5 Books of Poetry You Should Read Right Now
- Team Salis Mania
- Sep 10
- 4 min read
Discover the best poetry books to read right now! Whether you’re a poetry lover or new to verse, this curated list of must-read poetry books will inspire, heal, and spark creativity. Explore modern poetry collections, classic poetry books, and contemporary poets who capture the beauty of life, love, nature, and emotions. Perfect for book lovers and poetry enthusiasts, these are the top poetry books you need on your reading list today!
House of Light
Book by Mary Oliver
Published by Penguin Group USA
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
—Mary Oliver “The Summer Day” (House of Light)
Mary Oliver’s words guide us, with solace and empathy, across the rocky terrain of human existence. In House of Light, which was originally published in 1990, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet offers us an opportunity to transcend ordinary life into a realm of natural wonder. Oliver investigates themes on “how to love this world” and to live “as though time didn’t exist” in her poems “Spring” and “The Swan,” and she awakens within us a renewed sense of awe in “The Ponds”: “Still, what I want in my life / is to be willing / to be dazzled— / to cast aside the weight of facts // and maybe even / to float a little / above this difficult world.” As her words suspend time and space, Oliver encourages us to attune ourselves to the quiet moments of enlightenment that perforate each day. Meditative and soulful, the forty-six poems in this collection honor our collective threads of humanity and our never-ending quest for grace.
“Oliver’s poems are thoroughly convincing—as genuine, moving, and implausible as the first caressing breeze of spring.” —The New York Times Book Review
Call Us What We Carry
Book by Amanda Gorman
Published by Chatto & Windus
The instant #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller, now available in paperback and with bonus content!
This luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman captures a shipwrecked moment in time and transforms it into a lyric of hope and healing. In Call Us What We Carry, Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, this beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning. Now in paperback and featuring an interview with the author and a discussion guide, Call Us What We Carry reveals that Gorman has become our messenger from the past, our voice for the future.
Black Girl You Are Atlas
Book by Renée Watson
Illustrated by Ekua Holmes
Published by Kokila
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
Winner of the Walter Dean Myers Award
A thoughtful celebration of Black girlhood by award-winning author and poet Renée Watson.
In this semi-autobiographical collection of poems, Renée Watson writes
about her experience growing up as a young Black girl at the intersections of race, class, and gender.
Using a variety of poetic forms, from haiku to free verse, Watson shares recollections of her childhood in Portland, tender odes to the Black women in her life, and urgent calls for Black girls to step into their power.
Black Girl You Are Atlas encourages young readers to embrace their future with a strong sense of sisterhood and celebration. With full-color art by celebrated fine artist Ekua Holmes throughout, this collection offers guidance and is a gift for anyone who reads it.
Click: Snapshots in Verse
Book by Bijoy Idicheriah
Published by BookLeaf Publishing
Click: Snapshots in Verse is dedicated to the memory of the author’s brother, Anil Varghese, who passed away 26 years ago. His face also graces the book’s cover, which was designed by the author.
It is a poetic journey to capture those moments of life that tend to be ephemeral and transient. We are so busy trying to make a living that we often miss the little moments that life throws at us. This collection of poems is a set of those visuals put to verse, so that we can dip back into that moment in time once again.
This book is a photo album of such visuals. Imagine discovering a lost family album in a dusty corner of your house, and you open this portal back into time.
It evokes joy. It evokes sorrow. It evokes a sense of loss. It evokes grief. It evokes laughter. But, most importantly it shows that memories live within us for ever and need to just be jogged once again.
When you read a poem in this collection and remember such a visual moment, you will connecting with the author - a complete stranger. And that in itself becomes a memory for a lifetime.
S.O.L
Book by Anogh Roy Acharya
Published by BookLeaf Publishing
S.O.L. is not just a trilogy—it’s a lived experience, unfolding in three immersive acts.
Each volume—20 SOL, 16 SOL, and XII SOL—transcends the boundaries of poetry. These are not just verses, but emotions carved in image, rhythm, and reflection.
-> 20 Shades of Love is a visual odyssey through the many faces of love—tender, turbulent, and transformative.
-> 16 Shades of Lunar offers an auditory passage, where each chapter pairs with music, resonating with moon phases and the fragile geometry of friendship.
-> XII Staves of Lore is a philosophical unraveling across twelve symbolic months—where time stills, and thought flows like myth.
Each chapter is written in a unique literary style—ranging from Dostoevskian rants to Shakespearean lore, lyrical ballads to experimental fragments—each mirroring the shifting tides of human feeling.
You may find quiet nods to F.R.I.E.N.D.S., How I Met Your Mother, and other cultural echoes. And maybe—just maybe—a line that finds you in return.
S.O.L. doesn’t ask to be read. It asks to be felt.
So, don’t just read.
Turn the page.
Plug in the sound.
Let the rhythm become your own.
