Of the 319 books I read in 2021, 104 of them were poetry, that’s 2 books of poetry per week! Below is the list of poetry that made up my 2021.

  1. Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers by Jake Skeets
  2. Fantasia for the Man in Blue by Tommye Blount
  3. Keep This to Yourself by Kerrin McCadden
  4. The Ice Storm by Meg Kearney
  5. Somehow by Helen Calcutt
  6. The Devastation by Jill Alexander Essbaum
  7. Just Let Me Have This by Heather Sweeney
  8. Pretty to Think So: A Life in Boys by Samantha Edmonds
  9. Not Vanishing by Chrystos
  10. The Final Voicemails by Max Ritvo
  11. Winter Garden by Pablo Neruda
  12. Threshold by Shirley Kaufman
  13. Moth Funerals by Gaia Rajan
  14. Trouble Can Be So Beautiful at the Beginning by Shuly Xochitl Cawood
  15. at first & then by Danielle Rose
  16. Felon by Reginald Dwayne Betts
  17. Come, Thief by Jane Hirshfield
  18. A Pillow Book by Suzanne Buffam
  19. Let Go of the Hands You Hold by Marissa Glover
  20. My Dinner with Ron Jeremy by Kendra DeColo
  21. Otherwise: New and Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon
  22. No Small Gift by Jennifer Franklin
  23. A Little Blood, A Little Rain by Mary Carroll-Hackett
  24. Boss Cupid by Thom Gunn
  25. The Gold Cell by Sharon Olds
  26. Made to Explode by Sandra Beasley
  27. Self-Portrait With Cephalopod by Kathryn Smith
  28. Come-Hither Honeycomb by Erin Belieu
  29. Beethoven Variations by Ruth Padel
  30. Fear of Description by Daniel Poppick
  31. Still Life With Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl by Diane Seuss
  32. Ghost in a Black Girl’s Throat by Khalisa Rae
  33. Dead Uncles by Ben Kline
  34. Dad Jokes From Late in the Patriarchy by Amorak Huey
  35. Drunks and Other Poems of Recovery by Jack McCarthy
  36. Sh!t Men Say to Me: A Poetry Anthology in Response to Toxic Masculinity
  37. Dearly by Margaret Atwood
  38. Rookery by Traci Brimhall
  39. Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dogs Zeus by Lannie Stabile
  40. Love Most of You Too by Dustin Brookshire
  41. No Texting at the Dinner Table by Christopher Goodrich
  42. When We Were Fearsome by Joanna Penn Cooper
  43. A Week With Beijing by Meg Eden
  44. Where the Water Begins by Kimberly Casey
  45. Come Celebrate With Me: a VOICES memorial tribute to Lucille Clifton, edited by Michael S. Glaser
  46. Deluge by Leila Chatti
  47. Still Life with Mother and Knife by Chelsea Rathburn
  48. Spectra by Ashley Toliver
  49. Incorrect Merciful Impulses by Camille Rankine
  50. Life of the Party by Olivia Gatwood
  51. Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans
  52. The Woman Who Fell from the Sky by Joy Harjo
  53. Another City by David Keplinger
  54. Nepantla: An Anthology of Queer Poets of Color, edited by Christopher Soto
  55. Dialogues with Rising Tides by Kelli Russell Agodon
  56. Indigo by Ellen Bass
  57. All Sex and No Story by Laura Passin
  58. Point Blank by Alan King
  59. Look Look Look by Callista Buchen
  60. Borrowing Your Body by Laura Passin
  61. Our Lady of the Ruins by Traci Brimhall
  62. Thrust by Heather Derr-Smith
  63. Your New Feeling is the Artifact of a Bygone Era by Chad Bennett
  64. Burning Sugar by Cicely Belle Blain
  65. Negotiations by Destiny O. Birdsong
  66. Be Holding by Ross Gay
  67. Lord of the Butterflies by Andrea Gibson
  68. A Fortune For Your Disaster by Hanif Abdurraqib
  69. An Infusion of Violets by Nancy Naomi Calson
  70. Bloodwarm by Taylor Byas
  71. Reparations Now! by Ashley M. Jones
  72. Fat Girl Forms by Stephanie Rogers
  73. Doubter’s Hymnal by Laura Cok
  74. Wild Things by Elizabeth Johnston Ambrose
  75. Between Gods by Donna Lewis Cowan
  76. Ashley Sugarnotch & the Wolf by Elizabeth Deanna Morris Lakes
  77. Black Queer Hoe by Britteney Black Rose Kapri
  78. Cruel Futures by Carmen Gimenez Smith
  79. Magical Negro by Morgan Parker
  80. Bury It by Sam Sax
  81. Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals by Patricia Lockwood
  82. The Blessing of Dark Water by Elizabeth Lyons
  83. Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty by Tony Hoagland
  84. Immuk and Cookies by Jen Stever
  85. Play Dead by Francine J. Harris
  86. Every Little Vanishing by Sheleen McElhinney
  87. Post Traumatic Hood Disorder by David Tomas Martinez
  88. So Much of Everything by Jenn Koiter
  89. Homecoming by Julia Alvarez
  90. Torn Up by C. Cimmone
  91. Notes on the Assemblage by Juan Felipe Herrera
  92. Dear Delinquent by Ann Townsend
  93. Terrible Blooms by Melissa Stein
  94. Bellocq’s Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey
  95. Arrival by Cheryl Boyce-Taylor
  96. The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded by Molly McCully Brown
  97. Abide by Jake Adam York
  98. If God Is a Virus by Seema Yasmin
  99. Half-Hazard by Kristen Tracy
  100. Afterland by Mai Der Vang
  101. Little Envelope of Earth Conditions by Cori A. Winrock
  102. Lesson on Expulsion by Erika L. Sanchez
  103. Eye Level by Jenny Xie
  104. Talk Dirty to the Gods by Yusef Komunyakaa