14 New Poetry Collections Releasing This Summer
Looking for your next great poetry read? Whether it’s a debut collection or a returning favorite poet, there is no shortage of incredible books releasing this summer. If you’re hoping to stack your shelves with a variety of great reads, we’ve got just the list to get you started!
Here are 14 new poetry collections you should have on your radar this summer.
All the Blood Involved in Love by Maya Marshall
Marshall’s debut collection of poetry releases June 28 from Haymarket Books. The collection “meditates on womanhood—with and without motherhood,” per the publisher’s website and includes poems about freedom, politics, Black womanhood, and more.
Mouth, Sugar, and Smoke by Eric Tran
Releasing July 1 from Diode Editions, Tran’s newest poetry collection won the 2021 Full-Length Book Prize from Diode. The book “grieves a lover lost to addiction and also swims in the intoxication of desire,” per the publisher’s site. Tran is also the author of The Gutter Spread Guide to Prayer and Revisions.
O by Zeina Hashem Beck
Releasing July 5 from Penguin Books, Beck’s newest poetry collection “explores the limits of language, notions of home and exile, and stirring visions of motherhood, memory, and faith,” per the publisher’s site. Beck has published several other books, including Louder than Hearts, There Was and How Much There Was, and more.
Girls That Never Die by Safia Elhillo
Elhillo’s second poetry collection comes out July 12 from One World. In the poems, “Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women’s bodies,” per the publisher. Elhillo is also the author of The January Children and the novel in verse Home Is Not a Country.
Civil Service by Claire Schwartz
Schwartz’s debut poetry collection makes its way into the world on August 2 from Graywolf Press. In this haunting collection, “Schwartz stages the impossibility of articulating freedom in a nation of prisons,” per the publisher’s site.
Separation Anxiety by Janice Lee
Lee’s debut poetry collection releases August 2 from CLASH Books. In it, trauma, grief, and dreams take center stage “and is a meditation on inhabitation and existence beyond the human,” per the publisher’s site. Lee is also the author of several prose collections, including Imagine a Death and Damnation.
Ask the Brindled by No'u Revilla
A winner of the 2021 National Poetry Series and another debut, this collection releases from Milkweed Editions on August 9. Revilla’s collection “is an intergenerational reclamation of the narratives foisted upon Indigenous and queer Hawaiians,” per the publisher.
Song of My Softening by Omotara James
Another debut, this collection is forthcoming August 16 from Alice James Books. The book “studies the ever-changing relationship with oneself, while also investigating the relationship that the world and nation has with Black queerness,” per the publisher. James is also the author of the chapbook Daughter Tongue.
WANNA BE by Toaster
This full-length debut is forthcoming from Write Bloody Publishing on August 26. The collection “is a hilarious, biting journey through entrapment, validation and the resurgence of joy,” per the publisher. Toaster’s work can also be found on Button Poetry and National Public Radio.
The Rupture Tense by Jenny Xie
Xie’s highly-anticipated second collection is releasing September 6 from Graywolf Press. The book features themes of history, memory, and language and “registers what leaks across the breached borders between past and future, background and foreground, silence and utterance,” per the publisher. The title poem can be read in The Nation. Xie is also the author of Eye Level and the chapbook Nowhere to Arrive.
Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen
Another eagerly-awaited second collection, this book is forthcoming on September 13 from BOA Editions. Chen’s newest collection “offers an insatiable curiosity about how it is we keep finding ways to hold onto one another,” per the publisher. He is also the author of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities and several chapbooks.
Bluest Nude by Ama Codjoe
A debut collection releasing from Milkweed Editions on September 13, Codjoe’s book is centered around themes of art and the self. “Purposefully shifting between the role of artist and subject, seer and seen, Codjoe’s poems ask what the act of looking does to a person,” in a multitude of ways, per the publisher. Codjoe is also the author of the chapbook Blood of the Air.
Alive at the End of the World by Saeed Jones
Another highly-anticipated collection, Jones’ newest book makes its way into the world on Septeber 13 from Coffee House Press. The collection “confronts our everyday apocalypses,” per the publisher, and “confronts the everyday perils of white supremacy”. The title poem can be found in The New Yorker. Jones is also the author of Prelude to Bruise and the memoir How We Fight for Our Lives.
Previously Owned by Nathan McClain
McClain’s upcoming second collection releases September 15 from Four Way Books. Per the description online, “McClain interrogates his speaker's American heritage, history, and responsibility” in the book through a wide range of themes and topics. He is also the author of Scale.
Which poetry book will you be picking up this summer?
