These excellent 2015 titles — listed in no particular order — deserve your time and attention!
- No Confession, No Mass by Jennifer Perrine. University of Nebraska Press. 71 pp.
- Flowering Fires/Fuegos Florales by Alicia Partnoy, translated by Gail Wronsky. Settlement House. 59 pp.
- Lines of Defense by Stephen Dunn. W.W. Norton & Co. 95 pp.
- The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield. Alfred A. Knopf. 112 pp.
- The Glory Gets by Honorée Fannone Jeffers. Wesleyan University Press. 54 pp.
- Load Poems Like Guns: Women’s Poetry from Herat, Afghanistan, edited by Farzana Marie, foreword by Dr. Sharif Fayez. American University of Afghanistan. Holy Cow Press. 163 pp.
- Insomnia by Linda Pastan. W.W. Norton & Co. 93 pp.
- Empty Chairs by Liu Xia, translated by Ming Di and Jennifer Stern, introduction by Liao Yiwu, foreword by Herta Muller. Graywolf Press. 118 pp.
- You Come Too: My Journey with Robert Frost by Lesley Lee Francis. University of Virginia Press. 229 pp.
- The Richard Peabody Reader, edited by Lucinda Ebersole. Alan Squire Publishing. Santa Fe Writers Project. 435 pp.
- Emblems of the Passing World: Poems after Photographs by August Sander by Adam Kirsch. Other Press. 115 pp.
- Count the Waves by Sandra Beasley. W.W. Norton & Co. 96 pp.
- Jump Back, Paul: The Life and Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar by Shelley Derby, illustrated by Sean Qualls. Candlewick Press. 120 pp.
- Voyage of the Sable Venus by Robin Coste Lewis. Alfred A. Knopf. 136 pp.
- The Darkening Trapeze by Larry Levis. Graywolf Press. 100 pp.
- Collected Lyrics (1970-2015) by Patti Smith. Ecco. 303 pp.
- Selected Poems by John Updike, introduction by Brad Leithauser. Alfred A. Knopf. 245 pp.
- Later Poems: Selected and New by Adrienne Rich. W.W. Norton & Co. 512 pp.
Grace Cavalieri produces “The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress.” Her new book is a memoir: Life Upon the Wicked Stage (New Academia/Scarith).