New must-read poetry from Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, Tracy K. Smith and more

USA Today

26-07-2025

A poem a day keeps the mind at play.
That's the beauty of picking up a poetry collection: There's no pressure to read the book cover-to-cover. Readers can take it slow, savoring the verse and emotion. We can skip as many poems as we want, and reread favorites over and over. Reading poetry shouldn't be intimidating – think of a poem as a magnifying glass, not a riddle to be solved.
The very act of reading poetry is about letting the words on the page guide you to a feeling, or help you make sense of the world around you. It can be both transformative and political.
"Every person will have a different reaction to a poem and you will have a different reaction to a poem depending on how you're feeling," Ada Limón, the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States, tells USA TODAY.
"Part of the poetry's magic is that it is a collision with what is on the page and the human being experiencing the poem. It's supposed to connect."
This year has seen a slew of poetry collections from new and beloved writers intent on making human connections through written words. Here are 14 of our favorites:
'Washing My Mother's Body' by Joy Harjo (out now)
Written in honor of her late mother, this work is a moving, comforting and raw display of grief. Harjo, who was appointed the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate in 2019, explores the complexities of her grief as she reflects on her mother's life and the heartbreak of losing a parent. "Washing My Mother's Body" isn't a poetry collection, but rather a single poem set against the backdrop of watercolor illustrations by award-winning Muscogee artist Dana Tiger.
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'A Little Daylight Left' by Sarah Kay (out now)
Spoken word poet Sarah Kay returns with her second collection, "A Little Daylight Left," a decade after her debut "No Matter the Wreckage." Through 42 poems, the New York-based poet explores family, heartbreak, nature, self-expression, grief, uncertainty and joy. "What if you aren't as bad as you suspect you are? What if you'll never be as good as you ache?" Kay writes in one of her poems. Kay's is a vulnerable collection about facing the good, the bad and the ugly of our humanity with grace and curiosity.
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'Doggerel' by Reginald Dwayne Betts (out now)
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a legal scholar, educator and prison reform advocate who has penned a memoir, "A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison," and three poetry collections. His latest, "Doggerel," examines the way prison shapes and transforms American life through a "more prosaic − but equally rich − lens: dogs," says the publisher. "He reminds us that, as our lives are broken and put back together, the only witness often barks instead of talks." Betts' collection of poems is a meditation on family, falling in love, friendship and community.
'Florida Water' by aja monet (out now)
It's been eight years since Brooklyn-born performer and activist aja monet released her first full collection of poems, "My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter." Now she's back with a vulnerable meditation on her migration to South Florida in search of love, connection and belonging in "Florida Water." In a social media post announcing the poetry book's cover, monet wrote she was "looking forward to finally letting go of this deeply personal and political collection."
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'The Space Between Men' by Mia S. Willis (out now)
"The Space Between Men" by poet and educator Mia S. Willis explores culture, faith, the natural world, Black history and what it means to be at the intersection of being Black, Southern and queer. "As the collection evolves, the reader is challenged and empowered to seek expansiveness in spaces that have not previously been excavated, reckon with the complexities of interpersonal relationships, and explore memory as a catalyst for self-determination," according to the poetry collection description.
'Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece' by Nasser Rabah (out now)
Born in Gaza in 1963, author Nasser Rabah spent his formative years in Egypt before returning in his early 20s and has lived there ever since. Rabah, a member of the Palestinian Writers and Authors Union, has penned five collections of poetry and two novels, but this is his first book translated into English. "Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece" include a selection from three of his published collections with new poems that were written after October 2023, during the Israel-Gaza conflict.
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'What the Deep Water Knows' by Miranda Cowley Heller (out now)
"What the Deep Water Knows" by Miranda Cowley Heller is a series of reflections on love in all its seasons. The collection "paints a moving portrait of a rich life from childhood to love to marriage to motherhood to divorce and beyond," according to the publisher.
'Dead Girl Cameo' by m. mick powell (Aug. 5)
In poet m. mick powell's debut collection, "Dead Girl Cameo," the deaths of iconic Black female singers and musicians − Whitney Houston, Aaliyah, Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, Billie Holiday and Phyllis Hyman − go beyond the headlines. Powell resurrects their vivid lives and artistry to paint a more humanizing picture of their legacy while exploring themes of sexuality, survival, grief and stardom.
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'Lullaby for the Grieving' by Ashley M. Jones (Sept. 16)
"Lullaby for the Grieving" by Ashley M. Jones is the poet's fourth collection and her most personal to date. "He will never come. The world is a blur behind tears, an ache in my chest, my biggest pain. The road home brings me no more comfort," Jones writes in "Grief Pantoum" of her late father. "Lullaby for the Grieving" isn't only a rumination on personal grief but the political grief tied to her Black Southern identity.
'Hindsight' by Rosanna Warren (Sept. 23)
"Hindsight" by Rosanna Warren is rich with spiritual and political references that speak to our current struggles and fears, delivering a tender meditation on aging, injustice and uncertainty. "This daring collection of poetry is a search for forms of the sacred that attempts to find the language to describe the shocks of the COVID-19 assault and our politically torn nation," says the publisher.
'Startlement: New and Selected Poems' by Ada Limón (Sept. 30)
With six poetry collections under her belt, Ada Limón is looking back at nearly 20 years of work − drawing poems from "The Hurting Kind," "The Carrying" and "Bright Dead Things" − and featuring new poems in "Startlement." The Poet Laureate of the United States since 2022, Limon continues to wade into the unknown, including the "strangeness of our brief human lives, the ever-changing nature of the universe and emerges each time with new revelations about our place in the world," reads the publisher's description.
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'My Perfect Cognate' by Natalie Scenters-Zapico (Sept. 30)
In "My Perfect Cognate," Natalie Scenters-Zapico, an educator and award-winning poet from El Paso, Texas, interrogates the connections and contrasts of her duality: violence and softness, motherhood and isolation, the border between the United States and Mexico, and more. Scenters-Zapico wrote her latest poetry collection "from the depths of severe post-partum depression," according to the publisher description, and she "searches for a language that can hold both personal and communal pain."
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'Cord Swell' by Brittny Ray Crowell (Oct. 7)
How can we memorialize our dead, and how can our remembrance pierce the veil between the living and the dead? That's what brittny ray cowell's debut poetry collection "Cord Swell" seeks to answer. Sifting through decades of obituaries, journals and other ephemera, cowell uses those materials to exhume generations of her family from her Texas hometown.
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'Fear Less' by Tracy K. Smith (Nov. 2025)
In "Fear Less," Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Tracy K. Smith explores how poetry can serve as a powerful tool of connection and understanding in a fractured and complicated world. Smith, who was a former U.S. Poet Laureate, argues in "Fear Less" that poetry is "rooted in fundamentally human qualities innate to our capacities to love, dream, question and engage across diverse cultures and backgrounds," according to the publisher. Smith invites readers to brave their misconceptions of poetry as an art form and open their eyes to a new world.