Poetry

At a certain point, most of us settle into a groove with our pop culture consumption. We know what we love and what we're not into. But sometimes, all it takes is one great outlier or a willingness to step outside our comfort zone to make us reconsider what we don't like.

The awards, which come with a $50K purse, have helped launch the writing careers of many now well-known authors, including Colson Whitehead, Ocean Vuong, Alice McDermott and Jia Tolentino.

Amy Gerstler's 14th book of poetry, Is This My Final Form? comes out in April. One of its poems is about this change of season, welcoming spring.

NPR's Michel Martin speaks with author Reginald Dwayne Betts about his new collection of poems, "Doggerel," a meditation on family, friendship and falling in love.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly talks with Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama about a new poetry anthology he edited called "44 Poems on Being with Each Other" and his own collection called "Kitchen Hymns."

Two previously unknown poems by Virginia Woolf have been found in a library at the University of Texas at Austin. They are said to have been written for her niece and nephew sometime after March 1927.

American Poet Nikki Giovanni has died at the age of 81. Giovanni published her first poetry collection, "Black Feeling Black Talk," in 1968.

At 81, Nikki Giovanni isn't afraid of getting older. And the legendary poet also isn't spending any time thinking about her legacy. She's mostly focused on having fun and being able to look back on her life and feel like she did her duty. She talks to Rachel about the myth of a happy family, what she's learned on safaris and why she's fascinated with Mars.

April always brings some of the years' biggest poetry collections. So as it wraps up, we wanted to bring you two favorites — retrospective collections from Marie Howe and Jean Valentine.

Juleus Ghunta is a published children's author and award-winning poet. But growing up, he could barely read. That was until a teacher saw his potential.