Must-Read Poetry: September 2019

Here are eight notable books of poetry publishing in September.

Forage by Rose McLarney

McLarney has been a gifted storyteller since her first book, , but I dare say that she’s getting even better, more hypnotic. She’s one of our finest poets of the wild: her notes of appreciation are grounded in a love of careful cataloging of the world through language. There are the paired, almost petite lines of “Pet” about a cat: “How long I watched, how I loved // to watch, and how I tried / to make him a little home. // But what is wanted wants / to leg it elsewhere, no matter.” Gentle lines, but the poem ends with a start: “He would slaughter // his way back to solitude.” McLarney is masterful at those turns—an awareness of how quickly life can jolt. That range is also present in “And Still I Want to Bring Life into This World.” The narrator is driving home from a doctor’s appointment, listening to a radio broadcast—the words reverberating within that small space. The broadcaster speaks of “failed fields, washed over.” A dying world. The narrator can’t help but turn the pain inward: