The Best Poetry Books of 2017 (A Year-End List Aggregation)
“What are the best Poetry books of 2017?” We aggregated 19 year-end lists and ranked the 223 unique titles by how many times they appeared in an attempt to answer that very question!
There are thousands of year-end lists released every year and like we do in our weekly Best Book articles, we wanted to see which books appear the most. The top 28 books, all of which appeared on 2 or more best Poetry lists, are ranked below with images, summaries, and links for more information or to purchase. The remaining 175+ books, as well as the top book lists, are at the bottom of the page.
Make sure to take a look at our other Best of 2017 book lists:
- The Best Fiction Books of 2017
- The Best Nonfiction Books of 2017
- The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Books of 2017
- The Best Science & Nature Books of 2017
- The Best Cookbooks of 2017
- The Best Graphic Novels & Comics Books of 2017
- The Best Art & Photography & Coffee Table Books of 2017
- The Best Books All Categories of 2017
- The Best Biography & Memoir Books of 2017
- The Best History Books of 2017
- The Best Children’s Books of 2017
- The Best Audiobooks of 2017
You can also take a look at our Best Poetry books from last year as well as all the other Best 2016 articles!
Happy Scrolling!
Top 28 Poetry Books Of 2017
28 .) Debths by Susan Howe
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- New Yorker
A collection in five parts, Susan Howe’s electrifying new book opens with a preface by the poet that lays out some of Debths’ inspirations: the art of Paul Thek, the Isabella Stewart Gardner collection, and early American writings; and in it she also addresses memory’s threads and galaxies, “the rule of remoteness,” and “the luminous story surrounding all things noumenal.”
27 .) Field Theories by Samiya Bashir
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Vol1 Brooklyn
Field Theories wends its way through quantum mechanics, chicken wings and Newports, love and a shoulder’s chill, melding blackbody theory (idealized perfect absorption, as opposed to the whitebody’s idealized reflection) with real live Black bodies. Albert Murray said, “the second law of thermodynamics ain’t nothing but the blues.” So what is the blue of how we treat each other, ourselves, of what this world does to us, of what we do to this shared world? Woven through experimental lyrics is a heroic crown of sonnets that wonders about love and intent, identity and hybridity, and how we embody these interstices and for what reasons and to what ends.
26 .) Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- The Washington Post
Maggie Smith writes out of the experience of motherhood, inspired by watching her own children read the world like a book they’ve just opened, knowing nothing of the characters or plot. These poems stare down darkness while cultivating and sustaining possibility and addressing a larger world.
25 .) Hard Child by Natalie Shapero
Lists It Appears On:
- Chicago Tribune
- Entropy
Thought-provoking and sardonically expressive, Shapero is a self-proclaimed “hard child”—unafraid of directly addressing bleakness as she continually asks what it means to be human and to bring new life into the world. Hard Child is musical and argumentative, deadly serious yet tinged with self-parody, evoking the spirit of Plath while remaining entirely its own.
24 .) Her Body And Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado
Lists It Appears On:
- Luna Luna Magazine
- NPR Books
“In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
A wife refuses her husband’s entreaties to remove the green ribbon from around her neck. A woman recounts her sexual encounters as a plague slowly consumes humanity. A salesclerk in a mall makes a horrifying discovery within the seams of the store’s prom dresses. One woman’s surgery-induced weight loss results in an unwanted houseguest. And in the bravura novella “Especially Heinous,” Machado reimagines every episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, a show we naïvely assumed had shown it all, generating a phantasmagoric police procedural full of doppelgängers, ghosts, and girls with bells for eyes.
“
23 .) House of Lords and Commons by Ishion Hutchinson
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- The Guardian
“In House of Lords and Commons, the revelatory and vital new collection of poems from the winner of the 2013 Whiting Writers’ Award in poetry, Ishion Hutchinson returns to the difficult beauty of the Jamaican landscape with remarkable lyric precision. Here, the poet holds his world in full focus but at an astonishing angle: from the violence of the seventeenth-century English Civil War as refracted through a mythic sea wanderer, right down to the dark interior of love.
These poems arrange the contemporary continuum of home and abroad into a wonderment of cracked narrative sequences and tumultuous personae. With ears tuned to the vernacular, the collection vividly binds us to what is terrifying about happiness, loss, and the lure of the sea. House of Lords and Commons testifies to the particular courage it takes to wade unsettled, uncertain, and unfettered in the wake of our shared human experience.”
22 .) In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
Acclaimed poet Shane McCrae’s latest collection is a book about freedom told through stories of captivity. Historical persona poems and a prose memoir at the center of the book address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. In the book’s three sequences, McCrae explores the role mass entertainment plays in oppression, he confronts the myth that freedom can be based upon the power to dominate others, and, in poems about the mixed-race child adopted by Jefferson Davis in the last year of the Civil War, he interrogates the infrequently examined connections between racism and love.
21 .) In the Still of the Night by Dara Wier
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Publishers Weekly
Dara Wier is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including You Good Thing, Selected Poems, Remnants of Hannah, Reverse Rapture, Hat On a Pond, and Voyages in English. Also among her works are the limited editions (X In Fix) in Rain Taxi’s Brainstorm Series, Fly on the Wall, and The Lost Epic, co-written with James Tate. She teaches workshops and form and theory seminars and directs the MFA program for poets and writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-directs the University of Massachusetts’ Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action.
20 .) Lessons on Expulsion by Erika L. Sánchez
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Vol1 Brooklyn
An award-winning and hard-hitting new voice in contemporary American poetry.The first time I ever came the light was weak and carnivorous.Covered my eyes and the night cleared its dumb throat. Heard my mother wringing her hands the next morning. Of course I put my underwear on backwards, of course the elastic didn’t work.What I wanted most at that moment was a sandwich.But I just nursed on this leather whip.I just splattered my sheets with my sadness.From “Poem of My Humiliations”.“What is life but a cross / over rotten water?” Poet, novelist, and essayist Erika L. Sánchez’s powerful debut poetry collection explores what it means to live on both sides of the border―the border between countries, languages, despair and possibility, and the living and the dead. Sánchez tells her own story as the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants and as part of a family steeped in faith, work, grief, and expectations. The poems confront sex, shame, race, and an America roiling with xenophobia, violence, and laws of suspicion and suppression. With candor and urgency, and with the unblinking eyes of a journalist, Sánchez roves from the individual life into the lives of sex workers, narco-traffickers, factory laborers, artists, and lovers. What emerges is a powerful, multifaceted portrait of survival. Lessons on Expulsion is the first book by a vibrant, essential new writer now breaking into the national literary landscape.
19 .) Madness by Sam Sax
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Vol1 Brooklyn
In this powerful debut collection, sam sax explores and explodes the linkages between desire, addiction, and the history of mental health. These brave, formally dexterous poems examine antiquated diagnoses and procedures from hysteria to lobotomy; offer meditations on risky sex; and take up the poet’s personal and family histories as mental health patients and practitioners. Ultimately, Madness attempts to build a queer lineage out of inherited language and cultural artifacts; these poems trouble the static categories of sanity, heterosexuality, masculinity, normality, and health. sax’s innovative collection embodies the strange and disjunctive workings of the mind as it grapples to make sense of the world around it.
18 .) My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
Textured with the sights and sounds of growing up in East New York in the nineties, to school on the South Side of Chicago, all the way to the olive groves of Palestine, these stunning poems tackle racism, sexism, genocide, displacement, heartbreak, and grief, but also love, motherhood, spirituality, and Black joy.
17 .) The Happy End / All Welcome by Monica de la Torre
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Publishers Weekly
THE HAPPY END / ALL WELCOME is set in a job fair inspired by the Nature Theater of Oklahoma from Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika: the largest theater company in the world is recruiting all kinds of employees. De la Torre builds, fastens, cuts, pastes, performs, and extrudes a variety of poems to suit this most serious situation comedy: poems as job interviews, poems as postings, poems as questionnaires, reports, speeches, lyrical rants… At its heart, this playful bricolage explores the norms of the workplace and its notions of competence, while tackling office design, performativity, and skilled vs. deskilled creative labor.
16 .) The Sun and Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Goodreads
“From Rupi Kaur, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of milk and honey, comes her long-awaited second collection of poetry. A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honoring one’s roots. Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.
Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.”
15 .) The Yellow House by Chiwan Choi
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Vol1 Brooklyn
14 .) They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Willis
Lists It Appears On:
- Luna Luna Magazine
- NPR Books
“In an age of confusion, fear, and loss, Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib’s is a voice that matters. Whether he’s attending a Bruce Springsteen concert the day after visiting Michael Brown’s grave, or discussing public displays of affection at a Carly Rae Jepsen show, he writes with a poignancy and magnetism that resonates profoundly.
In the wake of the nightclub attacks in Paris, he recalls how he sought refuge as a teenager in music, at shows, and wonders whether the next generation of young Muslims will not be afforded that opportunity now. While discussing the everyday threat to the lives of black Americans, Willis-Abdurraqib recounts the first time he was ordered to the ground by police officers: for attempting to enter his own car.”
13 .) Thousand Star Hotel by Bao Phi
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- NPR Books
Thousand Star Hotel confronts the silence around racism, police brutality, and the invisibility of the Asian American urban poor.
12 .) Together and By Ourselves by Alex Dimitrov
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
Together and by Ourselves, Alex Dimitrov’s second book of poems, takes on broad existential questions and the reality of our current moment: being seemingly connected to one another, yet emotionally alone. Through a collage aesthetic and a multiplicity of voices, these poems take us from coast to coast, New York to LA, and toward uneasy questions about intimacy, love, death, and the human spirit. Dimitrov critiques America’s long-lasting obsessions with money, celebrity, and escapism—whether in our personal, professional, or family lives. What defines a life? Is love ever enough? Who are we when together and who are we by ourselves? These questions echo throughout the poems, which resist easy answers. The voice is both heartfelt and skeptical, bruised yet playful, and always deeply introspective.
11 .) Transnational Battlefield by Heriberto Yepez
Lists It Appears On:
- Chicago Tribune
- The Rumpus
Famous for picking fights with a range of writers, both living and dead, Tijuana author Heriberto Yépez is in full provocateur-mode in this collection of work written in English over the last fifteen years. An explosive, genre-bending Molotov cocktail of poetic critique.
10 .) Unaccompanied by Javier Zamora
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
Javier Zamora was nine years old when he traveled unaccompanied 4,000 miles, across multiple borders, from El Salvador to the United States to be reunited with his parents. This dramatic and hope-filled poetry debut humanizes the highly charged and polarizing rhetoric of border-crossing; assesses borderland politics, race, and immigration on a profoundly personal level; and simultaneously remembers and imagines a birth country that’s been left behind.
9 .) Ordinary Beast: Poems by Nicole Sealey
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Luna Luna Magazine
- NPR Books
“The existential magnitude, deep intellect, and playful subversion of St. Thomas-born, Florida-raised poet Nicole Sealey’s work is restless in its empathic, succinct examination and lucid awareness of what it means to be human.
The ranging scope of inquiry undertaken in Ordinary Beast—at times philosophical, emotional, and experiential—is evident in each thrilling twist of image by the poet. In brilliant, often ironic lines that move from meditation to matter of fact in a single beat, Sealey’s voice is always awake to the natural world, to the pain and punishment of existence, to the origins and demises of humanity. Exploring notions of race, sexuality, gender, myth, history, and embodiment with profound understanding, Sealey’s is a poetry that refuses to turn a blind eye or deny. It is a poetry of daunting knowledge. “
8 .) There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé by Morgan Parker
Lists It Appears On:
- Entropy
- Goodreads
- Vol1 Brooklyn
The only thing more beautiful than Beyoncé is God, and God is a black woman sipping rosé and drawing a lavender bath, texting her mom, belly-laughing in the therapist’s office, feeling unloved, being on display, daring to survive. Morgan Parker stands at the intersections of vulnerability and performance, of desire and disgust, of tragedy and excellence. Unrelentingly feminist, tender, ruthless, and sequined, these poems are an altar to the complexities of black American womanhood in an age of non-indictments and deja vu, and a time of wars over bodies and power. These poems celebrate and mourn. They are a chorus chanting: You’re gonna give us the love we need.
7 .) When I Grow Up I Want to be a List of Future Possibilities by Chen Chen
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
- Library Journal
In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family–the strained relationship between a mother and son, the cost of necessary goodbyes–all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Holding all accountable, this collection fully embraces the loss, grief, and abundant joy that come with charting one’s own path in identity, life, and love.
6 .) Electric Arches by Eve L. Ewing
Lists It Appears On:
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Goodreads
- Luna Luna Magazine
- NPR Books
“Blending stark realism with the surreal and fantastic, Eve L. Ewing’s narrative takes us from the streets of 1990s Chicago to an unspecified future, deftly navigating the boundaries of space, time, and reality. Ewing imagines familiar figures in magical circumstances―blues legend Koko Taylor is a tall-tale hero; LeBron James travels through time and encounters his teenage self. She identifies everyday objects―hair moisturizer, a spiral notebook―as precious icons.
Her visual art is spare, playful, and poignant―a cereal box decoder ring that allows the wearer to understand what Black girls are saying; a teacher’s angry, subversive message scrawled on the chalkboard. Electric Arches invites fresh conversations about race, gender, the city, identity, and the joy and pain of growing up.”
5 .) Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2016 by Frank Bidart
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Entropy
- New Yorker
- The Washington Post
Gathered together, the poems of Frank Bidart perform one of the most remarkable transmutations of the body into language in contemporary literature. His pages represent the human voice in all its extreme registers, whether it’s that of the child-murderer Herbert White, the obsessive anorexic Ellen West, the tormented genius Vaslav Nijinsky, or the poet’s own. And in that embodiment is a transgressive empathy, one that recognizes our wild appetites, the monsters, the misfits, the misunderstood among us and inside us. Few writers have so willingly ventured to the dark places of the human psyche and allowed themselves to be stripped bare on the page with such candor and vulnerability. Over the past half century, Bidart has done nothing less than invent a poetics commensurate with the chaos and appetites of our experience.
4 .) Nature Poem by Tommy Pico
Lists It Appears On:
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Entropy
- Large Hearted Boy
- Vol1 Brooklyn
Nature Poem follows Teebs―a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet―who can’t bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He’d slap a tree across the face. He’d rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he’d rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole. While he’s adamant―bratty, even―about his distaste for the word “natural,” over the course of the book we see him confronting the assimilationist, historical, colonial-white ideas that collude NDN people with nature. The closer his people were identified with the “natural world,” he figures, the easier it was to mow them down like the underbrush. But Teebs gradually learns how to interpret constellations through his own lens, along with human nature, sexuality, language, music, and Twitter. Even while he reckons with manifest destiny and genocide and centuries of disenfranchisement, he learns how to have faith in his own voice.
3 .) Whereas by Layli Long Soldier
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Bustle
- Entropy
- Library Journal
- NPR Books
- The Washington Post
WHEREAS confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes, and reflects that language in its officiousness and duplicity back on its perpetrators. Through a virtuosic array of short lyrics, prose poems, longer narrative sequences, resolutions, and disclaimers, Layli Long Soldier has created a brilliantly innovative text to examine histories, landscapes, her own writing, and her predicament inside national affiliations. “I am,” she writes, “a citizen of the United States and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, meaning I am a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation―and in this dual citizenship I must work, I must eat, I must art, I must mother, I must friend, I must listen, I must observe, constantly I must live.” This strident, plaintive book introduces a major new voice in contemporary literature.
2 .) Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Entropy
- Large Hearted Boy
- Library Journal
- Luna Luna Magazine
- NPR Books
- Vol1 Brooklyn
This highly-anticipated debut boldly confronts addiction and courses the strenuous path of recovery, beginning in the wilds of the mind. Poems confront craving, control, the constant battle of alcoholism and sobriety, and the questioning of the self and its instincts within the context of this never-ending fight.
1 .) Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith
Lists It Appears On:
- Amber Sparks
- Book Riot
- Bustle
- Chicago Review Of Books
- Entropy
- Library Journal
- Publishers Weekly
- The Washington Post
- Vol1 Brooklyn
Award-winning poet Danez Smith is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects, and performative power. Don’t Call Us Dead opens with a heartrending sequence that imagines an afterlife for black men shot by police, a place where suspicion, violence, and grief are forgotten and replaced with the safety, love, and longevity they deserved here on earth. Smith turns then to desire, mortality―the dangers experienced in skin and body and blood―and a diagnosis of HIV positive.
The 175+ Additional Best Poetry Books Of 2017
| # | Books | Authors | Lists |
| (Titles Appear On 1 List Each) | |||
| 29 | 300 Arguments: Essays | Sarah Manguso | NPR Books |
| 30 | A Bargain with the Light, Poems after Lee Miller | Jacqueline Saphra | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 31 | A Collection of Sky Stories | Gail MacKay | CBC Books |
| 32 | A Dialectical Discussion with Self Upon Meeting Her Husband’s Mistress a Week After a Failed IVF Attempt | Una McDonnell | CBC Books |
| 33 | A Long Curving Scar Where the Heart Should Be | Quintan Ana Wikswo | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 34 | A People’s History of Chicago | Kevin Coval | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 35 | A Social History of Tone Deafness | Rob Winger | CBC Books |
| 36 | A Turkish Dictionary | Andrew Wessels | Entropy |
| 37 | Adam Cannot Be Adam | Kelli Anne Noftle | Entropy |
| 38 | Adrenalin | Ghayath Almadhoun | Entropy |
| 39 | Advice from the Lights | Stephanie Burt | Large Hearted Boy |
| 40 | Afterland | Mai Der Vang | Entropy |
| 41 | Afterland: Poems’ | Mai Der Vang | Bustle |
| 42 | All My Heroes Are Broke | Ariel Francisco | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 43 | An Aviary of Small Birds | The Guardian | |
| 44 | Anemal Uter Meck | Mg Roberts | Entropy |
| 45 | Angel Hill | The Guardian | |
| 46 | Autopsy: Poems | Donte Collins | NPR Books |
| 47 | Bad Dreams And Other Stories | Tessa Hadley | NPR Books |
| 48 | Beast Meridian | Vanessa Angélica Villarreal | Entropy |
| 49 | Before Isadore | Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 50 | biography | New Yorker | |
| 51 | Blackout | Chicago Tribune | |
| 52 | Blud | Rachel McKibbens | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 53 | Bone | Yrsa Daley-Ward | Bustle |
| 54 | Boundless | Jillian Tamaki | NPR Books |
| 55 | Carry | Sarah Kabamba | CBC Books |
| 56 | Certain Magical Acts | Alice Notley | Amber Sparks |
| 57 | Choose Your Own Poem | Laura Farina | CBC Books |
| 58 | Collected Poems 1991-2000 | Chicago Tribune | |
| 59 | Complete Poems of A. R. Ammons | Chicago Tribune | |
| 60 | Crawlspace | Chicago Tribune | |
| 61 | Daylight Hangs On | Claudia Coutu Radmore | CBC Books |
| 62 | Deep Well | Dan Bellm | The Rumpus |
| 63 | Depression & Other Magic Tricks | Sabrina Benaim | Goodreads |
| 64 | Desgraciado | Ángel Domínguez | Entropy |
| 65 | Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver | Mary Oliver | The Washington Post |
| 66 | Difficult Women | Roxane Gay | NPR Books |
| 67 | Dust Bunny City | Bud Smith & Rae Buleri | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 68 | Earth on The Ocean’s Back | Daniel Cowper | CBC Books |
| 69 | Earthling’ | James Longenbach | Bustle |
| 70 | fast | Jorie Graham | Entropy |
| 71 | Fen: Stories | Daisy Johnson | NPR Books |
| 72 | Field Glass | Joanna Howard & Joanna Ruocco | Entropy |
| 73 | First Days in Residential School | Richard Behn | CBC Books |
| 74 | fitting a witch//hexing the stitch | Jacklyn Janeksela | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 75 | Five-Carat Soul | James McBride | NPR Books |
| 76 | Flowers & Sky | Aaron Shurin | The Rumpus |
| 77 | Fresh Complaint: Stories | Jeffrey Eugenides | NPR Books |
| 78 | from THE BOOK OF SMALLER | rob mclennan | CBC Books |
| 79 | Full Circle | Catherine Lafferty | CBC Books |
| 80 | Genevieves | Henry Hoke | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 81 | Glossa for Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” | Sonja Arntzen | CBC Books |
| 82 | Gnome | Robert Lunday | Entropy |
| 83 | Godot | Siobhan Jamison | CBC Books |
| 84 | Good Stock Strange Blood | Dawn Lundy Martin | Entropy |
| 85 | Gray Market | Krystal Languell | Entropy |
| 86 | H | Alix Longland | CBC Books |
| 87 | Hacker | Aase Berg | Amber Sparks |
| 88 | Here High Note, High Note | Catherine Blauvelt | Entropy |
| 89 | Hermit God Spot | Tammy Armstrong | CBC Books |
| 90 | holiness of the heart’s affections | New Yorker | |
| 91 | Hollywood Forever | Harmony Holiday | Entropy |
| 92 | Home and Native Land | Heather Nolan | CBC Books |
| 93 | How Lovely the Ruins: Inspirational Poems and Words for Difficult Times’ edited | Annie Chagnot and Emi Ikkanda | Bustle |
| 94 | I Am Flying Into Myself: Selected Poems 1960-2014 | Bill Knott | Bustle |
| 95 | I Love It Though | Alli Warren | Entropy |
| 96 | I Remember Nightfall | Marosa di Giorgio | Entropy |
| 97 | I Wore My Blackest Hair’ | Carlina Duan | Bustle |
| 98 | I’m Just No Good At Rhyming: And Other Nonsense For Mischievous Kids And Immature Grown-Ups | Chris Harris, illustrated | NPR Books |
| 99 | I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On | Khadijah Queen | Entropy |
| 100 | In Full Velvet | Jenny Johnson | Entropy |
| 101 | Inherit | Ginger Ko | Entropy |
| 102 | Inside the Wave | The Guardian | |
| 103 | Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing | Charif Shanahan | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 104 | Iraq 100: The First Anthology Of Science Fiction To Have Emerged From Iraq | Hassan Blasim (editor) | NPR Books |
| 105 | Jackknife: New and Selected Poems | Jan Beatty | Vol1 Brooklyn |
| 106 | James Wright: A Life in Poetry | Chicago Tribune | |
| 107 | just | New Yorker | |
| 108 | Kingdom of Gravity | The Guardian | |
| 109 | Kingston Buttercup | Ann-Margaret Lim | Large Hearted Boy |
| 110 | Landscape with Sex and Violence | Lynn Melnick | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 111 | Lie Down Within the Night | Lauren Carter | CBC Books |
| 112 | Light Into Bodies | Nancy Chen Long | Entropy |
| 113 | Literary Witches: A Celebration Of Magical Women Writers | Taisia Kitaiskaia, illustrated | NPR Books |
| 114 | Literature Class, Berkeley 1980 | Julio Cortázar , translated | NPR Books |
| 115 | Long Way Down | Jason Reynolds | Goodreads |
| 116 | Lost City Hydrothermal Field | Peter Milne Greiner | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 117 | Love Her Wild: Poems | Atticus Poetry | Goodreads |
| 118 | love, robot | Margaret Rhee | Entropy |
| 119 | Lunar Landing, 1966 | Laboni Islam | CBC Books |
| 120 | Magdalene: Poems’ | Marie Howe | Bustle |
| 121 | Make Yourself Happy | Eleni Sikelianos | Large Hearted Boy |
| 122 | Mancunia | The Guardian | |
| 123 | Map To The Stars | Adrian Matejka | Entropy |
| 124 | Maps | John Freeman | The Rumpus |
| 125 | Mary Wants to Be a Superwoman | Erica Lewis | Vol1 Brooklyn |
| 126 | Men Without Women: Stories | Haruki Murakami, translated | NPR Books |
| 127 | Moon for Sale | The Guardian | |
| 128 | Mother, What Should We Do? | Claire Kelly | CBC Books |
| 129 | Mothers | Michael Johnson | CBC Books |
| 130 | MyOTHER TONGUE | Rosa Alcalá | Entropy |
| 131 | Net Losses | Mark Milner | CBC Books |
| 132 | New American Best Friend | Olivia Gatwood | Goodreads |
| 133 | Oh You’re Native | Karis Jones-Pard | CBC Books |
| 134 | Open Epic | Julia Drescher | Entropy |
| 135 | Ornament | Anna Lena Phillips Bell | Large Hearted Boy |
| 136 | Out Of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets | Kwame Alexander, Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth, illustrated | NPR Books |
| 137 | Outplace | Lital Khaikin | Entropy |
| 138 | Palm Frond With Its Throat Cut | Vickie Vértiz | Entropy |
| 139 | Perception | Christina Pugh | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 140 | Photograph by Hieu Minh Nguyen | New Yorker | |
| 141 | Phrasis | Wendy Xu | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 142 | Pizza and Warfare | Nikki Wallschlaeger | Entropy |
| 143 | Plum | Hollie McNish | Goodreads |
| 144 | Postcards for my Sister | Alessandra Naccarato | CBC Books |
| 145 | Prosopopoeia | Farid Tali | Entropy |
| 146 | Raising Canada | Swati Rana | CBC Books |
| 147 | recombinant | Ching-in Chen | Entropy |
| 148 | Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now Edited | Amit Majmudar | Entropy |
| 149 | Reversible | Marisa Crawford | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 150 | Rita Dove: Collected Poems 1974-2004 | Rita Dove | The Rumpus |
| 151 | Saying the Names Shanty | Harold Rhenisch | CBC Books |
| 152 | Scar On / Scar Off | Jennifer Maritza McCauley | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 153 | Seasonal Disturbances | The Guardian | |
| 154 | Shelter Object | Stephanie Bolster | CBC Books |
| 155 | Shrinking Ultraviolet | Rebecca Bird | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 156 | Sighting | Nolan Natasha Pike | CBC Books |
| 157 | Signals: New And Selected Stories | Tim Gautreaux | NPR Books |
| 158 | Sisters | Ayelet Tsabari | CBC Books |
| 159 | Slicing Lemons in April | Michelle Porter | CBC Books |
| 160 | Solo | Kwame Alexander | Goodreads |
| 161 | Some Beheadings | Aditi Machado | Entropy |
| 162 | Some Say | Library Journal | |
| 163 | Sort of a Cento: The Labyrinths | Mark Wagenaar | CBC Books |
| 164 | Sour Heart | Jenny Zhang | NPR Books |
| 165 | South And West: From A Notebook | Joan Didion | NPR Books |
| 166 | Starshine & Clay | Kamilah Aisha Moon | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 167 | Stone | Emily Carrington | CBC Books |
| 168 | Sunshine State: Essays | Sarah Gerard | NPR Books |
| 169 | Swimmer Among the Stars | Kanishk Tharoor | NPR Books |
| 170 | Symphony for Human Transport | The Guardian | |
| 171 | Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay In 40 Questions | Valeria Luiselli | NPR Books |
| 172 | Tender: Stories | Sofia Samatar | NPR Books |
| 173 | Testify | Simone John | Bustle |
| 174 | The Amputee’s Guide to Sex | Jillian Weise | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 175 | The Book of Disquiet | Chicago Tribune | |
| 176 | The Book of Endings | Leslie Harrison | Entropy |
| 177 | The Complete Poems of A.R. Ammons | Edited by Robert M. West | Publishers Weekly |
| 178 | The Complete Stories Of Leonora Carrington | Leonora Carrington | NPR Books |
| 179 | The Dark Dark: Stories | Samantha Hunt | NPR Books |
| 180 | The Dinner Party: And Other Stories | Joshua Ferris | NPR Books |
| 181 | The Essential Merwin | W.S. Merwin | The Rumpus |
| 182 | The Flayed City | Hari Alluri | Entropy |
| 183 | The God Baby | Hilda Sheehan | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 184 | The Happy Bus | Louisa Campbell | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 185 | The King Is Always Above The People: Stories | Daniel Alarcón | NPR Books |
| 186 | the magic my body becomes | Jess Rizkallah | Entropy |
| 187 | The Messenger Is Already Dead | Jennifer MacBain-Stephens | Vol1 Brooklyn |
| 188 | The Most Foreign Country | Alejandra Pizarnik | Entropy |
| 189 | The Mother Of All Questions | Rebecca Solnit | NPR Books |
| 190 | The Mountain: Stories | Paul Yoon | NPR Books |
| 191 | The Muddle in the Middle | Elisabeth Harvor | CBC Books |
| 192 | The Nagasaki Elder | Antony Owen | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 193 | The Nightlife | Elise Paschen | Chicago Review Of Books |
| 194 | The Poems of Dylan Thomas | Dylan Thomas | The Rumpus |
| 195 | The Portable Nineteenth-Century African American Women Writers | Hollis Robbins and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (editors) | NPR Books |
| 196 | The Radio | The Guardian | |
| 197 | The Refugees | Viet Thanh Nguyen | NPR Books |
| 198 | The Sea Migrations: Tahriib | The Guardian | |
| 199 | The sky is cracked | Sarah L Dixon | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 200 | The Songs We Know Best | New Yorker | |
| 201 | The Tantramar Re-Vision | Kevin Irie | CBC Books |
| 202 | The Truth is Told Better This Way | Liz Worth | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 203 | The Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded | Molly McCully Brown | Entropy |
| 204 | Theia Mania | Dallas Athent | Luna Luna Magazine |
| 205 | This Is Just to Say | New Yorker | |
| 206 | Thousands’ | Lightsey Darst | Bustle |
| 207 | Thrust | Heather Derr-Smith | Entropy |
| 208 | Ticker-tape | Rishi Dastidar | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
| 209 | To Love the Coming End | Leanne Dunic | Entropy |
| 210 | Too Much And Not The Mood: Essays | Durga Chew-Bose | NPR Books |
| 211 | Total Mood Killer | merritt k/Nina Pollari | Vol1 Brooklyn |
| 212 | Tourists Stroll A Victoria Waterway | Cornelia Hoogland | CBC Books |
| 213 | Uncommon Type: Some Stories | Tom Hanks | NPR Books |
| 214 | Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams | New Yorker | |
| 215 | Vladimir Mayakovsky’ & Other Poems | Chicago Tribune | |
| 216 | Wait Till You See Me Dance: Stories | Deb Olin Unferth | NPR Books |
| 217 | We Come Apart | Sarah Crossan | Goodreads |
| 218 | We’re On: A June Jordan Reader | Edited by Christoph Keller and Jan Heller Levi | Publishers Weekly |
| 219 | What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky: Stories | Lesley Nneka Arimah | NPR Books |
| 220 | What’s Hanging on the Hush | Lauren Russell | Entropy |
| 221 | Whatever Happened To Interracial Love?: Stories | Kathleen Collins | NPR Books |
| 222 | Witch Wife | Kiki Petrosino | Vol1 Brooklyn |
| 223 | You’ve never seen a doomsday like it | Kate Garrett | Stephen Kirk Daniels |
19 Best Poetry Book Sources/Lists Of 2017
| Source | Article |
| CBC Books | 33 writers make the CBC Poetry Prize longlist |
| Goodreads | Best Poetry |
| Publishers Weekly | Poetry |
| The Washington Post | The best poetry collections of 2017 |
| Stephen Kirk Daniels | My 8 favourite small press poetry books of 2017 – Happy Small Press Week #SPWEEK17 |
| Library Journal | Poetry |
| Entropy | BEST OF 2017: BEST POETRY BOOKS & POETRY COLLECTIONS |
| Amber Sparks | Best (Subjective) Books of 2017 |
| The Guardian | Carol Rumens’s best poetry books of 2017 |
| Luna Luna Magazine | THE 20 BEST BOOKS OF 2017 |
| NPR Books | NPR’s Book Concierge Our Guide To 2017’s Great Reads |
| Chicago Review Of Books | The Best Poetry Books of 2017 |
| The Rumpus | BARBARA BERMAN’S 2017 HOLIDAY POETRY SHOUT-OUT |
| Bustle | The 18 Best Poetry Collections Of 2017 |
| Book Riot | THEFOLLOWINGAREBOOKRIOT’SBESTBOOKSOF2017. |
| Large Hearted Boy | Favorite Poetry Collections of 2017 |
| Chicago Tribune | Notable poetry of 2017 |
| New Yorker | The Poetry I Was Grateful for in 2017 |
| Vol1 Brooklyn | Vol.1 Brooklyn’s 2017 Favorites: Poetry |
