Poetry makes the best gift. I promise. Here are some of my favorite gifts for the reader in your life that has probably read everything.

The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove

This cloth-bound book looks great on the shelf, and is a great compilation of the last 100 years of poetry.

“Here are the poems I see emblazoned on pennants along the road we have just traversed, my selection from the poetry that accompanied America through the last century, interpolated with the times in which they were forged and upon which they exerted their spirit. This is the proper moment to look back–after the first decade of the twenty-first century has given us the illusion of distance, after we have rocnciled ourselves to owning this scary new millennium by looking forward we’ve begun to forget. The past is never more truly the past than now.” –Rita Dove in the introduction

She Walks in Beauty: A Woman’s Journey Through Poems, selected by Caroline Kennedy

This book is a great gift for Moms, Daughters, and Daughters that are going to be Moms. The poems are divided into categories (Falling in Love, Marriage, Growing up and Growing Old, etc.) so you can read them as you go.

Pablo Neruda: Absence and Presence, Luis Poirot

Published after Pablo Neruda’s death, this book combines black and white photographs of Pablo and Matilde’s home in Isla Negra, as well as remembrances from his friends and fellow writers.

Love Poems, Pablo Neruda

Pablo Neruda’s love poems are uniquely tender and give a vibrant and complex love explanation in verse.

In the night we shall go in

to steal

a flowering branch.

We shall climb over the wall

in the darkness of a private garden,

two shadows in the shadow.

–from The Stolen Branch

 Birds, Beasts, and Seas: Nature Poems from New Directions, Edited by Jeffrey Yang

If you like Mary Oliver, (she has a new book out this year, by the way. You can read about it here.) then you will love this collection. Spanning centuries of poetry, these poems are easy to pick up and read in any order. A great addition to the stack of books beside your favorite reading chair.

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