Today is officially my 10^th Book-Blog-Birthday! To celebrate 10 years of book blogging, I have selected my Top Ten Poetry Books from the past 10 years of reviewing! When I first started this book blog, I spent several days struggling with the impossible decision of what genre to focus on. I love poetry, but I also love reading lots of other genres. In the end I decided that the blog should reflect the blogger: I would blog equally about poetry and fiction, and about literary events and festivals too, creating a space that reflects who I am, and which books I enjoy reading.

I soon found that it is far more challenging to review a poetry collection than it is to review a novel, but there are many rewards too. If I had not read so many poetry collections, I might not have honed my critical skills so much that I ended up completing a PhD and publishing a collection of my own… And now I’ve started blogging about my writing life too.

So, here are my Top Ten Poetry Books for Ten Years of Book Blogging…

1 – All the Men I Never Married by Kim Moore, published by Seren Books

I’ve enjoyed reading Kim Moore’s poems for many years. The poems in this particular collection speak with a clear, unapologetic, feminist voice, breaking the taboos of acceptance and denial. Each poem feels larger on the inside than the outside, and several of the poems seem to echo in your mind, long after you’ve read them. This book also forms part of a creative-critical PhD thesis on poetry and everyday sexism, which is well worth a read too.

2 – Mama Amazonica by Pascale Petit, published by Bloodaxe Books 

I’ve long admired Pascale Petit’s ability to create complex extended metaphors, as well as her ekphrastic work in response to artists such as Frida Kahlo. Mama Amazonica takes the extended metaphor to another level, weaving together the intricacies of mental health, family relationships, and the climate crisis, with poems that are set simultaneously within the confines of a psychiatric ward, and also within the vast, untamed wilderness of the Amazon rainforest. This particular review also took the form of an author-interview, including reflections from Petit about her inspiration for the poems.

3 – The Mabinogi by Matthew Francis, published by Faber

I’ve always been a bit sceptical about the poetic technique of syllabics, where each line of a poem uses a set number of syllables. But this book changed my opinion. There’s something both mesmerising and magical about the rhythm that Matthew Francis creates, which perfectly fits the surreal nature of the ancient Welsh folk tale that is re-imagined in the book.

4 – Bright Fear by Mary Jean Chan, published by Faber 

Technically I didn’t write much of a review for this book, when I read it as part of The Sealey Challenge in 2024, but I have kept returning to it ever since, and have used several of the poems in my creative writing workshops. I love the way Chan uses surreal imagery, but also clear concrete details, and white space. These are poems that make you think about the subtle ways in which we interact with the world around us, focusing intently on language itself.

5 – Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine, published by Penguin Books

I first came across this book as part of my MA course, and was stunned by the impact of Claudia Rankine’s prose poems. They made me far more aware of the subtle (but no less devastating) forms of racism that many people experience every day. For me, they also proved that the prose poem form can be incredibly effective, and I’ve been experimenting with my own prose poems ever since.

6 – Towards a General Theory of Love by Clare Shaw, published by Bloodaxe Books

It’s not often that you read a poetry collection and find that every single poem grabs your attention and won’t let go. There’s something really poignant about the monkey character in this collection. Monkey represents the controversial psychology experiments conducted by Harry Harlow on baby monkeys in the 1950s, which proved that we need care, contact and love in order to survive. In some poems, the monkey speaks for himself, trying to find ways in which to articulate his trauma. In other poems, we see patterns of human grief, loss and trauma that echo monkey’s words.

7 – Hard Drive by Paul Stephenson, published by Carcanet

Stephenson’s book is an elegy, but it is one that moves back and forth through time, celebrating the presence, and mourning the unimaginable sudden absence, of Stephenson’s partner. It is energetic and funny, at times, as every poetic form and word-combination imaginable becomes a vehicle for elegy.

8 – Us by Zaffar Kunial, published by Faber

Zaffar Kunial’s collection is delicate and many-layered, with a strong focus on how we relate to language. I heard Kunial read his World War One poem ‘Poppy’ on Radio 4 as part of the centenary commemorations a few years ago. It includes a haunting refrain ‘no, this is not enough’ repeated throughout, until, in the end, this phrase becomes the poem itself, a powerful acknowledgement that nothing we can write or say will ever capture the horror of war.

9 – Visiting the Minotaur by Claire Williamson, published by Seren Books

I’ve been using the title poem from this collection in my creative writing workshops for several years. These poems do something really interesting with metaphor, in a way that teases the reader. They present us with a tapestry of dream-like encounters that explore how myth and imagery can help us understand trauma, loss and the uncertainty of memory, inspired by Picasso’s famous paintings.

10 – Hand & Skull by Zoe Brigley, published by Bloodaxe Books

These poems are delicate and subtle, but they also interrogate the way we look at ourselves and others, and our connection with our physical bodies. Many of the poems are inspired by the relationship between the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and Georgia O’Keeffe, of whom he took numerous photographs, and who became a well-known artist in her own right.

You can click on the titles to read the full reviews, and if you’d like to buy some of these, then there’s a handy bookshop.org list here, kindly provided by Book Space Cardiff.

I also revealed my Top Ten Fiction Books for Ten Years of Book Blogging earlier this month…

Which books would you include in your Top Ten from the last ten years?