Bookseller Jules and the Case for Poetry Month

If you were as moved by Ocean Vuong’s novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous as we were, then now is the moment to absorb his poetry in Time Is a Mother. And then we urge you to go back to his debut poetry book, Night Sky with Exit Wounds. Vuong’s lyrical writing runs through all his books — whether poetry or prose. You will always do right to keep his work at the ready.

There is no one who knows the power of the written and spoken word better than Rupi Kaur. In Home Body, Kaur’s poems are compact. Each one, however, is full of the exact right words. Words that help. Words that heal. Kaur’s accompanying illustrations add to the sensitivity of the material. Line drawings as delicate as the poems. Combined with the poems, they create a strength. By going so deep into life’s experience, Kaur shows us how to resurface the strength we always knew we had. This book is one of the bravest works of poetry you will ever encounter.

The title of Yung Pueblo’s latest book says it all. His poems are here for each one of us. And if we take the time to let his words settle in, we realize they are here for ALL of us.

The beautiful world of Mary Oliver in our hands! Although no longer alive, Mary Oliver’s words are exactly that — life. In reading these selections, we can hear her voice telling us, showing us and, at times, goading us to embrace the world around us. We are moved by her eye on the natural world and how it affects our heart. What a gorgeous way to explore her poetry.

It’s not always fair to judge a book by its cover. However, this sweet and beautiful cover does exactly represent the contents within. Chapters are named after moons (Enceladus, Deimos, Amalthea) and flowers (Lantana). The words inside glow like worlds from faraway places (the moons are of Saturn, Mars and Jupiter) and they wrap around your heart. Who wouldn’t want a perennial flowering plant doing just that to us?

In his third book of poetry in the What She Felt series, r.h. Sin writes poetry to heal the heart and mind the soul. r.h. Sin’s poems come from a place of empathy. His words give courage to move forward. Like a best friend who is there for you at 2AM, r.h. Sin’s book is the hand picking up the phone in the middle of the night.

It’s hard to believe that only eleven of Emily Dickinson’s poems were published in her lifetime. A shining star way ahead of her contemporaries. We know she would have gone viral if she had access to Twitter. Short, first-person point of view poems that were ripe for understanding the human condition. We are jealous of anyone getting to read Dickinson for the first time.

If the modern world makes you feel a bit gruff, then dive into Charles Bukowski’s Love is a Dog From Hell. Death, grief, loss and all the things that cause us to rear up and fight back are all here in this classic from the 1970s. If you are at all moved by our current confessional poets, then Bukowski is your go-to for some OG musings.