The best poetry collections of 2023

Over the centuries, poets from Geoffrey Chaucer to T.S. Eliot have made April their muse. Nicholson’s crafty collection reclaims National Poetry Month for a timely — and timeless — feminist art. “When I learned the big words/ Like primogeniture, eschatology, and love,” Nicholson writes, “I became a person/ Aghast at midnight.” Her beautifully broken lines mark the life and times of “a person who grew to hate/ The sweet flower of April.”