Small Press, Big Impact
Poetry Books Great with Coffee.
This is an evolving list of poetry books that deserve a seat at the table, the kind that make you pause between sips, underline a line, or stare out the window just a little longer. Poetry books come in many forms: micro-collections (5–15 pages), chapbooks (15–40 pages), and full-length collections (40+ pages)—all bitesize compared to most books—small but potent, and the perfect literary companion to your morning ritual.
2025 Recommendations
MAY’S PICK
Good Girl and Other Yearnings – Isabelle Correa
Published by Write Bloody Publishing (April 18, 2025)
“To travel back in time and tell their younger selves the real difference between lust and love is that love is a seed and lust is a bird ravenous for seeds.” —Girls Only Want One Thing.
This debut is a poetic excavation of identity, trauma, and tenderness, where the body becomes archive of both inquiry and answer. These poems span girlhood, grief, memory, desire, and reclamation, blending the surreal and the confessional with a voice that’s both vulnerable and razor-sharp. Correa bends narrative, myth, and the language of healing into something wholly her own.
“I know a tree is a wound
of the earth. I know a wound is an act
of remembrance.”“A poem is a place / I go. It's safe / like an ambulance / is safe. / You being / inside / means / you're already hurt."
This is poetry that knows how to carry pain without glorifying it, and how to name hope without erasing struggle that came before. Correa writes like someone who’s survived and speaks with ownership.
Pairs well with: A lavender oat milk latte—comforting, floral, and quietly subversive. At just over 100 pages, Good Girl and Other Yearnings is a weighty yet luminous read.
Purchase Link:
You can purchase Good Girl and Other Yearnings from Amazon:
🔗 Good Girl and Other Yearnings by Isabelle Correa
Or directly from the publisher at Write Bloody:
🔗 Write Bloody Publishing
Buying directly supports independent poetry presses and helps ensure more books like this reach the world.
APRIL’S PICK
Fruitful – Stefanie Kirby
Winner of the 2023 Adrift Chapbook Contest
Stefanie Kirby's Fruitful is a poignant exploration of motherhood, pregnancy, and loss. This chapbook delves into the complexities of raising children during a pregnancy and the subsequent experience of miscarriage. Kirby's poems are known for their surreal and artful compactness, capturing profound emotions with striking imagery.
At 52 pages, Fruitful offers a deeply immersive reading experience that resonates long after the final poem. It's an ideal companion for a slow morning, inviting readers to navigate the delicate intersections of joy and sorrow.
☕ Pairs well with: A gentle chamomile tea, offering warmth and solace to complement the chapbook's introspective journey.
Purchase Link:
You can purchase Fruitful directly from Driftwood Press: 🔗 Fruitful by Stefanie Kirby
MARCH’S PICK
If This Is the Age We End Discovery – Rosebud Ben-Oni
Winner of the 2019 Alice James Award
Rosebud Ben-Oni's If This Is the Age We End Discovery masterfully intertwines intimate human conditions with the grand cosmos, offering a poetic exploration where science meets personal narrative. This collection navigates the boundaries of theoretical physics and Jewish mysticism. Ben-Oni introduces the concept of "Efes," a term rooted in Modern Hebrew meaning "zero," but also signifying "nullification" and "concealment" in mystical texts. This notion becomes a transformative force throughout the collection, prompting contemplation on existence and the unknown.
The poems are precisely crafted, moving through multiverses of family, religion, and discovery, much like a surgeon sewing a complicated stitch. At 100 pages, If This Is the Age We End Discovery is a substantial read that invites deep reflection. It's an ideal companion for a contemplative morning, offering a fusion of scientific curiosity and poetic insight.
Purchase Link:
You can purchase If This Is the Age We End Discovery directly from Bookshop.org
🔗 If This Is the Age We End Discovery by Rosebud Ben-Oni
FEBRUARY’S PICK
You Should Feel Bad – Laura Cresté
Winner of the 2019 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship
Some poems arrive like a whisper; others hit like a gut punch. Laura Cresté’s You Should Feel Bad does both, threading the delicate with the devastating, the personal with the universal. This chapbook plays in emotion like a toddler left alone with a bucket of paint—it spreads it out, presses into it, lingers in feeling until something startling surfaces.
Stephanie Burt describes Cresté’s poetry as the kind that makes you pause—on first read, you might wonder, “What just happened?” and on the second, “Oh. Yes.” That’s the magic here: an emotional terrain that shifts upon return, poems that hold nostalgia, fear, reassurance—sometimes all at once.
“I thought I wanted to be in love but really / I wanted something to do with my hands.”
This is the kind of line that stops you mid-sip. It captures the longing for longing itself. It’s in this precise, deliberate way that Cresté dissects intimacy, expectation, and self-perception—not with grand gestures, but with the quiet precision of a scalpel.
At just 16 poems, You Should Feel Bad is a brief but potent read—one that will make you want to return, reread, and reconsider. It’s the perfect companion for a slow morning, when you want something that lingers long after the last sip. Pairs well with: A strong pour-over, no sugar. The kind that sharpens the edges just enough.
Purchase Link:
You can purchase You Should Feel Bad directly from the Poetry Society of America’s website, and know you’re supporting both the poet and the organization that champions works like these. 🔗 You Should Feel Bad by Laura Cresté
JANUARY’S PICK
Girl at the End of the World – Erin Carlyle
Published by Driftwood Press
This poetry book is a haunting exploration of loss, identity, and place, unearthing the raw edges of personal and generational trauma while weaving in moments of quiet magic. At its core, Carlyle’s collection chronicles the aftermath of her father’s death, yet it resists the ordinary confines of grief poetry. Instead, these poems bend reality, embracing the surreal and the mythical—ghosts slip between lines and sorrow transforms into something luminous.
In "Opioid Crisis," Carlyle reflects on her father’s struggles, painting images that feel both deeply personal and universally resonant. Her poetry reshapes loss, reimagines it, and leaves space for the supernatural to blur with the everyday.
At 96 pages, Girl at the End of the World is a more of a slow burn—one that invites contemplation, rereading, and a slow absorption of its beauty and ache. It’s a book for those who like their poetry with a touch of the otherworldly, where grief and magic coexist in quiet, unsettling ways.
Pairs well with: A rich, dark roast coffee—something bold to match the depth and lingering mysticism of Carlyle’s poetry.
Purchase Link:
You can purchase Girl at the End of the World directly from Driftwood Press: Girl at the End of the World by Erin Carlyle
POEtic Threads!
For those of us who live in words, edit with caffeine, and revise until our eyelids stick to our scleras. POEtic Threads focuses on comfortable, wearable pieces, that nod to the writing life: for when you’re deep in the draft trenches, heading to a reading/book club, or just want to be cozy.
