Poetry

Want to find more?

You can use genre or subject terms (subject headings) to search for the genres and topics you are interested in in Sofia. The simplest way to find more poetry is to click on one of the books below, and then use the subject links to find other, similar items in our collection.

Or, use the links below to be taken directly to a custom, pre-made search.

Canadian poetry

LGBTQ+ poetry

Indigenous poetry

African American poetry

Some recommendations

The Ruined Elegance by Fiona Sze-Lorrain (2016)

Print book
Call number: PS 3619 Z44A6 2016 (Webster Library)

Summary: In her new collection, Fiona Sze-Lorrain offers a nuanced yet dynamic vision of humanity marked by perils, surprises, and the transcendence of a "ruined elegance." Through an intercultural journey that traces lives, encounters, exiles, and memories from France, America, and Asia, the poet explores a rich array of historical and literary allusions to European masters, Asian sources, and American influences. With candor and humor, each lyrical foray is sensitive to silence and experience: "I want to honor / the invisible. I'll use the fog to see white peaches.

The Woman I Am by Dorothy Livesay (1991)

Print book
Call number: PS 8523 I94W65X 1991 (Vanier Library)

Summary: Spanning fifty years, these poems of love, sexuality, motherhood, loneliness, old age, and death are culled from the lifetime of Dorothy Livesay's expression of the woman she is. Dorothy Livesay was born in 1909.Twice winner of the Governor General's Award for poetry, she received several honorary degrees and awards. She was made an Office of the Order of Canada in 1987. She passed away in 1996.

Olio by Tyehimba Jess (2016)

Print book
Call number: PS 3610 E874 A6 2016 (Webster Library)

Summary: With ambitious manipulations of poetic forms, Tyehimba Jess presents the sweat and story behind America's blues, worksongs and church hymns. Part fact, part fiction, Jess's much anticipated second book weaves sonnet, song, and narrative to examine the lives of mostly unrecorded African American performers directly before and after the Civil War up to World War I. Olio is an effort to understand how they met, resisted, complicated, co-opted, and sometimes defeated attempts to minstrelize them.

Book cover for The complete poems of Cavafy

The Complete Poems of Cavafy by Constantine Cavafy (author) and Rae Dalven (translator) (1976)

Print book
Call number: PA 5610 K2A23 1976 (Vanier Library)

Summary: Cavafy, the foremost modern Greek poet, is a master at presenting a scene, an intense feeling, or an idea in direct, unornamented verse. Many of the poems are openly homosexual. Sixty-three newly translated poems have been added to the widely praised edition which includes the classic poem "Ithaca."

Book cover for A place called no homeland

A Place Called No Homeland by Kai Cheng Thom (2017)

Print book
Call number: PS 8639 H559 P63 2017 (Webster Library)

Summary: In these fierce yet tender narrative poems, Kai Cheng Thom draws equally from memory and mythology to create new maps of gender, race, sexuality, and violence.