Year-End Lists

Publishers Weekly: 5 Best Poetry Books of 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• Hybrida
  Tina Chang
• The Octopus Museum
  Brenda Shaughnessy
• To the Wren

  Collected & New Poems
  Jane Mead
• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown

Anthony Frame: 10 Great Poetry Collections You May Have Missed, as published by Chicago Review of Books

• The Year of Blue Water
  Yanyi
• Bodega
  Su Hwang
• A Sand Book
  Ariana Reines
• turn around, BRXGHT XYXS
  Rosebud Ben-Oni
• Bicycle in a Ransacked City

  An Elegy
  Andrés Cerpa
• Mannequin in the Nude
  Logan February
• Hard Damage
  Aria Aber
• The Uninhabitable
  Jesse Rice-Evans
• Hull
  Xandria Phillips
• Afakasi - Half-Caste
  Hali F Sofala-Jones

David Orr: The Best Poetry Books of 2019, as published by The New York Times

[see also 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015]

• The Next Loves
  Stéphane Bouquet
• Nightshade
  Andrea Cohen
• Days & Days
  Michael Dickman
• Mosses and Lichens
  Devin Johnston
• All That Beauty
  Fred Moten
• Nouns & Verbs

  New and Selected Poems
  Campbell McGrath
• To the Wren

  Collected & New Poems
  Jane Mead
• A Piece of Good News
  Katie Peterson
• No Matter
  Jana Prikryl
• Fieldnotes on Ordinary Love
  Keith S. Wilson

Christina Orlando: 14 Unmissable Poetry Books from 2019, as published by Electric Lit

• Soft Science
  Franny Choi
• Build Yourself a Boat
  Camonghne Felix
• A Fortune for Your Disaster
  Hanif Abdurraqib
• Odes to Lithium
  Shira Erlichman
• while they sleep (under the bed is another country)
  Raquel Salas Rivera
• 1919
  Eve L. Ewing
• Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff
  Sara Borjas
• Advantages of Being Evergreen
  Oliver Baez Bendorf
• Space Struck
  Paige Lewis
• Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers
  Jake Skeets
• Careen
  Grace Shuyi Liew
• Heed the Hollow
  Malcolm Tariq
• Lima :

  Limón
  Natalie Scenters-Zapico
• Library of Small Catastrophes
  Alison C. Rollins

New York Public Library: Best Poetry Books of 2019

[see also 2021 • 2020]

• The Black Condition ft. Narcissus
  jayy dodd
• The Crazy Bunch
  Willie Perdomo
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• In Her Feminine Sign
  Dunya Mikhail
• Library of Small Catastrophes
  Alison C. Rollins
• Lima :

  Limón
  Natalie Scenters-Zapico
• Soft Science
  Franny Choi
• Some Girls Survive on Their Sorcery Alone
  Thiahera Nurse
• tsunami vs. the fukushima 50
  Lee Ann Roripaugh
• The Year of Blue Water
  Yanyi

BuzzFeed: Best Poetry of 2019

[see also 2016 • 2015]

• Library of Small Catastrophes
  Alison C. Rollins
• Magical Negro
  Morgan Parker
• Lima :

  Limón
  Natalie Scenters-Zapico
• Arias
  Sharon Olds
• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown
• Feed
  Tommy Pico
• 1919
  Eve L. Ewing

Dennis Cooper: Favorite Poetry of 2019, in no order

[see also 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2012]

• Punk Rock Is Cool for the End of the World

  Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith
  Ed Smith
• The Government Lake

  Last Poems
  James Tate
• The Intangibles
  Elaine Equi
• Hysteria
  Kim Yideum
• Deathwish
  Ben Fama
• Raking Leaves
  Joseph Grantham
• Big Cabin
  Ron Padgett
• A Sand Book
  Ariana Reines
• You Name It
  Colin Herd
• Year By Year
  Lynne Sachs
• More Gone
  Edmund Berrigan
• Arcana

  A Stephen Jonas Reader
  Stephen Jonas
• Dunce
  Mary Ruefle
• Ashenfolk
  Joseph Mosconi
• A Drink of Red Mirror
  Kim Hyesoon
• Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman
  Bob Kaufman
• Wallpaper
  Bruce Boone
• Words
  Helena Österlund
• Foghorn Leghorn
  Big Bruiser Dope Boy
• Thought Balloon
  Kit Robinson

Library Journal: Best Poetry of 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2016]

• NDN Coping Mechanisms

  Notes from the Field
  Billy-Ray Belcourt
• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown
• Woods and Clouds Interchangeable
  Michael Earl Craig
• In the Months of My Son's Recovery
  Kate Daniels
• Take Me with You, Wherever You're Going
  Jessica Jacobs
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• Valuing
  Christopher Kondrich
• Oculus
  Sally Wen Mao
• Ridiculous Light
  Valencia Robin
• The Octopus Museum
  Brenda Shaughnessy

Via Negativa: Best Poetry Books of 2019, compiled from the responses of poets and bloggers who were asked for their favorite collections of the year

• Something Like Forgiveness
  Rebecca Schumejda
• A Machine for Remembering
  Justen Ahren
• Agringada

  Like a gringa, like a foreigner
  Tariro Ndoro
• Space Struck
  Paige Lewis
• Gravity Assist
  Martha Silano
• tsunami vs. the fukushima 50
  Lee Ann Roripaugh
• Nightingale
  Paisley Rekdal
• Without Protection
  Gala Mukomolova
• Cyborg Detective
  Jillian Weise
• Soft Science
  Franny Choi
• Nobody
  Alice Oswald
• Saint Worm
  Hailey Leithauser
• come see about me, marvin
  Brian Gilmore
• Tap Out
  Edgar Kunz
• Lima :

  Limón
  Natalie Scenters-Zapico
• Long River
  Yang Jian
• Dunce
  Mary Ruefle
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• Honeyfish
  Lauren K. Alleyne
• Battle Dress
  Karen Skolfield
• Hail and Farewell
  Abby E. Murray
• Scattered Clouds
  Reuben Jackson

Entropy: Best Poetry Books & Poetry Collections of 2019

[see also 2018 • 2017]

1. Time
   Etel Adnan
2. A Sand Book
   Ariana Reines
3. Our Weather Our Sea
   Samuel Ace
4. Soft Science
   Franny Choi
5. Careen
   Grace Shuyi Liew
6. A Fortune for Your Disaster
   Hanif Abdurraqib
7. Grief Sequence
   Prageeta Sharma
8. Advantages of Being Evergreen
   Oliver Baez Bendorf
9. Near, At
   Jennifer Soong
10. Syncope
    Asiya Wadud
11. Deaf Republic
    Ilya Kaminsky
12. Magical Negro
    Morgan Parker
13. Invasive species
    Marwa Helal
14. Meet Me There

    Normal Sex & Home in three days. Don't wash.
    Samuel Ace / Linda Smukler
15. Dunce
    Mary Ruefle
16. The Tradition
    Jericho Brown
17. Moira of Edges, Moira the Tart
    Moina Pam Dick
18. All That Beauty
    Fred Moten
19. Casting Deep Shade

    An Amble
    C.D. Wright
20. Be Recorder
    Carmen Giménez Smith
21. Furthest Ecology
    Adam Fagin
22. The Tiniest Muzzle Sings Songs of Freedom
    Magdalena Zurawski
23. The Year of Blue Water
    Yanyi
24. Oculus
    Sally Wen Mao
25. Feed
    Tommy Pico
26. EXTRATRANSMISSION
    Andrea Abi-Karam
27. Hall of Waters
    Berry Grass
28. Oceanic
    Aimee Nezhukumatathil
29. Blood Box
    Zefyr Lisowski
30. Mitochondrial Night
    Ed Bok Lee
31. Doomstead Days
    Brian Teare
32. Austerity
    Marion Bell
33. Brute
    Emily Skaja
34. Losing Miami
    Gabriel Ojeda-Sague
35. What I Knew
    Eleni Sikelianos
36. Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers
    Jake Skeets
37. Space Struck
    Paige Lewis
38. Street Gloss
    Brent Armendinger
39. What's in a Name
    Ana Luísa Amaral
40. HoodWitch
    Faylita Hicks
41. Heart Like A Window, Mouth Like A Cliff
    Sara Borjas
42. Let It Ride
    Timothy Liu
43. Hysteria
    Kim Yideum
44. Several Rotations
    Jesse Seldess
45. Knitting the Fog
    Claudia D. Hernández
46. Personal Volcano
    Laura Moriarty
47. Have You Been Feeling Blue These Days?
    Kim Eon Hee
48. (the Other House)
    Rocio Carlos
49. while they sleep (under the bed is another country)
    Raquel Salas Rivera
50. The Unexploded Ordnance Bin
    Rebecca Foust