April is #NationalPoetryMonth—a special occasion where we recognize the importance of poets and poetry in our culture. To celebrate, we’ve put together a list of powerful and unforgettable poetry books by some incredible poets.


The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country by Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman’s powerful and historic poem “The Hill We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration.

On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden, Gorman captivated the nation and brought hope to viewers around the globe. Her poem “The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country” can now be cherished in this special gift edition. Including an enduring foreword by Oprah Winfrey, this keepsake celebrates the promise of America and affirms the power of poetry.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Coming Soon from Amanda Gorman:  Change Sings and The Hill We Climb and Other Poems.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Teacher’s Guide.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

Click for Amanda Gorman’s Poetry Writing Tips.

Click to Watch Amanda Gorman Talk About Why She Writes Poetry.


I Had a Brother Once: A Poem, A Memoir by Adam Mansbach

A brilliant, genre-defying work—both memoir and epic poem—about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss.

my father said
david has taken his own life

Adam is in the middle of his own busy life, and approaching a career high in the form of a #1 New York Times bestselling book—when these words from his father open a chasm beneath his feet. I Had a Brother Once is the story of everything that comes after. In the shadow of David’s inexplicable death, Adam is forced to re-remember a brother he thought he knew and to reckon with a ghost, confronting his unsettled family history, his distant relationship with tradition and faith, and his desperate need to understand an event that always slides just out of his grasp. This is an expansive and deeply thoughtful poetic meditation on loss and a raw, darkly funny, human story of trying to create a ritual—of remembrance, mourning, forgiveness, and acceptance—where once there was a life.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


Stereo(TYPE): Poems by Jonah Mixon-Webster

A radical, urgent collection of poems about Blackness, the self, and the dismantling of corrupt powers in the fight for freedom.

Jonah Mixon-Webster works at the intersections of space and the body, race and region, sexuality and class. Stereo(TYPE), his debut collection of poetry, is a reckoning and a force, a revision of our most sacred mythologies, and a work of documentary reporting from Mixon-Webster’s hometown of Flint, Michigan, where clean tap water remains an uncertainty and the aftermath of racist policies persist.

Challenging stereotypes through scenes that scatter with satire, violence, and the extreme vagaries of everyday life, Mixon-Webster invents visual/sonic forms, conceptualizes poems as transcripts and frequently asked questions, and dives into dreamscapes and modern tragedies, deconstructing the very foundations America is built on. Interrogating language and the ways we wield it as both sword and shield, Stereo(TYPE) is a one-of-a-kind, rapturous collection of vital and beautiful poems.

Coming in July!

Soon to Be Available in Trade Paperback, eBook, and Audio Editions.


Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmin Mans

From spoken word poet Jasmine Mans comes an unforgettable poetry collection about race, feminism, and queer identity.

With echoes of Gwendolyn Brooks and Sonia Sanchez, Mans writes to call herself—and us—home. Each poem explores what it means to be a daughter of Newark, and America—and the painful, joyous path to adulthood as a young, queer Black woman.

Black Girl, Call Home is a love letter to the wandering Black girl and a vital companion to any woman on a journey to find truth, belonging, and healing.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.

Click to Watch a Conversation with Jasmine Mans.


Poems to Night by Rainer Maria Rilke; Translated by Will Stone

A collection of haunting, mystical poems of the night by the great Rainer Maria Rilke—most of which have never before been translated into English.

One night I held between my hands
your face. The moon fell upon it.

In 1916, Rainer Maria Rilke presented the writer Rudolf Kassner with a notebook, containing twenty-two poems, meticulously copied out in his own hand, which bore the title “Poems to Night.” This cycle of poems which came about in an almost clandestine manner, are now thought to represent one of the key stages of this master poet’s development.

Never before translated into English, this collection brings together all Rilke’s significant night poems in one volume.

Available in Trade Paperback and eBook Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary by Amit Majumdar

A fresh, strikingly immediate and elegant verse translation of the classic, with an introduction and helpful guides to each section, by the rising American poet.

Born in the United States into a secularized Hindu family, Amit Majmudar puzzled over the many religious traditions on offer, and found that the Bhagavad Gita had much to teach him with its “song of multiplicities.” Chief among them is that “its own assertions aren’t as important as the relationships between its characters . . . The Gita imagined a relationship in which the soul and God are equals”; it is, he believes, “the greatest poem of friendship . . . in any language.” His verse translation captures the many tones and strategies Krishna uses with Arjuna–strict and berating, detached and philosophical, tender and personable. “Listening guides” to each section follow the main text, and expand in accessible terms on the text and what is happening between the lines. Godsong is an instant classic in the field, from a poet of skill, fine intellect, and—perhaps most important—devotion.

Available in Trade Paperback, Hardcover, and eBook Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Illumination: Poetry to Light Up the Darkness by Tyler Knott Gregson

An inspiring and beautiful collection of poems to give you strength, arm you for hardship, and remind you that you’re always growing, from the bestselling author of Chasers of the Light.

Tyler Knott Gregson is the original InstaPoet. With loyal fans across the country and all over the Internet, he breathes new life into this ancient medium and delights fans with his openness and honesty alongside his beautiful photography.

This new book will be his first poetry collection in four years, and he returns now with a message of hope. In his elegant and simple style, Gregson will lift your spirits, keep you going when times get tough, and remind you of the inherent inner strength you already have within you.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


Collected Poems by Sonia Sanchez

A representative collection of the life work of the much-honored poet and a founder of the Black Arts movement, spanning the 4 decades of her literary career.

Gathering highlights from all of Sonia Sanchez’s poetry, this compilation is sure to inspire love and community engagement among her legions of fans. Beginning with her earliest work, including poems from her first volume, Homecoming (1969), through to 2019, the poet has collected her favorite work in all forms of verse, from Haiku to excerpts from book-length narratives. Her lifelong dedication to the causes of Black liberation, social equality, and women’s rights is evident throughout, as is her special attention to youth in poems addressed to children and young adults.

As Maya Angelou so aptly put it: “Sonia Sanchez is a lion in literature’s forest. When she writes she roars, and when she sleeps other creatures walk gingerly.”

Available in Hardcover and eBook Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Poems of Healing Edited by Karl Kirchway

A remarkable Pocket Poets anthology of poems from around the world and across the centuries about illness and healing, both physical and spiritual.

From ancient Greece and Rome up to the present moment, poets have responded with sensitivity and insight to the troubles of the human body and mind. Poems of Healing gathers a treasury of such poems, tracing the many possible journeys of physical and spiritual illness, injury, and recovery, from John Donne’s “Hymne to God My God, In My Sicknesse” and Emily Dickinson’s “The Soul has Bandaged moments” to Eavan Boland’s “Anorexic,” from W.H. Auden’s “Miss Gee” to Lucille Clifton’s “Cancer,” and from D.H. Lawrence’s “The Ship of Death” to Rafael Campo’s “Antidote” and Seamus Heaney’s “Miracle.” Here are poems from around the world, by Sappho, Milton, Baudelaire, Longfellow, Cavafy, and Omar Khayyam; by Stevens, Lowell, and Plath; by Zbigniew Herbert, Louise Bogan, Yehuda Amichai, Mark Strand, and Natalia Toledo. Messages of hope in the midst of pain—in such moving poems as Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” George Herbert’s “The Flower,” Wisława Szymborska’s “The End and the Beginning,” Gwendolyn Brooks’ “when you have forgotten Sunday: the love story” and Stevie Smith’s “Away, Melancholy”—make this the perfect book to accompany anyone on a journey of healing.

Available in Hardcover.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


Poetry on Audio:

Treat yourself to a poetry reading!

Click for Poetry on Audio.


Receive a Poem-a-Day and Enter to Win a Poetry Prize Pack!

Since its founding in 1915, Alfred A. Knopf has prided itself on publishing some of the finest poets of our time. And for more than twenty years, the imprint has celebrated National Poetry Month by sending out a free poem every day throughout April.

Sign Up to Receive Your Free Poem-a-Day in April.

Enter to Win a Poetry Prize Pack.


 

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