The changing of the year is a time for both looking back and looking forward. One of the ways I like to look back is by remembering some of the best books I’ve read during the past year. For me, this has been a year with a lot of poetry—and poetry by writers I’ve never before encountered.

There’s something exciting in finding a new author, be it poet, novelist, biographer or chronicler: a feeling of discovery and experimentation, exploration, success. When I discover a new author I want to share the fun–with friends, with readers, with strangers I come across in book stores.

At the top of my list from this past year are Andrea Gibson, Elizabeth Acevedo and José Olivarez. There are a couple of common themes here, including spoken word and minority voices. I can’t recommend any of these three poets too highly. I’ve written about Olivarez previously and might write about one or both of the others in the future. For the moment, I’ll group them together as powerful voices who transform individual experience into universal truths.

Here’s Gibson, from Birthday, one of the first poems in Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns.

I open my palms and my lifelines look like branches from an Aspen tree,
and there are songbirds perched on the tips of my fingers,

and I wonder if Beethoven held his breath
the first time his fingers touched the keys
the same way a soldier holds his breath
the first time his finger coaxes the trigger.
We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.

And here again, from Titanic, further into the same collection:

I’ve spent too many years
sewing my tears together with thread
and hanging them like Christmas lights,
spent too many nights watching the sunset
on the edge of a knife’s glint

to wanna let myself or anybody else drown anymore,
so call this poem shore
that when the message in the bottle finally arrives
it’s not gonna ask what broke us in half,
it’s gonna ask us why we survived.

Acevedo released her first novel this year, The Poet X, a novel composed entirely of poems and categorized as young people’s literature, but truly it is not just for young people. She tells the story of a teen-age girl discovering her own voice through poetry, and her words—meaning both Acevedo’s and the young poet Xiomara’s—are compelling and potent.

I touch my tongue to the word volition,
like it’s a fruit I’ve never tasted
that’s already gone sour in my mouth.

When Xiomara hears her first spoken word performance, she writes:

We’re different, this poet and I. In looks, in body,
in background. But I don’t feel so different
when I listen to her. I feel heard.

During a fight with her mother:

My anger wants to become a creature
with teeth and nails but I keep it collared
because this is my mother.  And I am sorry.

That she found it,      that I wrote it,      that I ever thought
my thoughts were mine.

The individual poems are beautiful (including a wonderful contrapuntal near the end of the book), and the story they tell is hard to out down.

This is just a sampler of both poets’ work. I recommend both Gibson’s and Acevedo’s books to anyone who likes to read, along with Olivarez’s Citizen Illegal. Another poet I’m recommending to friends is Sarah Kay, whose debut collection No Matter the Wreckage is filled with honesty and emotion and some of the most accessible, beautiful imagery you can imagine. Here’s just one example, from Love Poem #137, which opens the volume:

I will wake you up early
even though I know you like to stay through the credits.

I will leave pennies in your pockets,
postage stamps of superheroes
in between the pages of your books,
sugar packets on your kitchen counter.
I will Hansel and Gretel you home.

Ah, poetry, I love you! The picture above shows some of my favorite poetry that I’ve read this year, including these books and also Patti Smith’s Collected Lyrics, 1970-2015; Kevin Coval’s A People’s History of Chicago; Li-Young Lee’s The Undressing; Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing; and Maya Angelou’s Celebrations.

I’ve also come across some wonderful poetry on Twitter, starting with Relax, by Ellen Bass, which inspired this blog post at the very start of the year.

Looking ahead toward 2019, I’ve just started reading The BreakBeat Poets, a collection of spoked word poetry that is astonishing me. And I’m looking forward to Gibson’s new collection, Lord of the Butterflies, and especially—be still, my heart!—to seeing Gibson perform live on tour.

What are you reading or recommending from your past year?