The Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé

Written by: Morgan Parker

First line: I am free with the following conditions.

Why you should read this book: This poetry is powerful and confrontational, forcing the reader to consider the world, and specifically race and sexuality, from multiple unrelenting points of view. Up-to-the-minute modern and uncompromisingly feminist, the book tightly corrals language into beautiful and acrobatic formations to demonstrate joy, pain, frustration, rage, hope, determination, and, over and over again, the place of Beyoncé in American culture. I don't read a lot of poetry and can't really critique it the way I can prose, but I can say that the way the words are strung together in this collection is intense and evocative, creating strong and meaningful images and allowing the reader a new window on the world.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're not impressed with Beyoncé.