A Poetry Book List

Happy December, all! When holiday season hits, I find myself looking for book lists in all my favorite places: New York Times, other blogs, publishers, etc. I love the year-end best-seller lists, the books that got awards, the books that made a difference.

So, today, I’m listing a few of the poetry books I’ve had the pleasure of reading since I started One Minnesota Crone, in no particular order, with links on where you can get them. My list has the distinction of including a nice selection by my fellow crones. Maybe you’ll find your next holiday gift below.

Sarah Dickenson Snyder, Now These Three Remain (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2023). Paperback, $18. Reviewed on One Minnesota Crone HERE.

Available for purchase HERE.

Woman-centered poems that see the savagery of the world right alongside its sacredness. Magic still exists.

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Nicole Farmer, Honest Sonnets: Memories from an Unorthodox Childhood in Verse (Kelsay Books, 2023). Paperback, $20. Reviewed on One Minnesota Crone HERE.

Available for purchase HERE.

Sonnets that build an unusual memoir to match an unusual childhood. Entertaining, heartbreaking, absorbing, theatrical.

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Nicole Farmer, Wet Underbelly Wind (Finishing Line Press, 2022). Paperback, $15.99.

Available for purchase HERE.

Nicole Farmer’s chapbook that preceded Honest Sonnets. These are poems of loss and longing as Farmer grappled with the deaths of both her parents.

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Joanne Durham, On Shifting Shoals (Kelsay Books, 2023). Paperback, $17. Reviewed on One Minnesota Crone HERE.

Available for purchase HERE.

Little shells of poems that hold powerful ideas in distilled language that pulls the reader in and under.

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Joanne Durham, To Drink from a Wider Bowl (Evening Street Press, 2022). Paperback, $15. Reviewed on One Minnesota Crone HERE.

Available for purchase HERE.

This book preceded On Shifting Shoals. These poems span a lifetime and invite the reader to drink in the world.

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Annis Cassells, What the Country Wrought (Purple Door Press, 2023). Paperback, $22.99

Available for purchase HERE.

These poems honor family roots, examine racial and gender injustices, and consider how to do good in a challenging world in a strong, clear voice.

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Deborah Keenan, The Saint of Everything (Lynx House Press, 2023). Paperback, $20.

Available for purchase HERE.

Deborah Keenan is my favorite Minnesota poet and was a beloved teacher when I was in graduate school at Hamline University. She has an uncanny way of taking the things we fear in our hearts and putting them into poems that haunt the reader with beauty.

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Joyce Sutphen, That Other Life (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2023). Paperback, $20.

Available for purchase HERE.

Joyce Sutphen is a beloved Minnesota poet whose work here is full of kindness and hope, with lots of modern sonnets.

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Bonnie Proudfoot, Household Gods (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2022). Paperback, $14. Reviewed on One Minnesota Crone HERE.

Available for purchase HERE.

These poems examine how we’re shaped by place and family – in this case, Queens in the 1960s – and how that enriches the wisdom we carry as adults.

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Alexis Rhone Fancher, Brazen (NYQ Books, 2023). Paperback, $18.95.

Available for purchase HERE.

Bold poems that embrace a woman’s power and celebrate sexuality.

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Carolyn Martin, It’s in the Cards (Kelsay Books, 2023). Paperback, $17.

Available for purchase HERE.

If you ever wanted to play poker with Jesus, Buddha, and Muhammad, here’s your chance. Also, there are feral cats.

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Mark Nepo, The Half-Life of Angels (Freefall Books, 2023). Hardcover, $24.95

Available for purchase HERE.

Mark Nepo is the only non-crone on my list; I love this book. Buddhist/Zen-infused poems, thoughtful, calm, and wise.

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Constance Brewer and Kathleen Cassen Mickelson, Prayer Gardening (Kelsay Books, 2023). Paperback, $20.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn’t include a link to my own collaboration with Wyoming poet Constance Brewer. You can pick up a copy of Prayer Gardening HERE.

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If any women poets over 50 would like to contact me about reviewing a recently-published poetry collection here at One Minnesota Crone, contact me HERE. I’d love to converse with more older women poets in 2024.