Michelle Everette recommends collections that purposefully and beautifully blend the personal and the political

From A Land Where Other People Live by Audre Lorde

Wicked Enchantment by Wanda Coleman 

Dear God, Dear Bones, Dear Yellow by Noor Hindi 

Homie by Danez Smith 

Thrown in the Throat* by Benjamin Garcia 

The Tradition by Jericho Brown 

Capitalism Calls Poetry Lazy by Wyatt Welch 

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

Diving Into The Wreck by Adrienne Rich  

American Dream* by Sapphire 

*Content warning: A few poems in the collection mention or process sexual abuse.