Poetry
Shout : a poetry memoir
Laurie Halse Anderson
811.6 /Anderson
Young Adult, Memoir, Poetry
When she was thirteen years old, Anderson was a shy, bookish girl who was raped by a boy she trusted. She has since become known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Inspired by her fans and enraged by how little in our culture has changed in the years since, she has written a poetry memoir that shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she's never written about before. -- adapted from jacket
Indecency
Justin Phillip Reed
811.6 /Reed
Nonfiction, Poetry
"Indecency is boldly and carefully executed and perfectly ragged. In these poems, Justin Phillip Reed experiments with language to explore inequity and injustice and to critique and lament the culture of white supremacy and the dominant social order. Political and personal, tender, daring, and insightful―the author unpacks his intimacies, weaponizing poetry to take on masculinity, sexuality, exploitation, and the prison industrial complex and unmask all the failures of the structures into which society sorts us."--Amazon.com.
Winner in the Poetry category -Jason
Voices on the landscape : contemporary Iowa poets
811.008 /Voices
Poetry, Nonfiction
Editor and poet Michael Carey has brought together a marvelous collection of poems by and about Iowa. While not strictly a travel guide, many of the poems evoke a vision of Iowa that might just inspire you to take a trip to explore the poems' inspiration. -Maeve
Literary witches : a celebration of magical women writers
Taisia Kitaiskaia
809.89287 /Kitaiskaia
Nonfiction, Literary Nonfiction, Poetry
"Literary Witches draws a connection between witches and visionary writers: both are figures of formidable creativity, empowerment, and general badassery. Through poetic portraits, Taisia Kitaiskaia and Katy Horan honor the witchy qualities of well-known and obscure authors alike, including Virginia Woolf, Mira Bai, Toni Morrison, Emily Dickinson, Octavia E. Butler, Sandra Cisneros, and many more.
This book is a lot of things--biography, poetry, grimoire. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the poetry is deliciously odd. Plus, it's all about incredible female writers! -Amanda
Half-light : collected poems 1965-2016
Frank Bidart
811.54 /Bidart
Poetry
"The collected poems of the award winning American poet Frank Bidart"--
Winner in the Poetry category -Jason
Blood water paint
Joy McCullough
YOUNG ADULT FICTION Mccullou Joy
Young Adult, Poetry, Historical Fiction
In Renaissance Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi endures the subjugation of women that allows her father to take credit for her extraordinary paintings, rape and the ensuing trial, and torture, buoyed by her deceased mother's stories of strong women of the Bible.
A lovely novel in verse, telling the story of the incredible painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Everybody should know her name. Her story is heartbreaking and difficult, but it's worth sticking with. -Amanda
If you read Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" and were moved, you must check out "Shout." This is not a sequel, instead it is the spiritual successor to "Speak," following Anderson's difficult childhood, her traumatic rape, and her activism for changing the conversation about sexual assault. This book will get readers thinking about generational trauma and censorship, and what they can do to break the cycle of abuse. -Morgan