Weekly Book Recs 46/2025: Poetry
- Apollo Imperium
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
7 BOOK SUGGESTIONS EVERY FRIDAY –– A MIX OF INDIE AND TRADITIONAL PUBLISHED BOOKS
Though poetry is a fantastic genre, we have never featured poetry books in our weekly book recs yet. Today, we're changing that. We've compiled a list of poetry we've read and enjoyed, and we think you might just like it, too. It's a nice mixture of indie poetry booklets and better known, well established poetry books, so you're guaranteed to find one you haven't read yet.
"Heartfelt Heartbreak" by Jake Zuurbier
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.43
45 POEMS, 17 ILLUSTRATIONS, 1 DEBUT POETRY COLLECTION
“Heartfelt Heartbreak” is a bittersweet debut collection of poetry inspired by loves that happened and loves that didn’t. Illustrated with hand-drawn images, drawn by Zuurbier.
Curated over the span of multiple years, this debut poetry collection is a collection of poetry works of various types and styles, though all remain in the theme of, as the collection’s title suggests, "Heartfelt Heartbreak". Most poems are autobiographical, inspired by loves past. Not all are. It show the highs, lows and melancholy of dating and love from the perspective of a guy in his twenties who has had a taste of both the heartfelt and the heartbreak.
"Devotions" by Mary Oliver
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.56
Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years.
Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.
"MELODIA" by Lea Wyrd
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.7
Poems of music, darkness, and dreams. Melodies that haunt, heal, and seduce. An eerie and lyrical journey through sound and silence. Let MELODIA stir your soul, awaken the past, and unleash the arcane.
"Matters of the Heart" by Zaïnab El Meziani
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.57
"Matters of the Heart is a collection of poetry about the inevitable nature of falling, and all the motions that it entails; innocent longing leading to learning, but never enough to avoid falling again. This chapbook aims to be a sincere depiction of what it means to fall, with the good and the not so good, with poems being emblems for truths once lived, even if it's in imagination.
The poems came about when seeking beautiful moments that no longer are, turned into words to be found again when confronted with their ephemeral nature, romanticized moments that could not be replicated and that are still lingering between the verses. These poems are like love letters never sent, the expression and embodiment of a love that has never met the lover.
As vulnerable as infatuation may feel to confess and write about, this book aims to connect with the infatuated reader, and this book is a celebration of such matters."
"Before the world moves on" by Nathaniel Terrell
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.82
Before the world moves on is a powerful collection of poems, stories, anthems and songs. The title comes from my current mindset and experiences in this ever changing world. It’s written from the perspectives of a man in midlife, fighting demons, in deep reflection, processing measures of maturation and inspired by the signs of troubling times, calls for change, a vivid imagination, a need to express creatively while telling a story, and spreading positive vibes.
Each piece is composed from a spectrum of experiences, thoughts and emotions. The messages are powerful, relevant and relatable especially to anyone in the process of healing, at a crossroads and or are questioning life, purpose and working to better themselves in the midst of great odds. This book speaks on love, being in love or the lack thereof, faith in God, regrets, reminisces, growth, agony, anthems of change, power and praise, darkness, acceptance, the need for unity, the afterlife. Past, present and future are big themes throughout the manuscript. Embracing and accepting the unknown and what is to come good or bad are also spread throughout this book. In fact many of the poems were written as monologues or performative pieces.
This book is relevant and relatable from the perspective that the world is changing in many ways and the emphasis or message is to not give up or fight the inevitable. But rather to adapt or evolve and not perish or be left behind. If you enjoy inspirational poetry, matters of a broken heart, faith in moments of hopelessness, stories of what if’s, lyrical monologues, touching various scenes of life and quality storytelling, you will love this book.
"The Sun and her Flowers" by Rupi Kaur
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.08
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. this is the recipe of life said my mother as she held me in her arms as i wept think of those flowers you plant in the garden each year they will teach you that people too must wilt fall root rise in order to bloom.
"Bone" by Yrsa Daley-Ward
Goodreads Rating: ⭐️ 4.14
Bone. Visceral. Close to. Stark.
The poems in Yrsa Daley-Ward's collection bone are exactly that: reflections on a particular life honed to their essence--so clear and pared-down, they become universal.
From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's bone resonate to the core of what it means to be human.
"You will come away bruised.
You will come away bruised
but this will give you poetry."
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