Spring is here, so it’s time for some new poetry!
With a new season comes a new collection of poetry books to grace our bookshelves. So, if your TBR was in need of a bit of a refresh, we’ve got you covered. We’ve got everything from debut collections to well-known poets. We’ve even got poetry from some of our favorite names.
This list has everything you want from poetry. There are poems about love, about grief and about finding yourself. We found a whole collection of poems that embrace both poetry and science! And, for the first time in four years, there is a new collection by Tyler Knott Gregson.
There is so much incredible poetry coming out this spring, we couldn’t fit it all. But here are a few of the collections we are looking forward to reading this season.
Illumination: Poetry to Light Up the Darkness, by Tyler Knott Gregson
His Instagram might be full, but our bookshelves are not (are they ever though?) After four years, we are finally getting another poetry collection from Tyler Knott Gregson. This OG Insta poet is known for his photography and insightful poetry. His poems are open, honest, and simple. This collection is no different.
Knott returns to publication with a message of hope. These poems will lift your spirits, keep you going during difficult times, and remind you of the strength already inside you. This book features Knott’s gorgeous photography alongside his poems. Everything about this book is beautiful.
Illumination releases on March 30th 2021.
Where Hope Comes from: Poems of Resilience, Healing, and Light, by Nikita Gill
Written as the world went into lock down, this collection reflects how many of us feel a year after the pandemic started. Gill tackles themes of loneliness, solitude, mental health, and hope. A journey through the five stages of grief, these poems follow the life cycle star. However, the journey doesn’t end there but continues through five stages of hope. Hope leads to healing, which is something we all need these days.
Gill illustrated this collection with beautiful line drawings. This collection also includes the viral poem “Love in the Time of Coronavirus.”
Where Hope Comes From releases on Jun 1st, 2021.
Black Girl, Call Home, by Jasmine Mans
A love letter to the wandering Black girl, this poetry collection explores race, feminism, and queer identity. Jasmine Mans, writes to call herself, and readers, home. These poems explore what it means to be a young, queer, Black woman, a daughter of Newark. The spoken word poet, takes readers through the painful and joyous path to adulthood, making this a vital read for any woman on the same journey.
This is a book about finding truth, belonging, and healing. Jericho Brown describes this collection as “carrying in your hands a Black woman’s heart.” Considered one of the most anticipated books of 2021, this collection is available now, so don’t wait.
Black Girl, Call Home is available as of March 9th, 2021
Intruder, by Bardia Sinaee
This debut collection by Bardia Sinaee explores a precarious world wrought with illness and human sprawl. A mix of plain spoken poems that flip between the sounds of city life and the nightmares of history. Essentially, Sinaee illustrates to readers what needs to be done to continue living through whatever hell we are currently living through.
This collection includes the dreamlike poem, “Half-Life,” written during lockdown. Many of Sinaee’s poems contain imagery of hospitalization, body paranoia, and anxiety. This reflects the two-and-a-half years of chemotherapy Sinaee went through in his twenties. This is truly a collection about persevering through hard times.
Intruder releases on April 6th, 2021.
If This Is the Age We End Discovery, by Rosebud Ben-Oni
We all know there is poetry in nature, but is there poetry in the science behind nature? Can the rhythm of poetry and theories of physics co-exist in the same space? They do in this amazing collection by Rosebud Ben-Oni. Her ability to blend poetry and science might break down the divide between STEM and the humanities.
Taking abstract principles and weaving them into intimate images, Ben-Oni crafts a story of illness, comfort, and the unknowable. Each poem is filled with the type of wonder that comes from trying to understand something otherworldly. Whether you are more familiar with poetry or physics, this collection encourages readers to find the beauty in both.
If This Is the Age We End Discovery is available as of March 9th, 2021.
Clarity & Connection, by Yung Pueblo
In this collection, Pueblo explores how past wounds effect our current lives. Specifically focusing on relationships, his poetry and short prose describes how our emotions condition us to act a certain way. While we might not consciously make decisions, our reactions reflect our past experiences.
With his sparse poetry style, Pueblo takes readers through wounds, reactions, and release. This collection brings up hard topics such as past trauma and tough relationships. However, overall message rings true: The only way to grow is to move beyond the past, let it go.
Clarity & Connection releases on April 27th, 2021.
Water I Won’t Touch, by Kayleb Rae Candrilli
A life raft floating through inhospitable landscape. A collection concerned with the vitality of trans people living in a dangerous world. This book weaves it’s way through the Pennsylvania forest to the Jersey Shore. It is radically tender. It is singing for change. These poems are a self-portrait of Kayleb Rae Candrilli, exposing both the quiet moments of life and the violently explosive ones.
Candrilli doesn’t stay away from the hard parts of life, especially in the wake of addiction and familiar dysfunction. This collection isn’t all woe, however. What makes this truly stand out is the future Candrilli imagines can be achieved. It is a joyous, queer future, filled with love.
Water I Won’t Touch releases April 20, 2021.
How Far You Have Come: Musings on Beauty and Courage, by Morgan Harper Nichols
This collection is part poetry, part essays, and part inspirational mantras. Nichols shares her personal reflections as she takes readers through her journey along the southern boarder of the US. These poems aim to take moments of division and pain and turn them into experiences of unity and hope.
Overall this collection asks the readers to embrace the person you are right now, in this moment. Life is about transformation. Losing the brokenness of the past allows reconciliation, which shapes a better future. While our history has shaped us, it shouldn’t hold us back.
How Far You Have Come releases on April 27th, 2021
Waterbaby, by Nikki Wallschlaeger
With her vibrant word choice and incredible rhythm, Wallschlaeger writes about Blackness, language, and motherhood. She traces history through her family, her memories, and her day-to-day survival in America. Both joy and pain of her ancestors move through her in spirit. Water is the element of grief and the overall theme of this meaningful collection.
What makes this collection of Wallchlaeger’s stand out is the way she is able to expand the emotion of a poem. She plays with pace by quickening or slowing rhythm to drill home her meaning. This collection rings of righteous dissatisfaction with an unjust world. All the while embracing the idea of what is possible.
Waterbaby is available on April 6th, 2021
The Renunciations, by Donika Kelly
This collection by Kelly takes readers through the journey of changing in the face of trauma. A story marked by love, abuse, and a broken marriage, each poem is a memory that needs to be traversed. Poems are accompanied by “the oracle,” one who observes memory and knows how each encounter ends. This journey through memory heals wounds and shines a light on a future of possibility.
Kelly’s poetry is heart wrenching, honest, and gorgeous. This is poetry about resilience and survival. It is about finding a home within oneself, even if that home was first built through trauma.
The Renunciations releases on May 4th, 2021.
A few of these collections have already hit shelves, but most don’t come out until later this spring. So, don’t forget to pre-order! Pre-ordering new poetry is one of the best ways to help our your favorite poets. It shows their publishers that we want their books!
Let us know which of these new poetry collections you are most looking forward to! To stay up-to-date, make sure to keep an eye out for more of little infinite’s featured content as we celebrate poetry, books, and this beautiful hot mess we call life on Instagram and Twitter.
Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash
