National Poetry Month

This just came out last week and is Vuong’s follow-up to his award-winning collection Night Sky With Exit Wounds. Where Night Sky had his father shot in the back and floating in the sea, Time Is a Mother has Vuong contending with his mother’s death. Here, time, trauma, language— and sometimes the lack thereof— all converge into a perplexing and at times paradoxical experience. These poems are deeply personal, even as form is experimented with.

Shire is a British poet born to parents who immigrated from Somalia. You may have heard of her because of Beyoncé, who featured her poetry in Lemonade. In other words, Shire is that girl. In her first full poetry collection— which also just came out last month— she draws inspiration from her own experiences and pop culture to explore motherhood, immigration, trauma, racism, sexism, and what it means to be a woman. Also make sure to pick up her chapbook Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth.

In Brown’s award-winning third poetry collection, Greek mythology, Christianity, science, and art are offered up to show just how vulnerable the most vulnerable are. The history of Black bodies— especially those of queer, Black men— being both belittled and abused is explored through different scenarios, some personal and others historical. Brown even invented another poetry form in the duplex, which combines the blues, a sonnet, and a ghazal.

This is another recent award winner! Diaz is a queer Aha Makav woman, and with great range for poetic styles, shows how merely existing as a minority in the U.S. is an act of defiance and protest. Despite immense oppression, though, how the land, as well as Brown and Black bodies, can heal and still feel love and desire is detailed. As history, pain, and family linages are explored throughout these poems, Diaz pushes towards a future with happiness.