Family Poetry

In a powerfully intimate and non-traditional (or "new-fashioned") memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents: from being awkward newlyweds in the sticky Chicago summer of 1967, to the sometimes-confusing ways they showed their love to each other, and for him. He explores his own relationships—his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife.

In the spirit of his New York Times best seller Love Poems for Married People and Love Poems for People with Children, as well as his wildly popular New Yorker pieces, Thurber Prize-winner John Kenney presents a hilarious new collection of poetry for anxious people.

The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history, and it has never been out of print. The prophet, Al Mustafa, has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition.

Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A daughter tends to aging parents. A woman struggles with infertility—“What if, instead of carrying / a child, I am supposed to carry grief?”—and a body seized by pain and vertigo as well as ecstasy. A nation convulses: “Every song of this country / has an unsung third stanza, something brutal.” And still Limón shows us, as ever, the persistence of hunger, love, and joy, the dizzying fullness of our too-short lives.

Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.

After receiving the news that in vitro would be her only hope for biological children, award-winning poet Emily Adams had to learn to live in a new world of needles, embarrassing tests, long waiting periods, and expensive doctor appointments.

I Had A Brother Once is a brilliant, genre-defying work - both memoir and epic poem - about the struggle for wisdom, grace, and ritual in the face of unspeakable loss. 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.

Intimate, moving, virtuosic, and hilarious, Tayi Tibble is one of the most exciting new voices in poetry today. In Poūkahangatus (pronounced “Pocahontas”), her debut volume, Tibble challenges a dazzling array of mythologies—Greek, Māori, feminist, kiwi—peeling them apart, respinning them in modern terms.

Blythe Baird’s If My Body Could Speak is a celebration of girlhood and all of its struggles and triumphs. In poems that dig deep into sexuality, acceptance of the body, survival of trauma, and learning to love yourself in spite of everything telling you not to, Baird’s voice is a rich addition to her generation. Searing, soaring, and heartbreaking, If My Body Could Speak balances the softness of femininity with the sharpness that girls are forced to become.

Renowned for his inventive mind, ambitious play with language, and dexterity with a wide range of tones and styles, John Ashbery has been a major artistic figure in the cultural life of our time. Parallel Movement of the Hands gathers unpublished, book-length projects and long poems written between 1993 and 2007, along with one (as yet) undated work, to showcase Ashbery’s diverse and multifaceted artistic obsessions and sources, such as children’s literature, cliff-hanger cinema reels, silent films, and classical music variations by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny.

This book is a wake-up call to those impacted by adoption and to those who interact with them. Adoption and Suicidality will speak to anyone with direct experience of adoption and suicide or suicidal ideation, plus anyone who wants to know how to better help adopted people (and others in the adoption constellation) who are struggling.

Kate Baer shot into the literary stratosphere with the publication of her debut poetry collection, What Kind of Woman, which became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. Kate’s second full-length book of traditional poetry, And Yet, dives deeper into the themes that are the hallmarks of her writing: motherhood, friendship, love, and loss. Taken together, these poems demonstrate the remarkable evolution of a writer working at the height of her craft, pushing herself and her poetry in a beautiful and impressive way.

These Christmas poems cover all the memories and moments we cherish during this special time of year. Poems of joy, sadness, love, family, celebration, memories, and praise. Take time to reflect on the meaning of the Christmas season for you, your family, and friends!

The author of the number one New York Times best seller What Kind of Woman returns with a collection of erasure poems created from notes she received from followers, supporters, and detractors — an artform that reclaims the vitriol from online trolls and inspires listeners to transform what is ugly or painful in their own lives into something beautiful.

Bestselling author and mom blogger Bunmi Laditan vulnerably shares the prayers she's prayed for her children as inspiration for your own prayer life. Refreshingly relatable, bravely honest, and deeply heartwarming, Help Me, God, I'm a Parent meets you right where you're at and gives voice to the thoughts everyone--even you--has about parenthood that they are afraid to say out loud.

This anthology of twenty poems was Yeats's first major collection after he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.

With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her “meditations on kindness and hope” (NPR). Now, with Goldenrod, the award-winning poet returns with a powerful collection of poems that look at parenthood, solitude, love, and memory.

Orphaned as a child, Fatimah Asghar grapples with coming of age and navigating questions of sexuality and race without the guidance of a mother or father. These poems at once bear anguish, joy, vulnerability, and compassion, while also exploring the many facets of violence: how it persists within us, how it is inherited across generations, and how it manifests itself in our relationships. In experimental forms and language both lyrical and raw, Asghar seamlessly braids together marginalized people’s histories with her own understanding of identity, place, and belonging.

One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing - most notably the Native American oral tradition - are the centerpiece of his work.

The Only Worlds We Know is a nuanced and tactile look at both sobriety and what comes after. Patient meditations on loss and the land where the people we love live and are also buried.