Oprah Magazine Selects Wondrous Poetry for Best Books of 2020

The year-end lists are coming! Among the first is O, The Oprah Magazine's "Best Books of 2020," handpicked by editors and including "wondrous poetry that rabble-rouses or prompts stillness and awe." For example:

African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle & Song ed. by Kevin Young

This monumental volume, assembled by the poet and newly appointed director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, is long overdue. It opens with verse, first published in 1773, by Phillis Wheatley, who was sent to America via the Middle Passage and enslaved yet went on to learn English and commence the African American poetic tradition. The late June Jordan described the proliferation of Black poetry in America as “the difficult miracle,” and that miracle receives glorious tribute here.

Just Us by Claudia Rankine

George Floyd’s murder—on top of so many others, before and since—has forced a reckoning, and the new book by the poet, playwright, and MacArthur “genius” grant recipient provides a road map for the essential conversations that now need to transpire. Rankine’s multilayered, multidisciplinary work embraces divisiveness as an opportunity to explore our differences and recognize our similarities. Through essays, poems, images, and records of chats with, say, white male airline passengers in first class, there emerges an unexpected intimacy and the message that, yes, we’re all in this together. Read our interview with Rankine.

Check out their picks for "prescient, perspective-altering nonfiction" and "13 transporting, captivating novels" right here.