THINGS YOU MAY FIND HIDDEN IN MY EAR: Poems from Gaza, by Mosab Abu Toha. (City Lights, paper, $11.17.) Abu Toha’s successful debut, written from his native Gaza, contrasts scenes of political violence with natural beauty: in one poem, a “nightingale leaves the wet earth” two stanzas for the “sound of a drone / intrudes.”
THRESH & KEEP, by Marlanda Dekine. (Hub City, paper, $16.) As a member of South Carolina’s Gullah Geechee community whose enslaved ancestors harvested rice, Dekine honors their legacy in this rousing debut: “I tell all my dead to let go.”
PALM-LINED WITH POTIENCE, by Basie Allen. (Ugly Duckling, paper, $14.40.) A painter as well as a poet, Allen brings the eye of an artist and the soul of a rebel in these rambling poems set largely in New York City, where “police areas must flourish / in epicenters of art movements.”
KAIN NAMED THE ANIMAL, by Shane McCrae. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) McCrae’s eighth collection expands his interest in a history rooted in Christian myth and toxic power dynamics. In the poem from which the book takes its title, Adam’s God-given rulership over the animals means that “the killing was / as prayer for him.”
WOMAN, EAT ME WHOLE: Poems, by Ama Asantewa Diaka. (Ecco, $25.99.) “Act 1, Scene 1 / Enter woman.” Thus begins the first poem of this daring debut, a tribute to Ghanaian freedom fighter Ama Nkrumah, introducing many of the book’s exciting themes: femininity, activism and Ghanaian history.
ZOOM ROOMS: Poems, by Mary Jo Salter. (Knopf, $28.) Salter’s ninth collection of poems looks straight to the present, from the biting opener (“Your Session Has Timed Out”) to the central series of sonnets devoted to Zoom meetings.
FIGHTING IS LIKE A WOMAN, by Eloisa Amezcua. (Coffee House, paper, $16.95.) Through formally varied poems about real-life featherweight boxer Bobby Chacon and his wife, Amezcua’s second collection explores notions of violence, sports, marriage and gender roles.
A LAND OF FOREIGNERS: new and selected poems, by D. Nurkse. (Knopf, $35.) This voluminous book collects work from Nurske’s 35-year career to prove that he is quietly one of our most committed citizen poets, even as he honors inner lives and emotional complexity.