Let's be honest -- you either admire Jorie Graham's poetry or you avoid the poetry section altogether, right? Well, there are some middle-of-the road folks who may be interested in embarking on a tentative relationship with Graham. Sea Change is definitely worth diving into for a closer look at Graham's linguistic backstrokes.

Jorie Graham's latest book of sometimes searing poetry (one poem begins with a "cadaver beginning to show through the skin of the day") will capture your attention. The title poem, which dwells on "the unknown future" is not the most engaging poem, but it shocks readers out of complacency and into a world where all safety is submerged. This is not necessarily a new idea. Permanence, after all, was never promised.

"The desire to imagine/ the future" runs through one of my favorite poems in Sea Change. "Root End" towards the end of the book delves into the possibility of language and life:

what is this growing inside of me, using me -- such that the
wind can no longer blow through me -- such that the dream in me grows cellular, then
muscular, my eyes red, my birth a thing I convey
beautifully
down this spiral staircase
made of words, made of
nothing but words --

Knowing that nothing is promised is one of the undercurrents of this work. The trick is to go on trusting in imagination and calm. As always, Jorie Graham manages to keep faithful readers enraptured by this delicate trust.

The nation's capital is normally crawling with policy analysts, journalists and Mid-Western tourists this time of the year, but there were hundreds of poets in town last week for the Split this Rock Poetry Festival. Sonia Sanchez, Mark Doty, Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, E. Ethelbert Miller, and Naomi Shihab Nye among others celebrated poetry at venues throughout the city.

So, I finally have an excuse to write about one of those legendary, life-changing poets: Naomi Shihab Nye.

"Honeybee" is a collection of 82 poems for young readers. Shihab Nye's words are never bland or too chewy. The young reader in your life will enjoy the subtle flavors and images in this recently published work. As always, Shihab Nye's poetry is also sprinkled with food for thought, which will enliven your little reader's imagination.

This year also marks the tenth anniversary of Shihab Nye's "Fuel" which includes this gem:

Hidden

If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it

If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood

Sigh

the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.

No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.

Poetry is always worth celebrating. Naomi Shihab Nye is one of those poets you keep turning to in every era of your life. So, pick up a copy of "Honeybee" for your favorite young person and initiate a lifetime of poetry thrill. Or give a copy of "Fuel" to a special friend.

So this blogging thing is still new to me. I just penned a rather extensive blog entry about Matthea Harvey and lost it to a computer glitch. When my neighbor kindly lets me "steal" his Internet connection, I normally just check the weather report or read my hometown newspaper. No one told me that some blogs get lost in cyberspace and never appear on the webpage. Fortunately, for moments such as this, Matthea Harvey's poetry reminds 21st century readers that missed connections can offer an opportunity to be more in-tune with life's music.

"Modern Life" by Matthea Harvey is a collection of poems about — well, modern life. The imagined world Harvey writes is stark and heavy. It isn't exactly a wasteland tour, but Harvey's poems offer an exploration of the recovered dreams we glimpse in puddles. Her poetry conjures up a world where items created for our ease rarely work.

Consider one of my favorites from "Modern Life":

Out of Order

Today it's about truth and hope
and there are no ha-ha's
between me and the living.
World, I'm no one
to complain about you.

Harvey, a professor at Sarah Lawrence College, shares lessons on navigating modernity's trapdoors and repairing broken links. I hope you enjoy this book of poems.

Moving beyond identity, embracing his Ibo and Chinese names, Afaa Michael Weaver's poems are sturdy and direct. He achieves the rare exception in American poetry by returning to Whitman, toward the self, to permeate the spirit and to see God.

"The Plum Flower Dance: Poems 1985 to 2005" include Self Portrait, which really isn't about the self at all. In this poem, the speaker proclaims:

I never inspect the withered assumption
of my face's petty dialogue in raindrops,
the deceptive spreading of the words
oozing from the skin to the edges of water
etched on the ground by gravity and wishing.

If you haven't read Weaver's work, then you're missing out on an opportunity to see the world differently, by looking at your own life more closely to see the lingering influence of absolute goodness.

For poetry that rejects timidity, flirts with outrage and embraces the deep laughter heard in industrial kitchens, used car garages and underused libraries -- The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni is an indispensable guidebook.

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni includes '60s movement poetry as well as odes to artists, dusty porches and the blues. Giovanni's melodic poetry -- sometimes smooth, sometimes skittish -- is always adventurous. She is an authoritative poet who is unafraid to marry cultural sentiment with her art.

My favorite Giovanni poems challenge the reader to consider the implications of choice in our lives:

if I can't do
what I want to do
then my job is to not
do what I don't want
to do

She builds a wall between herself and petty excuses not to live on her own terms. The Collected Poems of Nikki Giovanni just might be the perfect way to feel emboldened throughout your day.