The Pleasure of Poetry

Local poet Alberts takes no prisoners. Her numinous sensibility, scintillatingly coupled with intoxicating language, results in a fine, engaged collection, with promise of great things to come.

The subtitle says it all: "Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry," with work by the late Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, Yusef Komunyakaa, Rita Dove, Robert Hayden, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, Wanda Coleman, Jean Toomer and many, many more.

A witty collection of warm and colorful word-pictures.

An anthology of classic to contemporary poems, specifically chosen to be read aloud, selected roughly by subject, size, and approach.

Though hardly prolific, each new Gilbert volume is a welcome oasis amid the seemingly ceaseless dross of American verse. This is the one dance we all must do.

Fearless, passionate work from an established talent.

Gluck is a modern master. A riveting chronicle of the American life and psyche.

A collection from a poet often compared to Yeats.

David Hinton's beautiful renderings of Li Po's classic poems are at once a glimpse into a long gone world and a relevant take on what it is to be human today.

The finest book of poems from 2009, and possibly Merwin's very best. We should all hit stride like this at age 82.

With each new book, Oliver further explores the natural world and her own quest for meaning. Her fans are legion; the reasons are obvious.

Explorations of fact and fancy, with birds.

A series of poems linked by a luminous, extended metaphor.

Selected by Eliot Weinberger, from Rexroth's groundbreaking collections of Chinese translations. A must read for any fan of Chinese verse.

An important new volume of translations by a modern haiku master, Mountain Tasting ventures outside the bounds of 17 syllables and seasonal words to explore a formidable frontier: human experience.

A beautiful volume of sometimes dark, always resonant poems, which captivate the reader with their alluring ambiance.

One of 2009's very best, with this new book Franz Wright continues his superlative rise to the heights of contemporary American poetry.

Also selected by Weinberger, this companion volume to Songs of Love, Moon, & Wind is, if anything, even better. A superlative introduction to Japanese poetry.