14 Poetry Collections and Poet Biographies for April’s National Poetry Month

Published on by librarianbrittany

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
when poetry is read
language blossoms anew!

April is National Poetry Month, and we’ve compiled a list of poet biographies and poetry collections for your convenience. This is only a small sampling of our poet biographies and poetry collections though, and includes works from our youth and adult sections. Use this as a starting place, or contact us for more books about poets and poetry and we’ll be happy to provide books for all your interests.

Also, check out poets.org’s list of 30 Ways to Celebrate National Poetry Month on their website.

Poet Biographies

Cover of Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks by Suzanne Slade, illustrated by Cozbi A. Cabrera

Summary from our catalog: Before Gwendolyn Brooks became the first Black person to win the Pulitzer Prize, she was a little girl who dared to dream. Gwendolyn grew up surrounded by fine poetry. From an early age, she memorized the poems her father read to her and soon began to pen her own. Gwendolyn found inspiration all around her: in the colorful clouds overhead; in the people in her neighborhood; in loss, loneliness, and love. This picture book biography shares Gwendolyn’s journey as she creates a beloved body of work and shows readers how her dream became her exquisite future.

Cover of On Wings of Words: The Extraordinary Life of Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Becca Stadtlander

On Wings of Words: The Extraordinary Life of Emily Dickinson by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Becca Stadtlander

Summary from Amazon: Emily Dickinson, who famously wrote “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,” is brought to life in this moving story. In a small New England town lives Emily Dickinson, a girl in love with small things—a flower petal, a bird, a ray of light, a word. In those small things, her brilliant imagination can see the wide world—and in her words, she takes wing. From celebrated children’s author Jennifer Berne comes a lyrical and lovely account of the life of Emily Dickinson: her courage, her faith, and her gift to the world. With Dickinson’s own inimitable poetry woven throughout, this lyrical biography is not just a tale of prodigious talent, but also of the power we have to transform ourselves and to reach one another when we speak from the soul.

Cover of Amanda Gorman: Inspiring Hope with Poetry by Dr. Artika R. Tyner

Amanda Gorman: Inspiring Hope with Poetry by Dr. Artika R. Tyner

Summary from our catalog: Poet Amanda Gorman delivered her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 presidential inauguration, winning wide acclaim. Read about Gorman’s early life, her children’s and poetry books, and what she plans to do next.

Cover of Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko, written by David Jacobson, illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri

Are You an Echo?: The Lost Poetry of Misuzu Kaneko, written by David Jacobson, illustrated by Toshikado Hajiri

Summary from our catalog: In early-1900s Japan, Misuzu Kaneko grew from a precocious bookworm to an instantly-beloved children’s poet, but her life ended prematurely and her work was largely forgotten. Decades later, her poems were rediscovered just in time to touch a new generation devastated by the tsunami of 2011. This volume includes a biography of Kaneko followed by a selection of her poems in both English and the original Japanese.

Cover of I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau by Julie Dunlap, illustrated by Megan Elizabeth Baratta

I Begin with Spring: The Life and Seasons of Henry David Thoreau by Julie Dunlap, illustrated by Megan Elizabeth Baratta

Summary from our catalog: I Begin with Spring weaves natural history around Thoreau’s life and times in a richly illustrated field notebook format that can be opened anywhere and invites browsing on every page. Beginning each season with quotes from Thoreau’s schoolboy essay about the changing seasons, Early Bloomer follows him through the fields and woods of Concord, the joys and challenges of growing up, his experiment with simple living on Walden Pond, and his participation in the abolition movement, self-reliance, science, and literature.

Cover of Shout: A Poetry Memoir by Laurie Halse Anderson

Shout: A Poetry Memoir by Laurie Halse Anderson

Summary from our catalog: Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed since her groundbreaking novel Speak was first published twenty years ago, she has written a poetry memoir that is as vulnerable as it is rallying, as timely as it is timeless. In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she’s never written about before. Searing and soul-searching, this important memoir is a denouncement of our society’s failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts. Shout speaks truth to power in a loud, clear voice– and once you hear it, it is impossible to ignore.

Cover of The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet's Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher

The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher

Summary from Amazon: A paradigm-shattering biography of Phillis Wheatley, whose poetry was at the heart of the American Revolution.

Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. “Can I then but pray / Others may never feel tyrannic sway?” By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings. She demonstrated a complex but crucial fact of the times: that the American Revolution both strengthened and limited Black slavery.

In this new biography, the historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley’s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the revolutionary era. Throughout The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley, he demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, “Thy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak / And (wond’rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.”

Poetry Books

Cover of The Illustrated Robert Frost: 25 Essential Poems edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave

The Illustrated Robert Frost: 25 Essential Poems edited by Ryan G. Van Cleave

Summary from our catalog: In this gorgeously crafted collection of poems, you’ll find twenty-fiver of Robert Frost’s most beloved works, each brought to life in stunning, full-color collage illustrations. With helpful definitions, critical commentary, and thought-provoking questions for each poem, ‘The Illustrated Robert Frost’ is the most accessible–and beautiful–introduction to Frost available!

Cover of I, Too, Am America by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Bryan Collier

I, Too, Am America by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Bryan Collier

Summary from our catalog: Presents the popular poem by one of the central figures in the Harlem Renaissance, highlighting the courage and dignity of the African American Pullman porters in the early twentieth century.

Cover of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers, illustrated by Luke Flowers

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: The Poetry of Mister Rogers, illustrated by Luke Flowers

Summary from our catalog: Lyrics to seventy-five songs from the children’s television programs Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and The Children’s Corner, collected and presented as an illustrated treasury of poems. Lyrics explore topics such as feelings, new siblings, everyday life, and imagination.

Cover of Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon, selected by Fiona Waters

Sing a Song of Seasons: A Nature Poem for Each Day of the Year, illustrated by Frann Preston-Gannon, selected by Fiona Waters

Summary from our catalog: Contains 366 nature poems–one for every day of the year. Filled with familiar favorites and new discoveries by a vast array of poets, including Langston Hughes, Lilian Moore, Emily Dickinson, Jack Prelutsky, William Shakespeare, N.M. Bodecker, Kanoko Okamoto, and many more.

Cover of The essential Rumi / translated by Coleman Barks, with John Moyne, A.A. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson

The Essential Rumi

Summary from our catalog: A comprehensive collection of ecstatic poetry that delights with its energy and passion, The Essential Rumi brings the vibrant, living words of famed thirteenth-century Sufi mystic Jelalludin Rumi to contemporary readers.

Cover of Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, collected with an introduction by Joy Harjo, 23rd U. S. Poet Laureate, foreword by Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress

Living Nations, Living Words: An Anthology of First Peoples Poetry, collected with an introduction by Joy Harjo, 23rd U. S. Poet Laureate, foreword by Carla D. Hayden, Librarian of Congress

Summary from our catalog: A powerful, moving anthology that celebrates the breadth of Native poets writing today. Joy Harjo, the first Native poet to serve as U.S. Poet Laureate, has championed the voices of Native peoples past and present. Her signature laureate project gathers the work of contemporary Native poets into a national, fully digital map of story, sound, and space, celebrating their vital and unequivocal contributions to American poetry. This companion anthology features each poem and poet from the project to offer readers a chance to hold the wealth of poems in their hands. With work from Natalie Diaz, Ray Young Bear, Craig Santos Perez, Sherwin Bitsui, Layli Long Soldier, among others, Living Nations, Living Words showcases, as Joy Harjo writes in her stirring introduction, “poetry [that] emerges from the soul of a community, the heart and lands of the people. In this country, poetry is rooted in the more than 500 living indigenous nations. Living Nations, Living Words is a representative offering.”

Cover of American Poetry: The Twentieth Century

American Poetry: The Twentieth Century

  • Where to find it: Adult non-fiction under “811.5 Am35 v.01” and “811.5 Am35 v.02”
  • View it on our catalog

For more Book Lists, visit this page.

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