Year-End Lists

Hyperallergic: Our Favorite Poetry Books of 2020, compiled by Albert Mobilio and John Yau

• Discipline
  Jane Yeh
• Jump The Clock
  Erica Hunt
• Phone Bells Keep Ringing for Me
  Choi Seungja
• Blood Feather
  Karla Kelsey
• Poetry Against All

  A Diary
  Johannes Goransson
• Collected Poems

  1946-2016
  Harry Mathews
• Now It's Dark
  Peter Gizzi
• Savage Pageant
  Jessica Q. Stark

The Boston Globe: Best Poetry of 2020

[see also 2021]

• Be Holding
  Ross Gay
• (Dis)placement
  Esteban Rodriguez
• Ensō
  Shin Yu Pai
• Guillotine
  Eduardo C. Corral
• I Was Waiting to See What You Would Do First
  Angie Mazakis
• Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry

  Poems & Artifacts
  Nikky Finney
• The More Extravagant Feast
  Leah Naomi Green
• Obit
  Victoria Chang
• Rift Zone
  Tess Taylor
• Savage Pageant
  Jessica Q. Stark
• Thrown in the Throat
  Benjamin Garcia
• The Tilt Torn Away from the Seasons
  Elizabeth Lindsey Rogers

Elisa Gabbert: The Best Poetry of 2020, as published by The New York Times, "several collections that I wasn’t able to write about in full or otherwise feel deserve more attention"

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021]

• African American Poetry

  250 Years of Struggle & Song
  Kevin Young (editor)
• Arena
  Lauren Shapiro
• Cardinal
  Tyree Daye
• Emporium
  Aditi Machado
• Inheritance
  Taylor Johnson
• Music for the Dead and Resurrected
  Valzhyna Mort
• My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites
  S. Brook Corfman
• Wicked Enchantment
  Wanda Coleman

Publishers Weekly: Best Poetry Books of 2020

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2012 • 2011]

• DMZ Colony
  Don Mee Choi
• The Historians
  Eavan Boland
• Homie
  Danez Smith
• Obit
  Victoria Chang
• Runaway
  Jorie Graham

David Gutowski: Favorite Poetry Collections of 2020, as posted to Largehearted Boy

• All Heathens
  Marianne Chan
• Finna
  Nate Marshall
• Here is the Sweet Hand
  francine j. harris
• Homie
  Danez Smith
• Negotiations
  Destiny O. Birdsong
• Seeing the Body
  Rachel Eliza Griffiths

Library Journal: Best Poetry of 2020

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2016]

• Lean Against This Late Hour
  Garous Abdolmalekian
• Conjure
  Rae Armantrout
• Dearly
  Margaret Atwood
• Field Music
  Alexandria Hall
• Summer Snow
  Robert Hass
• Every Day We Get More Illegal
  Juan Felipe Herrera
• The Absurd Man
  Major Jackson
• The Age of Phillis
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
• Living Weapon
  Rowan Ricardo Phillips
• Three Poems
  Hannah Sullivan

Troy Jollimore: Best Poetry Collections of 2020, as published by The Washington Post

[see also 2022]

• The Malevolent Volume
  Justin Phillip Reed
• The Nightfields
  Joanna Klink
• Pale Colors in a Tall Field
  Carl Phillips
• Still Life
  Ciaran Carson
• Wicked Enchantment
  Wanda Coleman

The Guardian: Best Poetry Books of 2020

[see also 2022]

• RENDANG
  Will Harris
• My Darling from the Lions
  Rachel Long
• Tongues of Fire
  Seán Hewitt
• Poor
  Caleb Femi
• The Air Year
  Caroline Bird
• This is a Picture of Wind
  J.R. Carpenter
• Postcolonial Love Poem
  Natalie Diaz
• How To Wash a Heart
  Bhanu Kapil
• Just Us

  An American Conversation
  Claudia Rankine
• Sanatorium
  Abi Palmer
• Magnetic Field

  The Marsden Poems
  Simon Armitage
• Paris
  Hope Mirrlees
• The Historians
  Eavan Boland
• The Fire of Joy

  Roughly 80 Poems to Get by Heart and Say Aloud
  Clive James

New York Public Library: Top 10 Poetry Books of 2020

[see also 2021 • 2019]

• Finna
  Nate Marshall
• The Galleons
  Rick Barot
• Grimoire
  Cherene Sherrard
• Gut Botany
  Petra Kuppers
• Homie
  Danez Smith
• Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
  John Murillo
• My Baby First Birthday
  Jenny Zhang
• A Nail the Evening Hangs On
  Monica Sok
• The Nancy Reagan Collection
  Maxe Crandall
• Postcolonial Love Poem
  Natalie Diaz

National Book Award: Poetry 2020

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2019 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2013]

Winner

• DMZ Colony
  Don Mee Choi

Finalists

• A Treatise on Stars
  Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge
• Fantasia for the Man in Blue
  Tommye Blount
• Borderland Apocrypha
  Anthony Cody
• Postcolonial Love Poem
  Natalie Diaz

Longlist

• The Galleons
  Rick Barot
• Travesty Generator
  Lillian-Yvonne Bertram
• Obit
  Victoria Chang
• Guillotine
  Eduardo C. Corral
• The Age of Phillis
  Honorée Fanonne Jeffers