Every time National Poetry Month rolls around in April, we love discovering the best poetry collections to read. It is the perfect opportunity to take a break from novels and add some variety to our reading diets. In the past few years, poets have found devoted followings by posting their work on Instagram, introducing new audiences to the joy of reading poetry. Whether you’re a fan of poetry looking to discover a new writer, or if diving into a poetry collection is new to you, here are some inspiring and accessible picks in honor of this month’s celebration.
5 Inspiring and Accessible Poetry Collections for National Poetry Month
Heart Talk
Cleo Wade—an artist, poet, and speaker who has been called “the Millennial Oprah”—offers an inspiring, accessible book of wisdom, featuring more than 120 original poems, mantras, and affirmations. With its relatable, practical, and empowering advice, this book is a portable, replenishing pause for your daily life.
Heart Talk
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The Sun and Her Flowers
In the much-anticipated follow-up to her celebrated MILK AND HONEY, Rupi Kaur delivers a poetry collection that explores growth and healing, honoring one’s roots, and rising up to find a home within yourself. Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, THE SUN AND HER FLOWERS is a celebration of love in all its forms.
The Sun and Her Flowers
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Big Windows
In this stunning debut collection, Lauren Moseley’s poems move through real and imagined landscapes, navigating the borders between doubt, fear, wonder, and empowerment. Through the lens of the natural world, she explores love, family, marriage, and self-knowledge. At once electric and contemplative, the poems in BIG WINDOWS reveal the transcendent in the everyday.
Big Windows
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Love Her Wild
This collection of new and beloved poems from Atticus—the poet behind the wildly popular @atticuspoetry Instagram—captures what is both raw and relatable about the smallest and the grandest moments. With honesty, poignancy, and romantic flair, Atticus distills the most exhilarating highs and the heartbreaking lows of life and love into a few perfectly evocative lines.
Love Her Wild
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How Lovely the Ruins
This collection of poetry and short prose feels like a warm embrace after a hard day. Elizabeth Alexander, who recited her poem “Praise Song for the Day” at Obama’s inauguration in 2009, writes in her foreword that “poems are heart and soul made legible.” The collection that follows, broken into sections like “Against Tyranny” and “The New Patriots,” brings together both classic and contemporary poetry to offer an antidote to the chaos of our cultural moment. Everyone from Emily Dickinson and Emma Lazarus to Claudia Rankine and Ta-Nehisi Coates is represented in this bold new collection.
How Lovely the Ruins
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