10 of the Best Poetry Collections of 2022

This gripping second collection explores apocalypses, mother-love, pain, and the self. With cameos from Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Whitney Houston, I want to flip back to so much: the “nonfiction poem[s],” as Jones calls them in “Notes at the End of the World,” and the sweetnesses — a hand on the thigh of a “lover” and the window “already” opened for the speaker to the “October morning” air. If this stirring book rearranged your brain, read Prelude to Bruise and the author’s debut memoir, How We Fight for Our Lives, mentioned in this 2022 release. Basically, read everything by this writer.

These past months, I lingered in the endpages of collections, and my mind keeps returning to All the Flowers Kneeling. The essay-like “Notes” section spans six pages, and the “Acknowledgements” section is equally sticky-tabbed. One paragraph credits teachers and contains a lesson I’ve been holding close: “every poem, every time, in some miraculous way, must be an argument about the making of poetry itself.” After perusing these sections and, of course, the poems, I’m grateful to have spent time with this poignant debut about art, storytelling, survival, and trauma. And thanks to those generous endpages, I’m grateful for the glimpses into Tran’s writing process.

Since finishing this book, I’ve been contemplating the expansive beauty of Wong’s debut collection dedicated to “…the quiet sisters.” The opening poem, “For the Living in the New World,” ends — and lives on in my brain: “Spring insists we can build the world // around us again. How has love brought you / here? My head is heavy from the crown.” Meditating on flowers, Frida Kahlo, observation, and place, this teems with startling lines. From “Invitation with Three Colors,” two I keep thinking of: “I forget— / & don’t dream.”

One of five winners of the National Poetry Series in 2021, Ask the Brindled was chosen by Rick Barot, who says the incredible debut collection “shows survivance as a gorgeous unfolding of story and polemic, audacity and song.” Three of the four sections open with “Definitions of mo‘o,” including “Story, tradition, legend” and “Ridge, as of a mountain.” Delving into grandmother-love, healing, history, and shapeshifting, there is so much to learn from, and appreciate about, these engrossing poems, and I look forward to reading more of Revilla’s work.

Captivating and unforgettable, Elhillo’s latest collection interrogates the body, Muslim girlhood and womanhood, names, and silences. From prose to contrapuntal poems, this is a must-read. Multiple times, I found myself asking, Have I read this one every possible way? (A fitting thing to wonder while poetry-ing.) Just a few pieces I continue revisiting: “Yasmeen,” “Ode to My Homegirls,” and “For My Friends, in Reply to a Question.” If these poems — specifically “Yasmeen” — resonated with you, pore over the pages of Home Is Not a Country, Elhillo’s fantastical young adult verse novel.

In this stunning debut poetry collection, Cortez writes in the “Author’s Note”: “in many ways Golden Ax hopes to find its place and definition as a work of ‘Afropioneerism’ or ‘Afrofrontierism’—terms that describe and inform my family ancestry and experience.” Composed of three parts, these memorable poems examine “the Black West,” light, popular movies (I dog-eared “Black Lead in a Nancy Meyers Film” and turn to it often), and Utah’s landscapes, flora, and fauna. With moving lyricism throughout the poems, something breathtaking awaits on every page.

Unfolding in four parts, this book, one I know I’ll reference a lot, reflects on awe, desire, faith, and Mississippi. After reading and rereading American Cavewall Sonnets this summer, Salazar’s debut poetry collection became a must-order. The gorgeous imagery (“my chest of bright stars”) and the gorgeous language (“Come cracked, come crawling cobblestone, come / with enough to drag yourself through this old drought”) keep calling me back. I definitely added “order Forty Stitches Sewing a Body Against a Ramshackle Night” to my to-do list. This year, I fell in love with Salazar’s writing and am hoping you have or will, too.

Comprised of four parts, the current U.S. Poet Laureate’s sixth collection delves into desire, kinship, memory, and stillness. Beginning with “Spring,” the sections are organized according to season, which lends itself easily to rereading. (Since May, I’ve read it more than twice.) Featuring crows, horses, and rivers, I see myself dipping into this magnificent book again and again. In my calendar, I planned a date with “Winter” on December 21. I want to say hello again to the poems, like “The End of Poetry,” and words, like “I have always been too sensitive, a weeper” from the titular piece, that moved me so.

Full of films, food, and dreams, these hauntingly intimate poems study art, language, home, and rain. Following the colors, I obsess over fascinating lines and images like “Oh, there’s always so much to be lovesick for / when seasons change: green birdcages / and plastic moon goddesses and pink undies / hanging up to dry above the street…” from “Mid-Autumn Moon Festival, 2016.” And in “Sonnet with particles of gold”: “The day after my grandmother died was white-gold in colour.” There are myriad reasons to cuddle up with this extraordinary collection. With color as my current obsession, I sense more.

Funny and devastating and joyful, this sophomore collection meditates on anger, grief, intimacy, and seasons. It’s long, but in the best ways. Sink into, as the poet writes, “Long Titles” in “After My White Friend Says So Cool Upon Hearing Me Speak Chinese…” In “In the World’s Italianest Restaurant,” crush on the long lines steeped in longing. And stay a little longer in the long poems — for example, “Winter [It’s April. But…]” — that don’t feel long at all. As now as possible, reach for this thick collection teeming with grackles, sunflowers, and music and reach for When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, too.