10 Contemporary Poets To Add To Your Reading List
This page may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon affiliate, we may earn a small commission for any purchases made through these links. Click here for the disclosure statement.
When you think of poetry, you may think of Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, or Maya Angelou. While those poets laid much of the groundwork for poetry, it’s important that we read the living and breathing contemporary poets creating work today.
Poetry often invites us to explore the more emotional and vulnerable parts of the human experience that can feel as if there are no words to describe. These poets, however, are writing books that put words to it all. It is through these books and poets that we learn about their lives and, subsequently, our own. Here are 10 of the best contemporary poets to keep your eyes on.
10 Contemporary Poets To Read This Year
Game Over Books
Chokecherry
Lyd Havens
Lyd Havens (they/she), a non-binary poet from Arizona and currently living in Idaho, has a voice unlike any other. They weave grief and hope into every poem they write, but do not shy away from the realities of pain. I can best describe Lyd’s work as a preserved bouquet of flowers, full of life and frozen in the exact moment where you can sit and admire all that was, is, and what will be.
Amazon
A Fortune for Your Disaster
Hanif Abdurraqib
Hanif Abdurraqib (he/him) is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. Hanif’s work is truly one of a kind. His poems cover subjects, such as: the dangers of being Black in America, his experiences growing up in the Midwest, and meditations on music, artists, and cultural icons—all in an extremely lyrical way. Hanif’s voice is uniquely his own and, with five books published since 2016, you get to read as Hanif grapples with all of the grief that live throws at us, while also viewing life as something to be unapologetically celebrated.
Kallisto Gaia Press
How to Identify Yourself With a Wound
KB Brookins
KB Brookins (they/them), a Black, queer, transmasculine poet who is currently living in Austin, Texas, writes work that is urgently necessary. Their poems explore the complexities of love, gender, race, and overall, what it means to exist as a Black trans and queer person. KB’s work encourages us to care deeply and it is in their vulnerability—in their openness with their readers—that we are welcomed to step into our own vulnerability with tenderness, nuance, and awareness.
Game Over Books
Sana Sana
Ariana Brown
Ariana Brown (she/they) is a Black Mexican American poet from San Antonio, Texas, currently based in Houston. Her work has lived on a stage as spoken-word poetry for many years, but to be able to hold her work and sit with it is a gift. In her book, Sana Sana, the love for her community is palpable. There is so much warmth that weaves through her poems, but we are reminded that tangible action is necessary in the care we have for ourselves, our communities, and the society that has so much unlearning and relearning to do.
Amazon
Paper Girl and the Knives that Made Her
Ari Cofer
Ari Cofer (she/they) is a Black, queer poet currently living in Seattle. Her work is unapologetically raw; Ari does not apologize for having big emotions. In fact, she puts them on display in a way that reminds us all of our humanity. The thing I can say the most about Ari’s work and her newest book is how authentic it is. We are invited into Ari’s world and by the end of each poem, we feel closer to her and ourselves.
Game Over Books
Drinking to Sainthood
Devin Devine
Devin Devine (they/them), a queer poet living in Portland, Oregon, confronts topics such as addiction, sobriety, love, grief, death, sex, and trauma through a lens of forgiveness, but also accountability. Devin’s voice is clear and honors all sides of healing—the dark before, the messy middle, and the complex after.
Amazon
If They Come For Us
Fatimah Asghar
Fatimah Asghar (they/she) is a South Asian American poet and screenwriter whose work grapples with their experience and ancestry’s experience of Partition, orphan-hood, queerness, race, violence, sexuality, and more. Asghar’s work truly breathes on the page, especially because they break out of “traditional” poetry forms in many of their works. Through their poems, we gain a deeper understanding about the importance of home and how home can mean many different things.
Amazon
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Ocean Vuong
Ocean Vuong (he/him) born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, writes poems that put us right into the moment with him. His writing is so clear and full of imagery that we feel like we can close our eyes and bear witness. Vuong’s work covers topics such as spending his first two years of life in a refugee camp, war, not knowing his father, and about family as a whole. His work is so personally his own, while also leaving something for each reader to find in themselves. His language and metaphor are unmatched; their complexities make his work the style of poems that you could read over and over again and find something new.
Amazon
SINK
Desiree Dallagiacomo
Desiree Dallagiacomo (she/her) is Chahta and is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. As an educator and performer, you can feel the pulse in her writing—every poem written directly from the heart and veins. Dallagiacomo’s voice has a tenderness to it that allows us to read about trauma, family, suicide, mental illness, lineage, incarceration, and womanhood with deep empathy. We are welcomed into the wounds of her past and we watch as she learns how to make a home within herself.
Amazon
Homie
Danez Smith
Danez Smith (they/them) is a Black, queer poet from St. Paul, Minnesota. Their most recent book, Homie, is an ode to friendship. In their work, they are always grappling with the realities of what it is to live in an America that is racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and how friendship is a part of survival. Smith is generous with their poems, their stories, and this is true about all of their work.
These poets are paving the way to some of the most necessary conversations of our time. They all bring their own unique identity and story to their work, while also inviting us to see ourselves within the pages. It is through reading these poets that we can find the power and importance of vulnerability and to be reminded that, through storytelling, we can find humanity and deep connection.