We all know the classic poets known for their poems of love. Of course there’s Neruda, Shakespeare, Browning, and Rumi, but what about more contemporary views? These six poets and their poems look at love in a more modern voice. The cadence may be different, but the depth of feeling remains.
Stephen Dunn
Read his poem: The Kiss
Purchase his book: The Not Yet Fallen World
About the book: Stephen Dunn’s poems confront our contradictions with tenderness and wit, enliven the ordinary with penetrating observation, and alert us to the haunting wonders and relationships that surround us.
Kim Addonizio
Read her poem: My Heart
Purchase her book: Now We're Getting Somewhere
About the book: Combatting existential gloom with a wicked, seductive energy, Addonizio investigates desire, loss, and the madness of contemporary life. She calls out to Walt Whitman and John Keats, echoes Dorothy Parker, and finds sisterhood with Virginia Woolf.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Read her poem: San Antonio
Purchase her book: Everything Comes Next
About the book: This celebratory book collects in one volume award-winning and beloved poet Naomi Shihab Nye's most popular and accessible poems.
David Lehman
Read his poem: When a Woman Loves a Man
Purchase his book: The Morning Line
About the book: The Morning Line is David Lehman's most ambitious book to date, combining wit, quotidian charm, and off-the-cuff spontaneity of poems written with candid and moving meditations on life, love, aging, disease, friendship, chance, and the possibility of redemption in a godless age.
Amy Uyematsu
Read her poem: The Meaning of Zero: A Love Poem
Purchase her book: That Blue Trickster Time
About the book: While addressing serious social and political issues, Uyematsu's poems are deeply rooted in a reverence for nature and spiritual growth that comes with aging.
Nikki Giovanni Read her poem: Resignation
Purchase her book: Make Me Rain
About the book: One of America's most celebrated poets challenges us with this powerful and deeply personal collection of verse that speaks to the injustices of society while illuminating the depths of her own heart.
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