13 well-versed collections by Atlantans to celebrate National Poetry Month

W.J. Lofton, “boy maybe” (2025)

In W.J. Lofton’s third poetry collection, “boy maybe,” 51 Harlem Renaissance-influenced poems investigate his Black, queer Southern identity through meditations on food, music, romance and social justice. The Chicago-born poet and Atlanta resident portrays everyday pleasures and fears, constructing poems that connect with readers through quotidian experiences and homages to Black figures such as Kendrick Lamar, Breonna Taylor and Richard Pryor. Lofton has received fellowships from the Brooklyn-based literary organization Cave Canem and Emory University.

Lauren K. Watel, “Book of Potions” (2025)

Decatur poet Lauren K. Watel combines poetry and fiction into what she calls “potions” in this vivid, nostalgic hybrid collection. ”Book of Potions” won the Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry, and the debut’s unique form of lyric narrative vignettes was devised, according to the poet’s website, “out of (Watel’s) desperation to free herself.” Depicting midlife womanhood, Watel’s “potions” portray a range of emotions and tones, from funny to observant, delightful, magical and aggrieved.

Beth Gylys, “After My Father: A Book of Odes” (2024)

Beth Gylys’ chapbook, ”After My Father: A Book of Odes,” explores the deterioration and death of her father in a series of nine odes framed by two lyric poems. Her seventh book of poetry, “After My Father,” traces the everyday habits and personhood of the poet’s clearly beloved parent alongside his gradual aging and decline, balancing her admiration for her father with the increasing indignities of old age. Gylys teaches poetry at Georgia State University.

Credit: Photo courtesy of BOA Editions, Ltd.

Credit: Photo courtesy of BOA Editions, Ltd.

Danielle Cadena Deulen, “Desire Museum” (2023)

”Desire Museum,” Danielle Cadena Deulen’s second full-length poetry collection, is divided into four thematically linked sections that explore different aspects of desire. Through depictions of sapphic love, motherhood, geopolitical strife, the climate crisis and trauma, the poems in this collection, winner of a 2024 Lambda Literary Award, consider women’s numerous roles and desires. Deulen teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Georgia State University.

Gregory Emilio, “Kitchen Apocrypha” (2024)

California-to-Atlanta transplant Gregory Emilio leveraged his experience in the food service industry in his debut poetry collection, “Kitchen Apocrypha.” The poet considers humanity’s desires for love, understanding, comfort and spiritual fulfillment through the universal experience of hunger. Everyday needs and experiences are magnified in this reflective, sensuous collection. Emilio is the executive director of the Georgia Writers Association and teaches at Kennesaw State University.

Julia Caroline Knowlton, “Life of the Mind” (2023)

”Life of the Mind,” Julia Caroline Knowlton’s third full-length collection, features short, visceral poems that explore heartache, longing and rebirth through both the body and the intellect. At turns humorous and reflective, Knowlton’s lyric poems make pleasurable use of her observational and inventive skill in vivid, meticulous detail. A 2018 Georgia Author of the Year, Knowlton teaches French at Agnes Scott College.

Jenny Sadre-Orafai, “Dear Outsiders” (2023)

Jenny Sadre-Orafai’s ”Dear Outsiders” is a collection of prose poems following a pair of siblings from their idyllic coastal childhood to the landlocked farm country where they land after the death of their parents. Through vivid characters and a compelling plot, the author’s lyric prose poems portray the sensual pleasures of the siblings’ life by the ocean in stark contrast to their grief and displacement after they are orphaned. Sadre-Orafai is a co-founder and editor of Josephine Quarterly and teaches English at Kennesaw State University.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Saturnalia Books

Credit: Photo courtesy of Saturnalia Books

Andrea Jurjević, “In Another Country” (2024)

Croatian-born Andrea Jurjević moved to the United States in the late 1990s, but the lingering memory of her homeland is suffused throughout her second full-length collection, ”In Another Country,” which won the 2022 Saturnalia Books Prize. The collection conveys the sense of existing between countries, balancing languages, histories, geographies and cultures that overlay the poet’s Balkan beginnings atop her American present without privileging either over the other. Jurjević teaches in Georgia State University’s English department.

Elizabeth Cranford Garcia, “Resurrected Body” (2023)

“Resurrected Body,” Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s debut collection of poetry, won the 2023 Cider Press Review Editors’ Prize Book Award. The pieces within investigate the well-trod poetic ground of motherhood without feeling stale or rote. With humor and vibrant detail, Garcia’s fresh observations of motherhood question identity, cultural expectations and autonomy from the perspective of both mother and child. She is a Ph.D. student at Georgia State University.

Elly Bookman, “Love Sick Century” (2024)

Atlanta native Elly Bookman’s debut collection, ”Love Sick Century,” portrays the early 21st century’s ubiquitous anxiety and sense of doom with sensitivity and humanity. Bookman considers the heartbreaking hypnotism of war, late capitalism, gun violence and sexual violence that many people living in this century experience without losing sight of the beauty and empathy that make it worth continuing. She is a teacher at the Paideia School.

Credit: Photo courtesy of Poetry Atlanta Press

Credit: Photo courtesy of Poetry Atlanta Press

Collin Kelley, “Wonder & Wreckage: New & Selected Poems, 1993-2023″ (2024)

Collin Kelley’s seventh poetry collection, “Wonder & Wreckage,” encompasses 30 years of work. The narrative poems in this book examine the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and ‘90s through the lens of film and pop culture. Kelley is a former Georgia Author of the Year honoree and frequent collaborator at the Georgia Center for the Book.

Elizabeth Michaud, “The Bones in the Garden (and other things found there)” (2024)

“The Bones in the Garden,” Elizabeth Michaud’s second collection, centers around both the love and horror of Black history and experience. It utilizes narrative to portray the lingering wounds of slavery, mixing folklore and fact, magic and history to weave a complex portrait of collective pain and the redemptive power of human connection. It won the 2024 American Writing Awards for Poetry. Michaud lives in Atlanta, where she teaches French.

Olatunde Osinaike, “Tender Headed” (2023)

Nigerian American poet Olatunde Osinaike’s ”Tender Headed” was selected for the 2022 National Poetry Series by Camille Rankine, who called the collection “a two-step on a tightwire.” The collection considers narratives of Black masculinity, identity and language with lively, inventive lyricism. Osinaike lives in Atlanta and works as a software developer.

Credit: ArtsATL

Credit: ArtsATL

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