A million years ago, when I was in high school, I was on the Speech/Debate team. It was one of many academically-oriented teams I joined because it gave me a chance to hang out with other delightfully geeky and nerdy kids like myself. Academic teams also gave me a chance to stay late after school for practice, and get out of the house early on Saturdays and away from my parents. My favorite event was Dynamic Duo (a short interpretation of a passage of a play performed by two people), but I also loved to compete in the Oral Interpretation category (a combination of 2-3 thematically linked works of prose and/or poetry performed by an individual). My Speech teacher Mr. Greer kept a collection of classic, standard poetry books in his shelf for us; but more often than not, many trips to the library were necessary (and MANY, MANY dimes fed into the Xerox machine) to find and copy pages from a variety of collected poems. When I first started out, I loved to do drawn out and morose interpretations of Edna St. Vincent Millay poems. I went through a Beat poet phase my Junior year (I was told specifically to leave my beret at home). My Senior year, I managed to qualify for the national finals with a trio of short poems from A.A. Milne (the author of the Winnie the Pooh books). Only one of the other kids from my school qualified, so the speech teacher drove us - along with his wife and infant child - Honda all the way to Chicago. Unfortunately, I left my cassette carrier in the backseat of my parents’ car when they dropped me off to head to the Windy City, so I only had one cassette SINGLE to listen to the entire time (Depeche Mode’s Enjoy The Silence, the B-side was an instrumental titled Mephisto).

It is much easier to find and read poems by every variety of poet from all around the world now. No roll of dimes is necessary to gather thematically linked poems, and you can search by any conceivable combination of poet descriptors. Since April is National Poetry Month, I thought I’d compile a list of classic poetry collections to round out any home library as well as a few titles that garnered attention as new releases for this year. (I have relied upon publishers and distributors’ descriptions of the titles for clarity and accuracy)

The Essential Rumi

This revised and expanded edition of The Essential Rumi includes a new introduction by Coleman Barks and more than 80 never-before-published poems.Through his lyrical translations, Coleman Barks has been instrumental in bringing this exquisite literature to a remarkably wide range of readers, making the ecstatic, spiritual poetry of thirteenth-century Sufi Mystic Rumi more popular than ever.The Essential Rumi continues to be the bestselling of all Rumi books, and the definitive selection of his beautiful, mystical poetry.

Leaves of Grass - Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman’s glorious poetry collection, first published in 1855, which he revised and expanded throughout his lifetime. It was ground-breaking in its subject matter and in its direct, unembellished style.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is edited and introduced by Professor Bridget Bennett.

Whitman wrote about the United States and its people, its revolutionary spirit and about democracy. He wrote openly about the body and about desire in a way that completely broke with convention and which paved the way for a completely new kind of poetry. This new collection is taken from the final version, the Deathbed edition, and it includes his most famous poems such as ‘Song of Myself’ and ‘I Sing the Body Electric’.

The Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath

By the time of her death on 11, February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn’t get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity. So this book contains not merely what verse she saved, but—after 1956—all she wrote. (from the Introduction)

The Collected Poems - Audre Lorde

“The first declaration of a black, lesbian feminist identity took place in these poems, and set the terms―beautifully, forcefully―for contemporary multicultural and pluralist debate."―Publishers Weekly

Greatest Poems of Lawrence Ferlinghetti

A powerful overview of one of America's most beloved poets: New Directions is proud to present a swift, terrific chronological selection of Ferlinghetti's poems, spanning more than six decades of work and presenting one of modern poetry's greatest achievements.

If you want to order this, or another of Ferlinghetti’s many published works, be sure to order from his own bookstore: http://www.citylights.com/

Beowulf: A New Translation - Maria Davhana Headley

Nearly twenty years after Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf―and fifty years after the translation that continues to torment high-school students around the world―there is a radical new verse translation of the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley, which brings to light elements that have never before been translated into English, recontextualizing the binary narrative of monsters and heroes into a tale in which the two categories often entwine, justice is rarely served, and dragons live among us.

She Wears Pain like Diamonds - Alfa

A book of poetry about finding beauty in a buried past and

unearthing the treasures of strength and resilience.

When My Brother was an Aztec - Natalie Díaz

Natalie Diaz’s debut collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec, foregrounds the particularities of family dynamics and individual passion against the backdrop of the mythological intensity of tribal life and a deeply rooted cultural history. In these distinctively voiced poems, a sister struggles with a brother’s addiction to meth, while everyone, from Antigone and Houdini to Huitzilopochtli and Jesus, is invited to hash it out. By turns darkly humorous and sensual, Diaz’s poems gather imagery and language as readily as they illuminate the intimate and engage the communal. Whether Diaz tells of a son stealing the family’s lightbulbs, a father pushing his Sisyphean heart to jail to post bail yet again, or a woman inhabiting the embrace of her lover, When My Brother Was an Aztec marks an exciting poetic debut.

The Hill We Climb - Amanda Gorman

This collectible/gift edition of the 2021 inaugural poem includes a foreword by Oprah Winfrey.

You can read about the inaugural poem and the full text of the poem here.

While the Earth Sleeps We Travel - Stories, Poetry, and Art from Young Refugees Around the World

Beginning in 2018, Ahmed M. Badr—an Iraqi-American poet and former refugee—traveled to Greece, Trinidad & Tobago, and Syracuse, New York, holding storytelling workshops with hundreds of displaced youth: those living in and outside of camps, as well as those adjusting to life after resettlement.

Combining Badr’s own poetry with the personal narratives and creative contributions of dozens of young refugees, While the Earth Sleeps We Travel seeks to center and amplify the often unheard perspectives of those navigating through and beyond the complexities of displacement. The result is a diverse and moving collection—a meditation on the concept of "home" and a testament to the power of storytelling.