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Eye Level by Jenny Xie will likely be my pick!

I ended up reading Whiskey Words & a Shovel II. I love R.H. Sin.

Theresa wrote: "I struggle terribly with poetry. My non-creative brain just doesn't get it. But I'm optimistic that this collection has enough variety that even a poetry dunce like me will find something I underst..."

Like Theresa I tend to have a hard time with poetry.

In the past, I did well with Langston Hughes. I wanted to find something close to that or love poems which would be a smoother ride for me.

I chose Rapture: Poems by Sjohnna McCray. The description stood out to me because I could relate.

The writing is raw and unfiltered.

I thought I would read it in one sitting considering it is only 72 pages but I found that each poem is a treasure. I read only one or two a night as I want the weight and feel of them to sink in.

I highly would recommend this to anyone who like me has a difficult time with poetry.

I think I am going to try JuarOz I have previously really enjoyed Wren

An Australian one, I read Parang by Omar Musa a few years back and didn't mind it - a little bit of a hip hop kind of styling to it.

This is going to be a tough one for me as I pretty much never read poetry, I find it really hard to find examples I like :/

I will say, double check the dates of suggestions given--the Warsan Shire book excited me until I saw it was not withint the "after 2014" parameters.

Verity by Colleen Hoover was magnificently entertaining!

I'm reading Electric Arches for this task. I just started it and it's beautiful so far.

How To Dress a Fish by Abigail Chabitnoy

"The Virginia State Colony For Epileptics and Feebleminded" by Molly McCully Brown

My favourite poem ever is Martin Espada's Imagine The Angels of Bread. That's too early for this task, but I think I'll read his 2017 collection, Vivas for Those Who Have Failed.

Dawn wrote: "Milk and Honey is free on for Kindle with Amazon Prime. That's my choice."

Thank you for that tip! I will be reading that poetry book as well.

I just finished Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora, which I found after hearing a great piece about/by him on the Code Switch podcast. Poetry is not generally my jam, and it's a difficult read, but definitely worth it. Also, for double dippers, he is Salvadoran, sharing poems about his life in El Salvador, and his experience trying to cross the border into the US as a child, so it might work for #ownvoices set in Central America.

If anyone wants to focus on queer poetry, the 2019 Lambda awards are out. The LGBQT+ poetry sections list lots of options.

I just finished American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes. Very dense, in a good way. It definitely bore more than one reading per poem. I really enjoyed it.

not a big fan of poetry, but i have made my choice. I will read

Claw the System: Poems from the Cat Uprising

Do we have any clarity on whether collections published in 2014 count? I'd love to read Like a Beggar by Ellen Bass.

I read In a Slant Light: A Poet's Memoir by Cilla McQueen, a New Zealand poet who is one of my favourites. The collection came out in 2016, and is a series of autobiographical poems about her early life. It's quite lovely.

I just read If There is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems by Vera Pavlova. It's a collection of short, translated poems which all explore the themes of love, writing, loneliness and the quiet moments of the day. I really enjoyed it!

Poet x is absolutely wonderful for this category. It is very easy to read

I just finished Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc for this, and it also works for task 12: a book with a point of view character that is an animal or inanimate object. Thoroughly enjoyed it and learned lots from it!

I was having trouble finding something to read for this prompt. Then I found To Make Monsters Out of Girls by Amanda Lovelace which I really enjoyed. I have another of her books The Princess Saves Herself in this One on hold at the library.

Is a novel written in verse considered poetry?

I read Light Filters In: Poems by Caroline Kaufman. It's YA poetry if you're looking for something new by a younger voice.

Lisa, I'm counting Poet X for this prompt, so assuming your choice was published recently, yes. :)

I am not super into poetry, but am finding Don't Call Us Dead by Danez Smith to be intense and yet relatable.

Helium by Rudy Francisco is excellent. He is a slam poet. Publish date 2017

Also The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo is a book in verse that is fantastic both the written and audiobook. Publish date 2018

I read The Poet X, by Elizabeth Acevedo. It's a stunning coming-of-age novel told in poems.

I also read New Poets of Native Nations, an excellent anthology of 21 Native poets. The poetry covers a huge range of styles & subjects. Yes, there are poems about the environment, but also poems on queer dating life, colonialism, grandmothers, poverty, pregnancy & miscarriage, history, the impact of language, & sex.

I am not a poetry reader, but I get lots of book ideas from The Week, a news magazine. Since this thread is a bit more lacking than others, I thought I would share a couple.

Author Sherman Alexie recommends Wild Hundreds (2015, 78 pages). His review: "Funny, violent, beautiful, and aching for redemption. These are the poems of a 21st-century African American man who's immersed equally in academic poetry and hip-hop. Beautiful rhymes and rhythms abound. There's tragedy, too. This is probably my favorite poetry book of the last few years."

Whereas (2017, 110 pages). "Layli Long Soldier is a poet of Lakota descent who lives between two languages and deploys that doubleness 'with ferocious precision,' said John Freeman in the LA Times. The poems in her magnificent debut collection have a 'jittery, stutter-stepping' rhythm, often combining strategic repetition with bursts of lyricism. The title series of poems rewrites Congress's half-hearted 2010 apology for U.S. treatment of Native Americans, peeling away legal politesse to expose an undercurrent of lies."

Prelude to Bruise by Saeed Jones was excellent.

I read Invasive Species. It's poetry about the immigrant experience, with a large focus on how American bureaucracy dehumanizes immigrants. That makes it sound very dire- and it will make you angry if you're anything like me- but that author also does some very creative things with language and made me laugh quite a few times too.

If anyone wants something simple, I recommend Lin Manuel Miranda ‘s gmorning gnight ! Little pep talks for me and you

I read Don't Call Us Dead for this one and highly recommend!

I read Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo.

I just finished In the House of My Father by Hiwot Adilow from The2CarolinesAndBooks's recommendation under task #3 (book by a woman and/or AOC that won a literary award in 2018 ) and LOVED it.

I recently finished The Princess Saves Herself in This One by Amanda Lovelace for this prompt. I read and loved The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo earlier this year, but had used it for a different prompt :)

Does Robin Robertson's The Long Take: A Noir Narrative, shortlisted for the 2018 Booker, qualify in this category? It's a fascinating and beautiful collection of poetry and prose, almost impossible to put down.

I read and absolutely loved Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar. It's a fascinating look at addiction and the title poem has continued to make me think weeks later.

I read Pop Sonnets: Shakespearean Spins on Your Favorite Songs for this. Published in 2015. This one was a lot of fun to read. It's well known pop songs turned into Shakespearean sonnets.

I also read Tropic of Squalor: Poems but am using it for prompt #9 Less than 100 Reviews (it had about 45 reviews earlier this year and still has fewer than 100 so it definitely makes the cut for that challenge)

I'm glad I waited to pick my poetry read because I listened to an interview on the CBC today by Brian Bilston, who I guess is known as the Poet Laureate of Twitter. I will be reading his book of poems: "You Took the Last Bus Home". I loved the interview and his poems are topical and range from hilarious daily events & ideas to serious concerns in our world. I'm thoroughly enjoying this read!

As a PhD student who struggles with both humor and poetry, I'm going to kill two birds with one stone and go with The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump.

It looks pretty hilarious to me:

People are constantly attacking my hair
I think it's very unfair
Obama said he never met his uncle Oscar
Can you imagine if I made that statement?
It would be the electric chair