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The blog of poet & book reviewer – rachel carney, a list of poetry festivals in the uk.

Recent Audio Recordings, Performances, and Collaborative/Collage Poems

Review: New Poetry Collections by Clare E. Potter and Rhian Elizabeth

Writing & Place – Celebrating the end of the PhD at Aberystwyth Poetry Festival

An Ekphrastic Update: Exhibition, Course, and Conference

My Literary Highlights of 2023 – Publication, Art & The PhD!

My Top 5 Books of 2023 – Poetry

My Top 5 Books of 2023 – Fiction

The End of an Era: Completing the PhD at Gregynog Hall

What Are You Looking For? An Ekphrastic Interactive Exhibition

An Online Book Launch!

The books have arrived! And upcoming readings…

PhD Progress, Poetry, Collage and My Book Launch!

Creative Women: Matrix by Lauren Groff and Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul

Octopus Mind: My Debut Poetry Collection

Book Review: The King Arthur Trilogy by Bernard Cornwell

The Joys of Poetry Editing and Writing Retreats

Poetry in the Art Museum: In So Many Words

Poetry review: Pearl & Bone by Mari Ellis Dunning

Book Review: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

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100 Best Poetry Blogs and Websites in 2024

Poetry Blogs

Here are 100 Best Poetry Blogs you should follow in 2024

1. The Best American Poetry

2. Write Out Loud | Poetry Writing Blog

3. My poetic side

4. PoemShape

5. Life Poems Death Poems | Motivational Poetry Blog

6. Magma Poetry

7. My Bubble | Stories, Poems and Thoughts...

8. Poetry Magazine

9. PhoebeMD: Medicine + Poetry

10. Short Prose

11. The New Verse News

12. Trish Hopkinson | A selfish poet

13. Megha's World

14. Free Minds Book Club

15. anachronizms by Del Ray Cross

16. Blogalicious

17. Curating Thoughts

18. Poet's Musings

19. Poems and Poetry

20. Another Porch... A Poetry Blog

21. The Cheesesellers Wife Blog

22. #ThisIsMyPoetryBlog

23. North of Oxford

24. Cleveland Poetics

25. GOOD UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR

26. A Pretty Kettle of Poetry

27. Queenmajeeda.com

28. Confessions Of A Laundry Goddess

29. Bartholomew Barker, Poet

30. Nichole Nichole deals with Reality

• Poetry Bloggers

• The Best American Poetry
• Write Out Loud | Poetry Writing Blog
• My poetic side
• Life Poems Death Poems | Motivational Poetry Blog
• Magma Poetry
• My Bubble | Stories, Poems and Thoughts...
• Poetry Magazine
• PhoebeMD: Medicine + Poetry
• Short Prose
• The New Verse News
• Trish Hopkinson | A selfish poet
• Megha's World
• Free Minds Book Club
• anachronizms by Del Ray Cross
• Blogalicious
• Curating Thoughts
• Poet's Musings
• Poems and Poetry
• Another Porch... A Poetry Blog
• The Cheesesellers Wife Blog
• #ThisIsMyPoetryBlog
• North of Oxford
• Cleveland Poetics
• GOOD UNIVERSE NEXT DOOR
• A Pretty Kettle of Poetry
• Queenmajeeda.com
• Confessions Of A Laundry Goddess
• Bartholomew Barker, Poet
• Nichole Nichole deals with Reality
• Black Poetry Blogs

Poetry Blogs By Country

Buzz Words Poetry About - Poetry reading and open mic nights in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK.

Wild About Poetry About - My poetry has appeared in several magazines and anthologies. I won the Mirehouse Poetry Prize in 2013 and the Second Light Poetry Prize in 2017.

A Thing For Poetry About - I was born in Lincolnshire and now live in Gloucestershire. After giving up on writing for many years, I returned to poetry in 2009 and have since had poems published in a variety of magazines and on-line journals, including Iota, Anon, New Walk, Magma, Tears in the Fence, Poetry Salzburg Review and Bare Fiction.

The Poetry Shed About - Abegail was been named as one of the five British poets to watch in 2017.

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Poet, Writer, Instructor

How I Review a Poetry Collection

In this post, I share my method for reviewing books of poetry. My reviews appear once a  month in my newsletter, Sticks & Stones , which is free to subscribers .

• First, I read it as if I were not planning to review it. I just enjoy the book. I read every poem, but not necessarily in order; one of the things I love about poetry books is that they don’t have to be read sequentially. They’re also small, so I always have one tucked in my purse. Recently I read a whole book while sitting in a courtroom waiting for possible jury duty (I wasn’t chosen).
• The second time I read the book, I’m more disciplined. I read the book in order, take notes and track page numbers. I then write a one-paragraph summary of the book. This helps me pull together the many impressions that poetry makes on me as a reader.
• The third and subsequent times through, I re-read the passages that stood out. I begin to get a sense of what I will say about the book. By now, I have noticed certain things about the book as a whole, i.e., the poet’s style and skill. Does this poet take risks? Stick to familiar themes? Use forms?
• After reading the book several times, certain poems will haunt me. Themes emerge, as well as connections between poems, small links and groupings.
• I start writing the review. I often struggle with the first paragraph. I don’t want to repeat myself or use clichés, so I work hard to make the first sentences of the review as fresh and interesting as possible.
• I follow the book in chronological order as I write the review.
• I quote extensively from poems in the book. The reader gets a sense of the book from these quotes, but fragments of poetry also have their own life on the page (or the screen), like scraps of beautiful fabric.
• I keep the reviews under 700 words. This allows me to write one per month and fits in well with the newsletter format. It also forces me to be succinct.

A few more things about reviewing:

• I study the covers of the books I review carefully. Sometimes they give me a starting place.
• I fully expect delight and amazement from the book I’m reviewing. So far, so good.
• I am not necessarily giving my personal opinion about a book. I’m giving it as complete and fair a review as I can. Writers have trusted me with their books, and I take that seriously.

Journals that publish reviews of poetry collections include The Atlantic ,  The Nation ,  New Republic ,  The New Yorker, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review of Books, and The American Poetry Review. Many excellent reviews appear in literary journals.

I enjoy Secrets of book critics , a new feature at LitHub.

One of my favorite reviewers is David Biespiel .

Sign up for Sticks & Stones and receive Erica Goss’s Guide to Writing Poetry Book Reviews as a thank-you gift.

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Published by Erica Goss, Poet

Erica Goss is a poet, writer and instructor. She served as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, CA, from 2013-2016. View all posts by Erica Goss, Poet

7 thoughts on “How I Review a Poetry Collection”

Seeing your review process is really helpful. I don’t often have time to do several full reads when I put together my reviews, but then I’m usually just doing a first impressions write up at that point. Still, I enjoyed reading this and I’m going to see if there’s aspects I can borrow for my own process.

Your article was very helpful. I’m a poet, too; and I’ve written a poetry memoir. But I’ve never written a review on a collection. Now, I am in the early stages of writing one for my college English class. The assignment requires me to find some online publications that will accept reviews. The list you shared will be helpful. I want to review Denise Duhamel’s chapbook, How It Will End. I plan on borrowing some ideas from your review method. Hope you don’t mind.

Thanks for Sharing Your Insight,

-Matt Harris

Hi Matt, of course, you’re welcome to use the ideas in the blog post. I’m glad you found them helpful.

Hi Erica, I sent an email yesterday to The Rumpus, from your list. (I like the sound of “rumpus”.) Anyway, they contacted me today and said that I could submit my review to them on Denise Duhamel’s chapbook, How It Will End. I’m still in the early stages of writing it, but I have a good feeling about How It [Might] End. Keep Up the Good Work,

Hi Erica Thank you for sharing your review process. I have just started reviewing books. This definitely helps. It would be great if you reviewed my first poetry book ‘Roads- A Journey with Verses’. I wrote it last year. Its currently available for free on kindle. Thank you again.

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The Best Reviewed Poetry Collections of 2020

Featuring natalie diaz, danez smith, jorie graham, margaret atwood, robert hass, and more.

Natalie Diaz’s Postcolonial Love Poem , Danez Smith’s Homie , Jorie Graham’s Runaway , and Margaret Atwood’s Dearly all feature among the best reviewed poetry collections of 2020.

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (Graywolf)

17 Rave • 2 Positive Read a poem from Postcolonial Love Poem here

“Violence against Indigenous people is not just historical but ongoing, systemic and institutional, Diaz reminds us … This knowledge, however fraught, emboldens Diaz to celebrate her survival as a queer Aha Makhav woman living in the 21st century … the book rejects stereotypes that cast Indigenous people as monocultural … Postcolonial Love Poem  is charged by the often violent intersection of colonizing languages (in this case, first Spanish and then English) with an Indigenous one (Mojave). That’s not to say the poems long for a pre-colonial culture … There is an extreme lushness to the language Diaz uses, especially about love, sex and desire … This book asks us to read the world carefully, knowing that not everything will be translated for us, knowing that it is made up of pluralities … Diaz’s collection is no doubt one of the most important poetry releases in years, one to applaud for its considerable demonstration of skill, its resistance to dominant perspectives and its light wrought of desire.”

–Emma Phillips  ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Homie by Danez Smith (Graywolf)

11 Rave • 2 Positive Listen to an interview with Danez Smith here

“…by hiding the real name of the book, Smith only makes it available to those who take the time to read it. If the poetry were less earnest, this could come off as a gag—just another conceptual stunt. But the writer’s commitment to making black life visible while simultaneously expanding blackness’s scope when people are looking imbues this title with a different weight … In its plainspoken yet voluminous vocabulary, its full-scale embrace of the body, and its ecstatic rendering of everyday life, Smith’s distinctive song of the self inevitably recalls Whitman … Smith’s writing presents an identity tempered by a society that is slow to administer acceptance. Smith is a poet of profound abundance and empathy, and in this collection the moments that stay with you the longest are the ones that reflect on abandoning the socialization of a prolifically cruel world.”

–J. Howard Rosier  ( 4Columns )

3. Summer Snow by Robert Hass (Ecco)

8 Rave • 5 Positive

“It’s a big book, but never feels exhaustive or overstuffed. Some may find that Hass has grown too comfy in his effusive style and his old lefty politics but to me it all sounds like mastery, like singular virtuosity attained on a very popular instrument—common American speech … Summer Snow  is rife with elegies. It’s something of a Who’s Who of great writers who have died in recent decades … The unthinking cruelty of fate is too vast and unfathomable to summarize or explain, so Hass just sits with it with us, aghast, stumped and sad, but also unwilling to leave us behind or be left alone with all that weight … Yes, life is  a breath, and what kills us is never actually what kills us, and the fabric of our days dissolves, leaving only paltry lists of achievements … Of course I had no idea what Hass was talking about when I was 20, no idea that he had anything to offer me. But he does now, and when I return to this book in 20 years, or in 40 if I’m so lucky, it will still be waiting for me, with something new to say.”

–Craig Morgan Teicher  ( The New York Times Book Review )

3. Ledger by Jane Hirshfield (Knopf)

8 Rave • 5 Positive Listen to an interview with Jane Hirshfield here

“Granted, some poems are thorny, difficult tangles requiring significant work from the reader to comprehend. But some, like the ones in Jane Hirshfield’s new book…are small gifts: morsels of meaning that slide right past your poetry defenses and lodge in your head … it’s a measured approach, calm and contemplative … Hirshfield’s poems treat the natural world as something marvelous and rare, something to be cared for and loved … This is what Hirshfield does so well: She gives you the observation of life as we’re all living it and the personal tragedy life entails, and then she slips in themes of planetary crisis. It’s the kind of gut punch good poems provide, the solid fist inside the velvet glove … She is responsible with every word choice, every line a deliberate beat, each poem its own chrysalis of meaning … This is a book to read front to back, then at random, then front to back again … Hirshfield’s poems are no less rich for being generally likable and accessible. You don’t have to love poetry to love these poems. There is no secret key required to unlock them. They speak and we all hear them loud and clear.”

–Elizabeth Crane  ( Vox )

5. In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forché (Penguin)

7 Rave • 3 Positive Read two poems from In the Lateness of the World here

“In order to understand what Forché is doing on the page, you have to look between the rows of type, and see what she leaves in the white space of your imagination. You have to rejigger, if not jettison entirely, your ideas or preconceptions about political writing and about what makes a poem. Forché’s stately stanzas—her writing is never hurried—are the work of a literary reporter, Gloria Emerson as filtered through the eyes of Elizabeth Bishop or Grace Paley. Free of jingoism but not of moral gravity, Forché’s work questions—when it does question—how to be or to become a thinking, caring, communicating adult … In In the Lateness of the World,  one feels the poet cresting a wave—a new wave that will crash onto new lands and unexplored territories. To read the book straight through is to see connections between her earlier work and her new poems because, by looking at the world, she has made a world, one in which her past is as present as her future … as much as life takes, it gives, including the poet’s voice and its myriad possibilities, among them how to render silence.”

–Hilton Als  ( The New Yorker )

6. Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan (FSG)

4 Rave • 5 Positive Read a poem from Three Poems here

“Sullivan’s voice has a suppleness that canters within the formal constraints she imposes on it … she can be mischievous in her rhyming … At times it feels like it’s overreaching, taking in philosophical discussions of nothingness and Shelley’s ars poetica; but…it is always pulled back by Sullivan’s astonishing capacity for the seen, the telling analogy, or visual set-piece … Sullivan’s choice of register is one of her main assets … chatty and offhanded, while evoking both spring’s excess and a certain insubstantiality. She’s an exquisite image-maker and analogist … Sullivan never forgets to bring her celestial concerns down to the human scale.”

–Declan Ryan  ( The New York Review of Books )

7. Obit by Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon Press)

3 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed Read a poem from Obit here

“… remarkable … these  obits take the genre in an entirely new direction—Chang inverts the impersonal third person perspective, creating a reliable/unreliable first-person speaker who mourns and commemorates the death of a variety of ideas, objects, emotions, and people … We know we are in the hands of a master. Restrictions in form can often lead to aesthetic and thematic liberation, and I was wholly engrossed by how much Chang accomplishes within the confines of the obituary’s obituary-ness—whether it’s the intense justified verticality to the use of dates, to the mix of objective and subjective intelligence … That these poems do such complete work with so few tools from the poetry toolbox is humbling. Each poem is a masterwork of compression and compassion … One of the many marvelous accomplishments of this book is how Chang makes private mourning and public mourning part of the same process.”

–Dean Radar  ( The Kenyon Review )

8. Dearly by Margaret Atwood (Ecco)

6 Rave • 1 Mixed Read a poem from Dearly here

“This collection of poems, her first in over 10 years, is a reckoning with the past that comes from a place of wisdom and control. Now 81, she harnesses the experience of a lifetime to assume a wry distance from her subjects—as if, in an astounding world, nothing could throw her off balance. This mastery, even at her most subversively fantastical, is part of what makes her an outstanding novelist. But poetry is different. Atwood is an undeceived poet and, even though the collection is full of pleasures, reading her work makes one consider the extent to which poetry is not only about truth but about the importance of being, at times, mercifully deceived—what Robert Lowell dubbed the ‘sanity of self-deception’.”

–Kate Kellaway  ( The Observer )

9. Runaway by Jorie Graham (Ecco) 6 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Pan

“She knows how to get your attention. As you move through the book…poems like ‘I’m Reading Your Mind’ and ‘Rail’ dare you not to get pulled into their riptides. From its opening page until its final lines, Graham’s 15th collection of poetry has the heightened urgency of a young writer’s debut. True to its title, it hurtles forward. Poems pour forth, frothing and pooling and threatening, at times, to overflow their banks … Runaway  taps into a free-floating end-of-the-worldness (is there a German word for that?) that so many of us feel even if we can’t express it … Runaway  feels as though it has been written for right now, especially as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, but also for a target audience that might emerge 100 years on. You imagine someone in the future flipping through it, finding a record of a great unraveling, and spending hours trying to decipher it … the churn of Graham’s language settles into a benediction that couldn’t be clearer[.]”

–Jeff Gordinier  ( The New York Times Book Review )

10. Still Life by Ciaran Carson (Wake Forest University Press)

4 Rave • 2 Positive

“ Still Life  is a book written in full cognizance of the approach of death, and as such cannot help but wear a testamentary air. Yet freshness and surprise are central to its success … With Still Life , Carson has achieved the remarkable feat of closing his oeuvre with a book that recapitulates his previous creative chapters, while at the same time striking out in a new direction. It emerges from a lifelong passion for art, and a deep engagement with other ekphrastic poems across the Irish, British, American and French traditions … In the even-tempered poems of Still Life  it is, perhaps surprisingly, flourishes of despair that are in short supply … An unexpected central role in Still Life  goes to the vintage onyx pencil used by Carson to write his poems. Like Beckett’s Malone, Carson will often move between descriptions of his everyday routines and descriptions of the pencil as it commits them to paper. Sometimes, again in Beckettian style, this throws up narrative paradoxes, as when a poem in the present tense describes the breaking of a pencil nib, but the poem presses on regardless … Still Life  is among Carson’s very best work, and anglophone poetry is immeasurably the poorer for his passing.”

–David Wheatly  ( The Times Literary Supplement )

The Book Marks System: RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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Best Book Review Blogs in 2024

Showing 223 blogs that match your search.

http://bookpage.com/

BookPage reviews almost every category of new books, including literary and popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, audiobooks and gift books. We rarely review poetry or scholarly books, and we do not give review consideration to self-published books, print-on-demand titles or books from presses that lack major distribution.

Blogger : Book Page Contributors

Genres : YA, Crime, Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction, Paranormal, New Adult, Children's, LGBT, Humor, Horror, and Urban Fantasy

🌐 Domain authority: 67

👀 Average monthly visits: 135,000 p/mo

💌 Preferred contact method: Mail

⭐️ Accepts indie books? No

Quill and Quire

https://quillandquire.com/

Quill & Quire is the magazine of the Canadian book trade. The magazine reviews around 400 new titles each year, offering the most comprehensive look at Canadian-authored books in the country.

Blogger : The Q&Q Team

Genres : YA, Crime, Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, Science Fiction, Paranormal, New Adult, Children's, Christian, Non-Fiction, LGBT, Humor, Horror, and Urban Fantasy

🌐 Domain authority: 57

👀 Average monthly visits: 81,500 p/mo

Nothing But Picture Books

https://www.nbpbreviews.com/

We read and will read nothing but picture books. This blog is born from our passion for PBs. So let's jump into the depths of the world of PBs.

Blogger : NBPB Reviews

Genres : Children's

🌐 Domain authority: 1

👀 Average monthly visits: 100 p/mo

💌 Preferred contact method: Website contact form

⭐️ Accepts indie books? Yes

Shelly's Book Corner

https://shellysbookcorner.com/

The blog consists of Shelly (me) and my two reviewers, Beth and Lourdes. We accept review requests based on our schedules. Our calendars fill up pretty quickly, so if you are looking for a review we need at least 8 to 12 weeks prior notice before its released or 8 to 12 weeks to read and review after release.

Blogger : Shelly, Beth & Lourdes

Genres : YA, Romance, Mystery/Thriller, and Erotica

🌐 Domain authority: 19

👀 Average monthly visits: 5,000 p/mo

It Starts at Midnight

https://itstartsatmidnight.com

I am only accepting review requests on a very limited basis. I also regret that I am not able to respond to all review inquiries due to time constraints.

Blogger : Shannon

Genres : YA

🌐 Domain authority: 42

The Book Nanny

https://thebooknanny.com/

The Book Nanny gives readers a look inside their book without spoilers. We give information about the violence, adult content and language a book contains so readers can find books that fit their media standards.

Blogger : Emily Campbell

Genres : Children's, Christian, Contemporary Fiction, Crime, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Historical Fiction, Humor, LGBT, Mystery/Thriller, New Adult, Paranormal, Romance, Science Fiction, Sports, Urban Fantasy, and YA

🌐 Domain authority: 3

👀 Average monthly visits: 6,000 p/mo

💌 Preferred contact method: Email

Short Book and Scribes

http://shortbookandscribes.uk/

Hi, I’m Nicola and thank you for finding your way here. Anybody who knows me will tell you I am mad about books and am never without a book on the go. I decided to set up the Short Book and Scribes book blog because I was reviewing every book I read on Amazon and so it seemed like a good idea to have them all in one place. I also really love to connect with authors and publishers. For me, every bit of the process of producing a book is interesting, from the writing to the publishing to the reading.

Blogger : Nicola

🌐 Domain authority: 31

Jessicamap Reviews

https://jessicamapreviews.com/

What exactly will you see here? Books. Reviews about books. A random chocolate lab. Then some of the awesome subscription boxes and other bookish things.

Blogger : Jessica

Genres : YA, Crime, Contemporary Fiction, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller, and Horror

🌐 Domain authority: 24

Bookishloom

https://bookishloom.wordpress.com/

Bookishloom is a blog about books and all things bookish. Come and read an interesting post on your favourite Classic or a New Release.

Blogger : Ninu Nair

Genres : Children's, Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction, and Non-Fiction

👀 Average monthly visits: 2,000 p/mo

Worlds In Ink

http://worldsinink.blogspot.com/

I prefer to review print copies of books whenever possible. I am also able to review EPUB formatted ebooks by special arrangement. Print copies will be given precedence due to the cost involved in getting them to me.

Blogger : KJ Mulder

Genres : Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Horror

🌐 Domain authority: 26

👀 Average monthly visits: 3,000 p/mo

Chapter In My Life

https://chapterinmylife.wordpress.com/

Here at Chapterinmylife I am always happy to accept books for review. Any reviews I provide are only my opinion and are always constructive. I will try my best to explain what it was I enjoyed about the book or why it was not to my taste.

Blogger : Sharon Bairden

Genres : Crime and Mystery/Thriller

🌐 Domain authority: 27

Christian Indie Book Review

http://christianindiebookreviews.blogspot.com/

We are glad you stopped by! The purpose of this site is to review self-published and small-press published books. If a book is reviewed here, you can expect the quality and content to be sufficient for human consumption (at least ours, your mileage might vary), or know the reason why not. We do not review erotica books, so please don't send us any!

Blogger : Chris

Genres : Christian

🌐 Domain authority: 12

Carol Baldwin's Blog

http://carolbaldwinblog.blogspot.com/

I focus on middle grade and young adult literature with a smattering of books for adults. Primarily "clean reads" without sex, drugs, or profanity.

Blogger : Carol Baldwin

Genres : Children's, Contemporary Fiction, and YA

🌐 Domain authority: 33

👀 Average monthly visits: 1,000 p/mo

💌 Preferred contact method: email

Elgee Writes

https://elgeewrites.com/

Gayathri loves reading, recommending books and talking about bookish things in real life. Her blog is just an extension of that habit. When she is not reading books or creating online content, she freelances as a beta reader. She lives currently in Dubai.

Blogger : Gayathri

Genres : Contemporary Fiction, Crime, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Horror, Mystery/Thriller, New Adult, Romance, Science Fiction, and YA

🌐 Domain authority: 29

👀 Average monthly visits: 1,500 p/mo

Charlotte's Library

http://charlotteslibrary.blogspot.com.ar/

My name really is Charlotte. I'm an archaeologist by day, president of the Friends of a small New England library by night, and an avid reader of fantasy and science fiction.

Blogger : Charlotte

Genres : YA, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

🌐 Domain authority: 41

So you want to find a book blog?

If you’re a voracious reader, you might think of a book blog as an oasis in the middle of the desert: a place on the Internet that brims with talk about books, books, and more books.

Well, good news — we built this directory of the 200 of the best book blogs  to satiate your thirst. Take a walk around, use the filters to narrow down your search to blogs in your preferred genre, and feel free to bookmark this page and come back, as we do update it regularly with more of the best book blogs out there. 

If you’re an aspiring author, you might see a book blog more as a book review blog: a place where you can get your yet-to-be published book reviewed. In that case, you’ll be glad to know that most of the book blogs in our directory are open to review requests and accept indie books! We expressly designed this page (and our book marketing platform, Reedsy Discovery ) to be useful to indie book authors who need book reviews. If you’re wondering how to approach a book blog for a review request, please read on. 

You’ve found a book blog. Now what? 

Let’s say that you’re an author, and you’ve found a couple of book blogs that would be perfect fits to review your book. What now? Here are some tips as you go about getting your book reviews:

• Be sure to read the review policy. First, check that the book blog you’re querying is open to review requests. If that’s the fortunate case, carefully read the blog’s review policy and make sure that you follow the directions to a T.  
• Individualize your pitches. Book bloggers will be able to immediately tell apart the bulk pitches, which simply come across as thoughtless and indifferent. If you didn’t take the time to craft a good pitch, why should the blogger take the time to read your book? Personalize each pitch to up your chances of getting a response. 
• Format your book in a professional manner before sending it out. Ensure that your manuscript isn’t presented sloppily. If the book blogger asks for a digital ARC, you might want to check out apps such as Instafreebie or Bookfunnel. 
• Create a spreadsheet to track your progress. Wading through so many book blogs can be troublesome — not to mention trying to remember which ones you’ve already contacted. To save yourself the time and trouble, use a simple Excel spreadsheet to keep track of your progress (and results). 

Looking to learn even more about the process? Awesome 👍 For a detailed guide, check out this post that’s all about getting book reviews. 

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The Best Poetry of 2021

The Book Review’s poetry columnist, Elisa Gabbert, picks her seven favorite collections of the year.

Credit... Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

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By Elisa Gabbert

• Dec. 10, 2021

This year of slow and careful re-emergence has felt, to me, like an odd one for books. There was so much abundance that it taxed our attentions, and even highly anticipated titles seemed to come and go quietly. I wish I had more space to highlight all of the books I read and loved in 2021, but these seven collections were personal favorites, and the ones I most want to share.

BLOOD ON THE FOG , by Tongo Eisen-Martin. (City Lights, 107 pp., paper, $15.95.) Reminiscent of June Jordan in their near -embrace of violence, these poems have a powerful ambivalence about what effect they might have in the world; they are very aware of being poems: “A non-future dripping with real people/I mean, real people … Not poem people.” “I write poems today/I kill america today.” “Has the poem started yet?/I will tuck your shirt into the earth.” The language is visionary, sometimes trancelike. “It takes a violent middleman for me to talk to myself.” “I’m sorry to make you relive all of this, Lord … Lord, is that my revolver in your hand?” “I am weak first/Before anything, I first become weak.” “there goes the poet — killing without killing — don’t mind this.” Words are not the revolution itself, Eisen-Martin seems to say, and yet this book disturbed me more than any other I read this year. It reminds me that poetry can rewire our thinking — can actually change our minds — by using nothing like the rote language we’re so used to hearing in speech and in prose. It can jolt us out of patterns, back into intelligence.

LITTLE ELEGIES FOR SISTER SATAN , by Michael Palmer. (New Directions, 117 pp., paper, $16.95.) It was a good year for our older poets, with new books by legends like Frank Bidart and Louise Glück , and this, with its stunning first sequence of elegies that call to mind Rilke, Celan, Inger Christensen — there’s a way that even poetry written in one’s native tongue already feels translated, as though the language of the mind were always foreign. “Oh, body, where are you going,/body of the earth, lost/double, lost copy of the body/mute body of yesterday/in tomorrow’s shredded cloth?” These are poems about confronting the end, the end of one’s own time and time in general, about repetition (“That is why, each day, when I return/to the illegible page/I must begin again/from the beginning”; “Let us begin, let us begin again/not from the beginning but from the end”) and the paradox of poetry, its ability to say the unsayable, to exist and yet remain unsaid, the utility of futility. “When I think of ‘possible worlds,’ I think not of philosophy, but of elegy. And impossible worlds. Resistant worlds.” “Never beg for mercy/from the poem,/since it can offer none./Do not ask/what language it speaks,/since the answer is none.”

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Book Review

On the National Language

by Rachel Jagareski

In a dazzling interplay of words and images, B. A. Van Sise’s "On the National Language" conjures the richness of North America’s endangered languages, some of which are spoken by only a handful of elders. There are cultural... Read More

• #picturebooks

In Praise of Mystery

by Danielle Ballantyne

A poem written by US Poet Laureate Ada Limón at NASA’s request to accompany their Europa Clipper spacecraft on its trip to Jupiter’s moon Europa is given the picture book treatment in this title for anyone who wonders at the... Read More

Eugene Nadelman

by Jeff Fleischer

In Michael Weingrad’s slim, nostalgic literary novel "Eugene Nadelman", a nerdy Jewish boy comes of age in 1980s Philadelphia. Eugene shares his first name, and the book its format, with Alexander Pushkin’s novel-in-verse Eugene... Read More

• #autobiographyandmemoir

Now You Are a Missing Person

by Isabella Zhou

"Now You Are a Missing Person" is an intricate, poetic memoir that touches upon personal and universal concerns of womanhood. Spanning girlhood and widowhood, Susan Hayden’s poetic memoir "Now You Are a Missing Person" contemplates... Read More

Journey Bread

by Michele Sharpe

Wisdom and wonder permeate the decade’s worth of poems collected in "Journey Bread". Ruth Thompson’s insightful poetry collection "Journey Bread" is provocative in celebrating the stages of contemporary women’s lives. Divided into... Read More

Treasures of the Heart

The excitement of initial desire, long-term admiration, and the devastation of loss are all addressed in the love-themed poetry collection "Treasures of the Heart". Oliver Forward’s short poetry collection "Treasures of the Heart"... Read More

An earthy collection that honors loved ones in universal tones, "Knowing" is a poetic source of respite. Mark Cox’s poetry collection "Knowing" is a confident, gentle retrospective on human connections. The book is divided into four... Read More

by Matt Sutherland

Phanopoeia, explained Ezra Pound, is “the throwing of an image on the mind’s retina” on the “visual imagination.” When she flits between wolves and space trash, glass eyes and does and “bruised skin of milk,” Maria Williams... Read More

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The Best Poetry Review: How-To Guides, Examples, and Practice

This series on Poetry explores different poem types, their historical significance, and offers practical tips on writing and analysis.

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What is poetry.

Discover the essence of poetry as you explore different types of poems as well as the evolution of poetry over time. You'll also learn helpful tips for reading, writing, & citing poems.

Poetry Analysis

This Poetry Analysis section breaks down the building blocks of poetry, from its structure and rhyme schemes to the use of imagery. Engage in hands-on practice with step-by-step analysis of famous poems!

Poem Themes

This section explores various themes in poetry, such as love, life, nature, and change. Each post includes a curated selection of poems that highlight these themes!

Poem Studies: Famous Poems & Voices of Today

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The  VIDA Review  is an online literary magazine publishing original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, interviews, and reviews. Reviews must be for full-length or chapbooks of poetry or prose by writers from historically-marginalized...

Established in 1990 at the University of Idaho, Fugue biannually publishes poetry, fiction, essays, hybrid work, and visual art from established and emerging writers and artists. Fugue is managed and edited entirely by...

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The Best Reviewed Books of 2020: Poetry Collections

Featuring natalie diaz, danez smith, jorie graham, margaret atwood, robert hass, and more.

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2020—the longest year that has ever been—is almost at an end, and that means it’s time for us to break out the calculators and tabulate the best reviewed books of past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2020, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir & Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections ; Essay Collections ; Graphic Literature ; Poetry; Mystery & Crime; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Poetry Collections .

1. Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz (Graywolf)

17 Rave • 2 Positive

Read a poem from Postcolonial Love Poem here

“Violence against Indigenous people is not just historical but ongoing, systemic and institutional, Diaz reminds us … This knowledge, however fraught, emboldens Diaz to celebrate her survival as a queer Aha Makhav woman living in the 21st century … the book rejects stereotypes that cast Indigenous people as monocultural … Postcolonial Love Poem is charged by the often violent intersection of colonizing languages (in this case, first Spanish and then English) with an Indigenous one (Mojave). That’s not to say the poems long for a pre-colonial culture … There is an extreme lushness to the language Diaz uses, especially about love, sex and desire … This book asks us to read the world carefully, knowing that not everything will be translated for us, knowing that it is made up of pluralities … Diaz’s collection is no doubt one of the most important poetry releases in years, one to applaud for its considerable demonstration of skill, its resistance to dominant perspectives and its light wrought of desire.”

–Emma Phillips ( The New York Times Book Review )

2. Homie by Danez Smith (Graywolf)

11 Rave • 2 Positive

Listen to an interview with Danez Smith here

“…by hiding the real name of the book, Smith only makes it available to those who take the time to read it. If the poetry were less earnest, this could come off as a gag—just another conceptual stunt. But the writer’s commitment to making black life visible while simultaneously expanding blackness’s scope when people are looking imbues this title with a different weight … In its plainspoken yet voluminous vocabulary, its full-scale embrace of the body, and its ecstatic rendering of everyday life, Smith’s distinctive song of the self inevitably recalls Whitman … Smith’s writing presents an identity tempered by a society that is slow to administer acceptance. Smith is a poet of profound abundance and empathy, and in this collection the moments that stay with you the longest are the ones that reflect on abandoning the socialization of a prolifically cruel world.”

–J. Howard Rosier ( 4Columns )

=3. Summer Snow by Robert Hass (Ecco)

8 Rave • 5 Positive

“It’s a big book, but never feels exhaustive or overstuffed. Some may find that Hass has grown too comfy in his effusive style and his old lefty politics but to me it all sounds like mastery, like singular virtuosity attained on a very popular instrument—common American speech … Summer Snow is rife with elegies. It’s something of a Who’s Who of great writers who have died in recent decades … The unthinking cruelty of fate is too vast and unfathomable to summarize or explain, so Hass just sits with it with us, aghast, stumped and sad, but also unwilling to leave us behind or be left alone with all that weight … Yes, life is a breath, and what kills us is never actually what kills us, and the fabric of our days dissolves, leaving only paltry lists of achievements … Of course I had no idea what Hass was talking about when I was 20, no idea that he had anything to offer me. But he does now, and when I return to this book in 20 years, or in 40 if I’m so lucky, it will still be waiting for me, with something new to say.”

–Craig Morgan Teicher ( The New York Times Book Review )

=3. Ledger by Jane Hirshfield (Knopf)

Listen to an interview with Jane Hirschfield here

“Granted, some poems are thorny, difficult tangles requiring significant work from the reader to comprehend. But some, like the ones in Jane Hirshfield’s new book…are small gifts: morsels of meaning that slide right past your poetry defenses and lodge in your head … it’s a measured approach, calm and contemplative … Hirshfield’s poems treat the natural world as something marvelous and rare, something to be cared for and loved … This is what Hirshfield does so well: She gives you the observation of life as we’re all living it and the personal tragedy life entails, and then she slips in themes of planetary crisis. It’s the kind of gut punch good poems provide, the solid fist inside the velvet glove … She is responsible with every word choice, every line a deliberate beat, each poem its own chrysalis of meaning … This is a book to read front to back, then at random, then front to back again … Hirshfield’s poems are no less rich for being generally likable and accessible. You don’t have to love poetry to love these poems. There is no secret key required to unlock them. They speak and we all hear them loud and clear.”

–Elizabeth Crane ( Vox )

5. In the Lateness of the World by Carolyn Forché (Penguin)

7 Rave • 3 Positive

Read two poems from In the Lateness of the World here

“In order to understand what Forché is doing on the page, you have to look between the rows of type, and see what she leaves in the white space of your imagination. You have to rejigger, if not jettison entirely, your ideas or preconceptions about political writing and about what makes a poem. Forché’s stately stanzas—her writing is never hurried—are the work of a literary reporter, Gloria Emerson as filtered through the eyes of Elizabeth Bishop or Grace Paley. Free of jingoism but not of moral gravity, Forché’s work questions—when it does question—how to be or to become a thinking, caring, communicating adult … In In the Lateness of the World, one feels the poet cresting a wave—a new wave that will crash onto new lands and unexplored territories. To read the book straight through is to see connections between her earlier work and her new poems because, by looking at the world, she has made a world, one in which her past is as present as her future … as much as life takes, it gives, including the poet’s voice and its myriad possibilities, among them how to render silence.”

–Hilton Als ( The New Yorker )

6. Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan (FSG)

4 Rave • 5 Positive

Read a poem from Three Poems here

“Sullivan’s voice has a suppleness that canters within the formal constraints she imposes on it … she can be mischievous in her rhyming … At times it feels like it’s overreaching, taking in philosophical discussions of nothingness and Shelley’s ars poetica; but…it is always pulled back by Sullivan’s astonishing capacity for the seen, the telling analogy, or visual set-piece … Sullivan’s choice of register is one of her main assets … chatty and offhanded, while evoking both spring’s excess and a certain insubstantiality. She’s an exquisite image-maker and analogist … Sullivan never forgets to bring her celestial concerns down to the human scale.”

–Declan Ryan ( The New York Review of Books )

7. Obit by Victoria Chang (Copper Canyon Press)

3 Rave • 6 Positive • 1 Mixed

Read a poem from Obit here

“… remarkable … these obits take the genre in an entirely new direction—Chang inverts the impersonal third person perspective, creating a reliable/unreliable first-person speaker who mourns and commemorates the death of a variety of ideas, objects, emotions, and people … We know we are in the hands of a master. Restrictions in form can often lead to aesthetic and thematic liberation, and I was wholly engrossed by how much Chang accomplishes within the confines of the obituary’s obituary-ness—whether it’s the intense justified verticality to the use of dates, to the mix of objective and subjective intelligence … That these poems do such complete work with so few tools from the poetry toolbox is humbling. Each poem is a masterwork of compression and compassion … One of the many marvelous accomplishments of this book is how Chang makes private mourning and public mourning part of the same process.”

–Dean Radar ( The Kenyon Review )

8. Dearly by Margaret Atwood (Ecco)

6 Rave • 1 Mixed

Read a poem from Dearly here

“This collection of poems, her first in over 10 years, is a reckoning with the past that comes from a place of wisdom and control. Now 81, she harnesses the experience of a lifetime to assume a wry distance from her subjects—as if, in an astounding world, nothing could throw her off balance. This mastery, even at her most subversively fantastical, is part of what makes her an outstanding novelist. But poetry is different. Atwood is an undeceived poet and, even though the collection is full of pleasures, reading her work makes one consider the extent to which poetry is not only about truth but about the importance of being, at times, mercifully deceived—what Robert Lowell dubbed the ‘sanity of self-deception’.”

–Kate Kellaway ( The Observer )

9. Runaway by Jorie Graham (Ecco)

6 Rave • 1 Positive • 1 Pan

“She knows how to get your attention. As you move through the book…poems like ‘I’m Reading Your Mind’ and ‘Rail’ dare you not to get pulled into their riptides. From its opening page until its final lines, Graham’s 15th collection of poetry has the heightened urgency of a young writer’s debut. True to its title, it hurtles forward. Poems pour forth, frothing and pooling and threatening, at times, to overflow their banks … Runaway taps into a free-floating end-of-the-worldness (is there a German word for that?) that so many of us feel even if we can’t express it … Runaway feels as though it has been written for right now, especially as we find ourselves in the midst of a pandemic, but also for a target audience that might emerge 100 years on. You imagine someone in the future flipping through it, finding a record of a great unraveling, and spending hours trying to decipher it … the churn of Graham’s language settles into a benediction that couldn’t be clearer[.]”

–Jeff Gordinier ( The New York Times Book Review )

10. Still Life by Ciaran Carson (Wake Forest University Press)

4 Rave • 2 Positive

“ Still Life is a book written in full cognizance of the approach of death, and as such cannot help but wear a testamentary air. Yet freshness and surprise are central to its success … With Still Life , Carson has achieved the remarkable feat of closing his oeuvre with a book that recapitulates his previous creative chapters, while at the same time striking out in a new direction. It emerges from a lifelong passion for art, and a deep engagement with other ekphrastic poems across the Irish, British, American and French traditions … In the even-tempered poems of Still Life it is, perhaps surprisingly, flourishes of despair that are in short supply … An unexpected central role in Still Life goes to the vintage onyx pencil used by Carson to write his poems. Like Beckett’s Malone, Carson will often move between descriptions of his everyday routines and descriptions of the pencil as it commits them to paper. Sometimes, again in Beckettian style, this throws up narrative paradoxes, as when a poem in the present tense describes the breaking of a pencil nib, but the poem presses on regardless … Still Life is among Carson’s very best work, and anglophone poetry is immeasurably the poorer for his passing.”

–David Wheatly ( The Times Literary Supplement )

Our System: RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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Trish Hopkinson

A selfish poet, pr for poets - how can i get my book reviewed – guest blog post by jeannine hall gailey.

My new book from Two Sylvias Press, PR for Poets , is a guide for beginning to mid-career poets to learn how to build an audience and promote their books. Think of it as a guide to getting read.

People have asked me many times while doing talks on the subject, "How do I get my book reviewed?"

The book review process can seem mysterious - but as a poetry book reviewer myself for the last fifteen years, hopefully I can take some of the mystery out of the process.

First Steps

I usually talk first about building a poetry community way before your book comes out. That means things like, joining or starting a writing group, going to other people's book launches (and trying to learn from them), and'writing some book reviews yourself. It makes sense that you would start contributing to the literary world when you're starting to even think about having your own book come out. If you don't feel like putting in the work, well, how can you expect other writers to do so?

If you're worried about your book reviewing skills, every book reviewer has had to start somewhere, even the reviewers at The New York Times Review of Books and Poetry Magazine . I started out reviewing for NewPages.com, a venue friendly to new reviewers. I recommend that you read lots of literary magazines and online review outlets to see what kind of book reviews you like and what you aspire to, style-wise. I like The Rumpus , Rain Taxi , and many of the literary magazines that run reviews. I noticed that there was a formula you can follow in many of the big review outlets. Then, send out some queries to literary magazines that take book reviews. Sometimes you even get paid!

When the Book Comes Out

So, you've written a handful of book reviews yourself, you have built a solid poetry community for yourself, whether online or in real life. And now your book is about to come out. What now?

The first thing to do, if your publisher doesn't do it, is to build a review kit. This includes a review copy of the book, whether your publisher provided you hard copies or just a PDF of your book, plus a "one sheet" or "sell sheet" which includes your headshot and bio, a few blurbs, all info about your book such as ISBN, price, and publisher, and a little paragraph summarizing your book. Including visuals like your book cover and your author photo is a good way to get attention. This is also great to have on hand to hand out to bookstores when you stop by and ask if they might be interested in stocking your book.

If you've built some good karma by reviewing books, it never hurts to reach out to a few contacts and ask if they might be interested in reviewing your book. You probably won't get a ton of review copies from your publisher (most poetry publishers might be up to provide ten to twenty) so ask for a PDF version of your book (called an e-version or e-copy) you can send out. You might send your book postcards to interested reviewers and put a note - "Let me know if I can send you a review copy!" and your e-mail address.

Another good resource? Literary magazines that have published work that's in the book may be interested in reviewing it. This has happened for me a few times. So, write a note to the review editor (if there is one) or the managing editor and see if they are interested.

I don't recommend blindly sending out your scarce author copies - always ask first, because lit mags (and reviewers) get overwhelmed with book copies and often know they won't be able to review even a fifth of what they receive. Don't feel bad - this is because so many books come out each quarter, and a literary reviewer has a fixed about of space in a column or time to write reviews (which takes away, usually, from their own creative writing).

If you're really into social media, you can always put out a call on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or Instagram and see if you can find people who might be interested in giving you a review in exchange for an e-copy of the book, even just on Amazon or Goodreads. Any goodwill you've built with other writers and reviewers will benefit you now!

Paid Services for Reviews

It might feel distasteful, but there are several paid services that can help you get reviews for your book. Are they worth the money? Really, only you can decide, but I've given a short analysis below.

There's a service called NetGalley where you or your publisher can post an electronic copy of your book and any interested reviewers can download it for free. However, the service is expensive and the reviewers usually aren't poetry-focused, so it's hit and miss for us poetry-types.

Kirkus Reviews also allows you to purchase a review, but there's no guarantee that the review will be positive, and again, it's expensive.

You might also consider doing a virtual book blog tour. Sometimes you pay for this service, in which different blogs might host you and your book for an interview or a guest post, but it often results in some surprisingly thoughtful reviews that you didn't expect.  Sometimes people with book blogs will reach out to you outside of a book blog tour. Take advantage of this.

For most poetry books, the timeline to get your reviews might seem awfully slow. I notice reviews can roll in for about 12 months after publication, usually, because the cycles of literary magazines are often quarterly or even bi-yearly. Don't stress out if you don't have twenty reviews within the first six months - that is normal for poetry books.

But, if you want to get a jump on reviews, send out your advance PDF and sell sheets as soon as you can before publication. Some review publications (like Publishers Weekly ) can require a six-month lead time!

Your Publisher is Your Partner

Also, don't forget to talk to your publishers about places they've places reviews, or connections they might have to review outlets or reviewers. They are your partners! They may have resources you don't know about, or might be so encouraged by an author who wants to help that they will give you great ideas.

I hope this has been helpful to people who wonder about the process of getting their book reviewed. For more in-depth information about promoting your poetry book, please check out my book, PR for Poets !

Links to order the book from Two Sylvias and Amazon:

PR for Poets by Jeannine Hall Gailey on Two Sylvias Press

PR for Poets by Jeannine Hall Gailey on Amazon

Do you have something say about poetry? An essay on being a poet, tips for poets, or poetry you love? TrishHopkinson.com is now accepting pitches for guest blog posts.  Contact me here if you are interested! 

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Categories: Guest Blog Posts , Poetry Reviews , Self-taught MFA

Tagged as: Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship , guest blog post , Jeannine Hall Gailey , Poetry Book Reviews , poetry tips , poets with disabilities , PR for poets , Two Sylvias Press

4 replies »

• Pingback: How to Get Your Book Reviewed, Living in Hospitals, and Hoping for Better @ Webbish6

This is an excellent article and very comprehensive. Team Golfwell does free book reviews > https://www.teamgolfwell.com/free-book-reviews.html #amwriting #amediting

• Pingback: PR for Poets - How Do I Promote My Books During a Pandemic? – guest blog post by Jeannine Hall Gailey – Trish Hopkinson

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