews McMeel, March 14)

Nichelle’s experience of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman is relayed to luminous effect in this collection, which dives deep into the effects of religious trauma and suggests a less-fraught, more individual relationship with the divine.

Four in Hand by Alicia Mountain (BOA Editions, April 4)

The four-sonnet structure of this collection is romantic enough to read aloud in the afterglow of new love, but its subject matter (which touches on everything from Trump’s election to mental illness to the COVID-19 pandemic) provides a welcome snap of reality.

A Working Life by Eileen Myles (Grove Atlantic, April 18)

Myles’s work likely needs no introduction, but their latest collection—which celebrates the small and fleeting joys that make life worthwhile while also acknowledging the deleterious effect of climate change and capitalism—is the perfect thing to read after you finally finish Chelsea Girls.

I Am the Most Dangerous Thing

“I must suppress / the savage custom / of eloquence,” Williams writes in this genre-bending and thoroughly beautiful collection, taking the reader with them on a journey through racism, misogyny, homophobia and all the other societal scourges over which truth can still occasionally prosper.

Freedom House by KB Brookins (Deep Vellum, June 6)

Brookins’s debut full-length collection explores what it really means to be free in America, particularly as a Black, queer, trans writer living in Texas; their writing style is urgent and timely while still holding space for the possibility of a life lived on one’s own terms.

I Do Everything I’m Told

This collection traverses the world from Shanghai to Brooklyn to Lisbon and even further, with Fernandes crafting a kinetic-voiced speaker who is constantly wrestling with issues of desire, sexuality, loss, and adventure to extremely compelling effect.