Tonguebreaker by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
This is one of the most important poetry collections about disability and chronic illness that I have read. Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha integrates her own activism, illness, and community practice into her poems.
I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom
This book is a hybrid essay/poetry collection and I would say that it is an absolute must read for anyone involved in social justice work.
Stay, Illusion: Poems by Lucie Brock-Broido
I read this collection in one sitting and it truly blew me away. Brock-Broido had already passed away by the time I read her collection, but I’ve been reading her other books because they are stunning.
ʔbédayine by Kaitlyn Purcell
This book isn’t strictly poetry but it’s an incredibly poetic novella by the winner of the 2018 Metatron Prize for Rising Authors. Purcell’s book is small, but it definitely stayed with me.
Hustling Verse: An Anthology of Sex Workers’ Poetry edited by Amber Dawn and Justin DuCharme
This anthology is so brilliant because these poets share their lived experience in the sex work industry and they write their own stories which are so often written for them in popular media.
Amy LeBlanc is an MA student in English and creative writing at the University of Calgary. Her debut poetry collection, “I know something you don’t know” was published with Gordon Hill Press in March 2020. She is currently non-fiction editor at filling Station Magazine. Her work can be found in PRISM International, Room, and The Literary Review of Canada, among others.