Year-End Lists

National Book Award: Poetry 2019

[see also 2023 • 2022 • 2021 • 2020 • 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2013]

Winner

• Sight Lines
  Arthur Sze

Finalists

• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown
• "I"

  New and Selected Poems
  Toi Derricotte
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• Be Recorder
  Carmen Giménez Smith

Longlist

• Variations on Dawn and Dusk
  Dan Beachy-Quick
• Build Yourself a Boat
  Camonghne Felix
• A Sand Book
  Ariana Reines
• Dunce
  Mary Ruefle
• Doomstead Days
  Brian Teare

Literary Hub: The 10 Best Poetry Collections of the Decade

[see also 2017]

• Nox
  Anne Carson
• Lighthead
  Terrance Hayes
• Life on Mars
  Tracy K. Smith
• When My Brother Was an Aztec
  Natalie Diaz
• Thrall
  Natasha Trethewey
• Incarnadine
  Mary Szybist
• Citizen

  An American Lyric
  Claudia Rankine
• Voyage of the Sable Venus

  and Other Poems
  Robin Coste Lewis
• Night Sky With Exit Wounds
  Ocean Vuong
• Don’t Call Us Dead
  Danez Smith

Dissenting Opinions

• One With Others
  C.D. Wright
• Beauty Was the Case That They Gave Me
  Mark Leidner
• Engine Empire
  Cathy Park Hong
• Slow Lightning
  Eduardo C. Corral
• Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals
  Patricia Lockwood
• Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
  Ross Gay
• Bright Dead Things
  Ada Limón
• Bestiary
  Donika Kelly
• Good Stock Strange Blood
  Dawn Lundy Martin
• Wild Is the Wind
  Carl Phillips
• Soft Science
  Franny Choi

Honorable Mentions

• The Best of It
  Kay Ryan
• Every Riven Thing
  Christian Wiman
• Space, in Chains
  Laura Kasischke
• Head Off & Split
  Nikky Finney
• Water Puppets
  Quan Barry
• not merely because of the unknown that was stalking toward them
  Jenny Boully
• Stag's Leap
  Sharon Olds
• Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys
  D.A. Powell
• Bewilderment

  New Poems and Translations
  David Ferry
• My Poems Won't Change the World
  Patrizia Cavalli
• Vow
  Rebecca Hazelton
• Black Aperture
  Matt Rasmussen
• Antidote
  Corey Van Landingham
• Metaphysical Dog
  Frank Bidart
• 3 Sections
  Vijay Seshadri
• White Blight
  Athena Farrokhzad
• Digest
  Gregory Pardlo
• Prelude to Bruise
  Saeed Jones
• Gabriel
  Edward Hirsch
• Faithful and Virtuous Night
  Louise Glück
• How to Be Drawn
  Terrance Hayes
• Wishing for Birds
  Elisabeth Hewer
• Girl-King
  Brittany Cavallaro
• War of the Foxes
  Richard Siken
• Ozone Journal
  Peter Balakian
• I Must Be Living Twice

  New and Selected Poems 1975 – 2014
  Eileen Myles
• House of Lords and Commons
  Ishion Hutchinson
• Look
  Solmaz Sharif
• Olio
  Tyehimba Jess
• The Performance of Becoming Human
  Daniel Borzutzky
• Electric Arches
  Eve L. Ewing
• WHEREAS
  Layli Long Soldier
• Good Bones
  Maggie Smith
• Calling a Wolf a Wolf
  Kaveh Akbar
• Half-Light

  Collected Poems 1965-2016
  Frank Bidart
• So Where Are We?
  Lawrence Joseph
• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• Ghost Of
  Diana Khoi Nguyen
• Virgin
  Analicia Sotelo
• Indecency
  Justin Phillip Reed
• Tropic of Squalor
  Mary Karr
• Deaf Republic
  Ilya Kaminsky
• The Tradition
  Jericho Brown
• Unhistorical
  Brittany Cavallaro
• Magical Negro
  Morgan Parker
• Gloss
  Rebecca Hazelton

Book Riot: Best Poetry of 2018

• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• Oceanic
  Aimee Nezhukumatathil
• Virgin
  Analicia Sotelo
• If They Come for Us
  Fatimah Asghar
• Not Here
  Hieu Minh Nguyen
• Eye Level
  Jenny Xie
• Citizen Illegal
  José Olivarez
• Indecency
  Justin Phillip Reed
• Lo terciario
  Raquel Salas Rivera
• Registers of Illuminated Villages
  Tarfia Faizullah
• Junk
  Tommy Pico
• I Can't Talk About the Trees Without the Blood
  Tiana Clark
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith
• Nepantla

  An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color
  Christopher Soto (editor)

Meghan O'Rourke: 9 Best Books of Poetry in 2018, as published by New York Magazine’s Vulture

• Drafts, Fragments, and Poems

  The Complete Poetry
  Joan Murray
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith
• The Book of Ephraim
  James Merrill
• Eye Level
  Jenny Xie
• Indecency
  Justin Phillip Reed
• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• feeld
  Jos Charles
• Be With
  Forrest Gander
• Human Hours
  Catherine Barnett

E. Ce Miller: 15 Poetry Collections From 2018 You Won’t Want To Miss, as published by Bustle

[see also 2017 • 2016]

• Virgin
  Analicia Sotelo
• Eye Level
  Jenny Xie
• Wade in the Water
  Tracy K. Smith
• Years, Months, and Days
  Amanda Jernigan
• Indecency
  Justin Phillip Reed
• Not Here
  Hieu Minh Nguyen
• American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin
  Terrance Hayes
• If They Come for Us
  Fatimah Asghar
• A Memory of the Future
  Elizabeth Spires
• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• feeld
  Jos Charles
• Human Hours
  Catherine Barnett
• The Flame

  Poems Notebooks Lyrics Drawings
  Leonard Cohen
• Hey, Marfa
  Jeffrey Yang
• So Far So Good
  Ursula K. Le Guin

Michael Robbins: Best Poetry Collections of 2018, as published by The Chicago Tribune

[see also 2017 • 2016 • 2012]

• Heaven Is All Goodbyes
  Tongo Eisen-Martin
• Songs & Ballads
  Lindsay Turner
• pungent dins concentric
  Vanessa Couto Johnson
• Baby, I Don't Care
  Chelsey Minnis
• W.S. Graham
  W.S. Graham
• The Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht
  Bertolt Brecht

Dennis Cooper: Favorite Poetry of 2018

[see also 2019 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2012]

• Evolution
  Eileen Myles
• Milk
  Dorothea Lasky
• Another Way to Play

  Poems 1960-2017
  Michael Lally
• Tom Sawyer
  Joseph Grantham
• The Resignation
  Lonely Christopher
• feeld
  Jos Charles
• Abductions
  Chiwan Choi
• Camp Marmalade
  Wayne Koestenbaum
• Cheap Yellow
  Shy Watson
• Nioque of the Early-Spring
  Francis Ponge
• Wobble
  Rae Armantrout
• Telephone
  Ariana Reines
• When People Die
  Thomas Moore
• The Red Song
  Melisa Machado
• The Known Universe
  Terence Winch
• Positions of the Sun
  Lyn Hejinian

Entropy: Best Poetry Books & Poetry Collections of 2018, "in no particular order"

[see also 2019 • 2017]

1. Ghost Of
   Diana Khoi Nguyen
2. American Letters

   Works on Paper
   Giovanni Singleton
3. If They Come for Us
   Fatimah Asghar
4. Trickster Feminism
   Anne Waldman
5. feeld
   Jos Charles
6. Letters to the Future

   Black Women/Radical Writing
   Erica Hunt and Dawn Lundy Martin (editors)
7. Junk
   Tommy Pico
8. Not Here
   Hieu Minh Nguyen
9. Feeling Upon Arrival
   Saretta Morgan
10. Lo terciario
    Raquel Salas Rivera
11. Be With
    Forrest Gander
12. Outside Of The Body There Is Something Like Hope
    Joshua Jennifer Espinoza
13. Age of Glass
    Anna Maria Hong
14. Surge
    Etel Adnan
15. Soap for the Dogs
    Stacey Tran
16. The Desert
    Brandon Shimoda
17. The Undressing
    Li-Young Lee
18. Brown
    Kevin Young
19. City of the Future
    Sesshu Foster
20. Registers of Illuminated Villages
    Tarfia Faizullah
21. New Poets of Native Nations
    Heid E. Erdrich
22. Some Animal
    Ely Shipley
23. Autobiography of Death
    Kim Hyesoon
24. Crosslight for Youngbird
    Asiya Wadud
25. Dark Hour
    Nadia de Vries
26. Sheep Machine
    Vi Khi Nao
27. I Don't Write about Race
    June Gehringer
28. Inside Song
    Steve Dickison
29. Cruel Futures
    Carmen Giménez Smith
30. Indictus
    Natalie Eilbert
31. Lucy 72
    Ronaldo V. Wilson and Lucy
32. Moon

    Letters, Maps, Poems
    Jennifer S. Cheng
33. Eye Level
    Jenny Xie
34. Screwball
    Anne Kawala
35. Dear Angel of Death
    Simone White
36. Nepantla

    An Anthology Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color
    Christopher Soto (editor)
37. Landia
    Celina Su
38. I Think I'm Ready to See Frank Ocean
    Shayla Lawson
39. Don't Let Them See Me Like This
    Jasmine Gibson
40. New and Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña
    Cecilia Vicuna
41. To Afar from Afar
    Soham Patel
42. When the Bird Is Not a Human
    HR Hegnauer
43. At Your Feet
    Ana Cristina Cesare
44. Attack of the Fifty-Foot Centerfold
    Dorothy Chan
45. For an Ineffable Metrics of the Desert
    Mostafa Nissabouri
46. all this can be yours
    Isobel O'Hare
47. Cruel Fiction
    Wendy Trevino
48. Not My White Savior

    A Memoir in Poems
    Julayne Lee
49. Attendance
    Rocio Carlos & Rachel McLeod Kaminer
50. Orient
    Nicholas Gulig
51. Nerve Chorus
    Willa Carroll
52. the length of this gap
    Kristen E Nelson
53. I Have Never Been Able to Sing
    Alexis Almeida
54. The Boneyard, The Birth Manual, A Burial

    Investigations Into The Heartland
    Julia Madsen
55. Holy Moly Carry Me
    Erika Meitner
56. Isako Isako
    Mia Ayumi Malhotra
57. Book of Cord
    Leona Chen
58. Terrible Blooms
    Melissa Stein
59. Real Life

    An Installation
    Julie Carr
60. Obtuse Diary
    Amelia Rosselli

Chicago Review of Books: 10 Best Poetry Books of 2018

[see also 2017 • 2016]

• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• Perennial
  Kelly Forsythe
• Citizen Illegal
  José Olivarez
• Rodeo in Reverse
  Lindsey Alexander
• House of McQueen
  Valerie Wallace
• Ghost Of
  Diana Khoi Nguyen
• Monument

  Poems New and Selected
  Natasha Trethewey
• Black Queer Hoe
  Britteney Black Rose Kapri
• If They Come for Us
  Fatimah Asghar
• A Cruelty Special to Our Species
  Emily Jungmin Yoon

Autostraddle: 6 of the Best Feminist Poetry Books of 2018

• The Carrying
  Ada Limón
• The Möbius Strip Club of Grief
  Bianca Stone
• If They Come for Us
  Fatimah Asghar
• Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl
  Diane Seuss
• Bound
  Claire Schwartz
• Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
  Alice Walker