The best poetry books of 2025
From Seamus Heaney’s collected poems and Simon Armitage’s animal spirits, to prizewinners Karen Solie and Vidyan Ravinthiran
Poem of the week: Rich and Poor, or Saint and Sinner by Thomas Love Peacock
A sharply satirical attack on unevenly applied 19th-century laws to enforce religious observance still bites today
The Rot by Evelyn Araluen review – headlong language and bitter truths imbued with tenderness
Award-winning poet offers seductive beauty, deadly analyses, desolations and joys in the follow-up to her acclaimed debut Dropbear
Poem of the week: Missing You by Miles Burrows
The moon becomes the witty image of an isolated and contemptuously neglected elderly relation
Poem of the week: Now winter nights … by Thomas Campion
A song to the consolations of winter is delivered with the grace and precision typical of this intellectually ambitious poet
‘A girl of genius’: archives unsealed of Amy Levy, queer Jewish writer admired by Oscar Wilde
Levy’s work was ‘ahead of her time’ and speaks to current debate around feminism, LGBTQ+ literature and Jewish identity, say researchers
Poem of the week: Leaves by Frederic Manning
A landscape of illusory peace is depicted just before the guns of battle reach it in the first world war
Bread of Angels: A Memoir, by Patti Smith review – a wild ride with the poet of punk
Smith’s incantatory voice shines through in this surprisingly revelatory follow up to Just Kids and M Train
‘Ambition is a punishing sphere for women’: author Maggie Nelson on why Taylor Swift is the Sylvia Plath of her generation
What do Swift and Plath have in common, and should Kamala Harris have spoken out about her political ambitions? The Argonauts author turns her lens on poetry, pop and patriarchy
Mushroom tapes, erotic Greek myths and joyful Thai cooking: the best Australian books out in November
Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on
Poem of the week: Simile by Éireann Lorsung
An elegant reflection on experience and imagination complicates a very familiar figure of speech
UN expert urged to investigate Lebanon over alleged torture of Egyptian-Turkish poet
Abdulrahman al-Qaradawi has been imprisoned in the UAE for almost a year for criticising Emirati, Egyptian and Saudi governments
The best recent poetry – review roundup
Namanlagh by Tom Paulin; Foretokens by Sarah Howe; Maryville by Joelle Taylor; Hekate by Nikita Gill; Goatsong by Phoebe Giannisi
Where to start with: Paul Bailey
The novelist and poet, who died a year ago, left a huge body of work distinguished by its melancholy wit and warmth. These are some of the highlights
WH Auden formed ‘intense friendship’ with sex worker who burgled him, unseen letters reveal
Exclusive: The newly released correspondence reveals how a strong bond developed between the Funeral Blues poet and the sex worker who broke into his home