National Poetry Month: Must-Read Contemporary Poets

Attention collegiettes: April is National Poetry Month!

 

It was established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996, making this year its 20th anniversary. The goal of National Poetry Month is to encourage the reading and support of poetry and poets, highlighting the legacy of these writers.

 

Poetry tends to be an underrated genre, shown by the sighs of exasperation of many students when the poetry unit starts, but some of the most beautiful quotes from literature come out of the genre. 

 

Here are six of my personal favorite contemporary poets to read and my favorite lines written by them!

 

Richard Siken is a poet, painter, filmmaker, and editor. He’s published two poetry books, Crush and War of the Foxes. His poems center on topics of love, lust and desire.

 

“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river

                        but then he’s still left

with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away

                                                      but then he’s still left with his hands.”

-Richard Siken, “Boot Theory”

 

 

Rickey Laurentiis is a poet and a professor at Columbia University, despite only being in his late 20s. He’s published one book of poetry so far, Boy with Thorn. His poems often connect America’s past to the present

 

“I wonder if these words, my words,

will ever bring me fame.

       I have my age, my injuries. They limit me.”

-Rickey Laurentiis, “Study in Black”

 

 

Tyler Knott Gregson is a poet, author, and photographer. He’s published two poetry collections, Chasers of the Light and All the Words are Yours. He’s best known for his “Daily Haiku on Love” and his “Typewriter Series” poems, which he posts/writes daily.

 

“It was the spilling they called weakness,

the giving out of what I kept hidden inside

that I was taught to fear”

-Tyler Knott Gregson, “Typewriter Series #1470”

 

Tracy K. Smith is a poet and educator. She’s published four books, The Body’s Question, Duende, Life on Mars, and Ordinary Light. Her poems focus on imagination and traveling to unexplored places.

 

“The books have lived here all along, belonging

For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence

Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,

 

A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.”

-Tracy K. Smith, “My God, It’s Full of Stars”

 

 

Tina Chang is a poet; she was the first woman to be named poet laureate of Brooklyn. She’s the author of Half-Lit Houses and Of Gods & Strangers. Her goal of writing is to “break down the wall between people and poetry.”

 

“Our plates were dented with heavy spoons,

words spoken in secret in front of a fire, documents burned

before anything of substance was revealed. We made that fire”

-Tina Chang, “So Much Light We Could See to the Other Side”

 

 

Rupi Kaur is a writer and an artist. She’s self-published one book of poetry, Milk and Honey, which touches on themes of femininity, love, and trauma. Her poems are always honest and come from the heart.

 

“our backs

tell stories

no books have

the spine to 

carry”

-Rupi Kaur, “women of colour” 

 

Slam poetry, in my opinion, is one of the most powerful ways to get messages across. They’re performed with such passion and usually comment on current events and injustices, making them a form of political expression.

 

 

One of my favorite pieces by far is “Somewhere in America,” which talks about the implicit lessons that the current generation is learning (spoiler: they’re not the greatest lessons). It leaves me speechless every time I listen to it.

 

“They built us brand new shopping malls so that we’ll forget where we’re really standing,

On the bones of the Hispanics, on the bones of the slaves, on the bones of the Native Americans, on the bones of those who fought just to speak!”

-Belissa Escobedo, Rhiannon McGavin, and Zariya Allen, “Somewhere in America”