[READING CHALLENGE] Read Some Diverse Poetry

(Click here to skip straight to the booklist.)

Y’all, I know it’s late, but the month I’ve had, with all its glorious ups and downs? Bear with me.

Anyway, all whining and crowing aside(more about that crowing coming later) November is a great time to read poetry. The year is almost over, our brains are kicking into holiday mode, and at some point, more than a few of us are going to be struggling to read through turkey-induced somnolence.

For me, poetry is what I go to when it’s harder to focus or find time to read for long stretches. so let’s give our brains some grace this month and read poems.

However, this is still @equalopportunityreader so please put the poems about little sparrows, transcendent ponds, and icebox plums DOWN. Instead, check out a poet from a diverse community.

I’d suggest poets like Billy Ray Belcourt and Natalie Diaz, who write words the way jazz musicians play notes; old classics like Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou; or former performance poets like Danez Smith, Elizabeth Acevedo, or StaceyAnn Chin. If you want to stretch a bit more, take a look at the work of deaf poet Ilya Kaminsky or formerly incarcerated poet Reginald Dwayne Betts.

I think my book for this challenge will be Brandon O’Brien’s Can You Sign My Tentacle?, a speculative poetry collection about the elder gods seeking autographs from rappers, among other things. As a bonus, I went to World Fantasy Conference 2022 last week and got the poet to actually sign the tentacle on the first page of the book. *crowing commences*

If you’re looking for recommendations, check out this booklist. I’ll warn you though, that this list is woefully inadequate–poetry is vast and not my specialty, so I just put together some that I’ve read and hoped for the best.

What poet will you be reading this month, fellow readers?

(Friendly reminder, fellow readers–this blog has an affiliate relationship with Bookshop and if you buy anything from a link you click on this page, we’ll earn a commission. Go on…click. Buy. You know you want to. Write a poem about it, then come back and leave it as a comment. I’ll stop being creepy now. Peace!)