The Living Poetry Book Club consists of a small group of poets who meet roughly eight times a year on Sunday afternoons to discuss poetry collections, anthologies or poetic craft. If you are interested in joining us, please contact Bartholomew Barker.

This is the list of books we have read so far:

2024

June: Poets Teaching Poets (craft)
March: Masque by Elena Karina Byrne

2023

November: Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
September: In the Months of My Son’s Recovery: Poems by Kate Daniels
July: The Emperor of Water Clocks by Yusef Komunyakaa
May: Anchor by Rebecca Aronson
April: 100 Best African American Poems: A Black Poetry Collection edited by Nikki Giovanni
March: Visiting Her in Queens Is More Enlightening than a Month in a Monastery in Tibet by Michael Mark
January: The Rupture Tense by Jenny Xie

2022

November: Quantum Lyrics by A. Van Jordan
September: Only as the Day is Long, New and Selected Poems by Dorianne Laux
August: Dark Harvest, New & Selected Poems, 2001-2020 by Joseph Millar
June: Now We’re Getting Somewhere by Kim Addonizio
April: Repair by C. K. Williams
February: The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart by Gabrielle Calvocoressi
January: close read of Howl by Allen Ginsberg

2021

November: Teahouse of the Almighty by Patricia Smith
October: The Art of the Lathe by B. H. Fairchild
September: Calendars by Annie Finch
August: A Coney Island of the Mind by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
July: Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove
May: Present Company by W. S. Merwin
March: American Primitive by Mary Oliver
February: Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong
January: A Village Life by Louise Glück

2020

October & November: Poetry as Survival by Gregory Orr
August: Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón
July: To the Left of Time by Thomas Lux
May: You & Yours by Naomi Shihab Nye
January: The Practicing Poet, Writing Beyond the Basics, edited by Diane Lockward

2019

November: The Dance Most Of All by Jack Gilbert
September: Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo
July: Coal by Audre Lorde
May: How Beautiful the Beloved by Gregory Orr
March: Morning in the Burned House by Margaret Atwood
January: Harping On: Poems, 1985-1995 by Carolyn Kizer

2018

November: Middle Earth by Henri Cole
September: Say Uncle by Kay Ryan
June: Wonderland by Matthew Dickman
April: Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
February: Seeing Things by Seamus Heaney
January: Incarnadine by Mary Szybist

2017

November: Book of My Nights by Li-Young Lee
October: American Purgatory by Rebecca Gayle Howell
August: The Art of Recklessness by Dean Young (craft)
June: Otherwise by Jane Kenyon
May: The Stairwell by Michael Longley
April: Application for Release from the Dream by Tony Hoagland
February: Solarium by Jordan Zandi
January: Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay

2016

December: Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis – deep dive
November: Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis
September: Looking for the Gulf Motel by Richard Blanco
August:  Common Man by Maurice Manning
July: The Art of Description by Mark Doty
May: Book of Men by Dorianne Laux
April: Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
March: Compass Rose by Arthur Sze
February: Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Glueck
January: Reel to Reel by Alan Shapiro

2015

December: Small Gods of Grief by Laure-Anne Bosselaar
November: A Stranger’s Mirror by Marilyn Hacker
September: The Gift by Hafiz
August: Black Zodiac by Charles Wright
July: The Citizen by Claudia Rankine
May: Darkness Spoken: Collected Poems by Ingeborg Bachmann
April: The Flexible Lyric by Ellen Bryant Voigt (poetic craft)
March: The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai (newly revised and expanded edition)
January: Fire To fire by Mark Doty

2014

November: Tender Spot by Naomi Shihab Nye
September: Collected Poems by Robert Hayden
June: Selected Poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
May: Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
April: Poems by Maya Angelou
March: Breath by Philip Levine
February: The Insistence of Beauty by Stephen Dunn
January: The Sounds of Poetry by Robert Pinsky (Poetic craft)

2013

December: Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey (Poet Laureate)
November: Time and Materials by Robert Hass
October: New and Collected Poems, 1931-2001 by Czeslaw Milosz (International poet)
September: Complete Poems, 1904-1962 by e.e. cummings
June: The Really Short Poems of A.R. Ammons by A.R. Ammons (North Carolina Poet)
May: Bewilderment by David Ferry (National Book Award Winner)
April: The Wellspring by Sharon Olds
March: Shakespeare’s Sonnets by William Shakespeare
February: Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, 1965-2010 by Lucille Clifton
January: A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (Poetic craft)

2012

December: Thrall by Natasha Trethewey (Poet Laureate)
November: Head Off and Split by Nikki Finney (National Book Award Winner)
September & October: Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century Poetry
June: Poems by Emily Dickinson: Three Series, Complete by Emily Dickinson
May: Essential Rumy by Rumi
April: Half-Finished Heaven by Tomas Tranströmer (Nobel Laureate)
March: The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda
February: Vice: New and Selected Poems by Ai
January: The Art of the Poetic Line by James Longenbach (Poetic craft)

2011

December: Fire to Fire by Mark Doty
November: What the Living Do by Marie Howe
October: The Selected Levis by Larry Levis
September: The Best Of It by Kay Ryan
June: Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop
May: The Book Of Men by Dorianne Laux
April: Poems by Nazim Hikmet
March: Lighthead by Terrance Hayes (National Book Award Winner)
February: Poems by Anna Akhmatova

2010

December: Selected Poems by Denise Levertov
November: Selected Poems by Frank O’Hara
October: Ballistics by Billy Collins
September: Selected Poems by Theodore Roethke
August: After by Jane Hirshfield