A Way with Words - Poetry, Novel in Verse

The authors of these novels or poetry collections have chosen their words carefully and wisely. (Don't all authors though?) Certainly poems use a minimum of words to convey feelings and ideas when compared to a full-length novel. Novels in verse employ techniques of poetry in the form and story arc of a novel to tell a story. 

To round out this updated list, we've included novels & essays (even a shelf-help book) written by poets plus novels & biographies about poets.


An American Sunrise

by Joy Harjo


And We Came Outside And Saw The Stars Again

by Ilan Stavans


Autobiography of Red: a novel in verse

by Anne Carson




Black Dog of Fate

by Peter Balakian


By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept

by Elizabeth Smart


Call Us What We Carry

by Amanda Gorman




The Complete Memoirs

by Pablo Neruda




Every Day We Get More Illegal

by Juan Felipe Herrera


Feel Your Way Through

by Kelsea Ballerini


The Flying Mountain

by Christoph Ransmayr


The Golden Gate: a novel in verse

by Vikram Seth




The Hill We Climb

by Amanda Gorman


Here Is The Beehive

by Sarah Crossan


The How: the great work of meeting yourself

by Yrsa Daley-Ward


How To Fly In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons

by Barbara Kingsolver


Howl and other Poems

by Allen Ginsberg


The Hunchback Of Neiman Marcus

by Sonya Sones


The Leaves of Grass

by Walt Whitman


Leaving The Atocha Station

by Ben Lerner


The Lehman Trilogy

by Stefano Massini


Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish

by David Rakoff


The Life And Zen Haiku Poetry Of Santoka Taneda

by Sumita Oyama




Notes on the Assemblage

by Juan Felipe Herrera


Paterson

by William Carlos Williams




Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart

by Alice Walker


That Was Now This Is Then

by Vijay Seshadri


A Thousand Mornings

by Mary Oliver


Two Way Mirror

by Fiona Sampson


Under the Wide and Starry Sky

by Nancy Horan