Essential Poems

Celebrate National Poetry Month with a selection of iconic poems by ten American writers. This sampler includes poems from controversial Pulitzer Prize winner John Ashbery, Spokane writer Sherman Alexie, feminist activist Robin Morgan, and poet laureates Luis J. Rodríguez and Carol Muske-Dukes, among others.

If you enjoyed a particular poet, we encourage you to visit http://bit.ly/1xG0j7l to read the full-length collections.

“Ashbery may be poetry’s first skeptical revolutionary. He is the first poet to achieve something utterly new by completely doubting the possibility—and the value—of capturing what the lyric poem has traditionally tried to capture: a crystallization of a moment in time, an epiphanic realization—what Wordsworth called ‘spots of time.’” —Megan O’Rourke, Salon, on Rivers and Mountains by John Ashbery

“[These poems] establish Morgan as a poet of considerable means. There is a savage elegance, a richness of vocabulary, a thrust and steely polish. . . . A powerful, challenging book.” —Adrienne Rich on Monster by Robin Morgan

“This poetry is of the barrio yet stubbornly refuses to be confined in it—Rodríguez’s perceptive gaze and storyteller’s gift transport his world across neighborhood boundaries.” —Publishers Weekly on The Concrete River by Luis J. Rodriguez

Please note that this sampler is exclusively for NetGalley members, and is not available from retailers.

It is intended for educators, librarians, booksellers, media, and reviewers to dive into a variety of poets whose ebooks are published by Open Road Media. Please reach out to us for additional information or review copies for any of the individual poets featured in this sampler.