Best of 2020-2021: Favorite Poems Published Online

Continuing with our series of “Best of 2020-2021” lists curated by the entire Entropy community, we present some of our favorite selections as nominated by the diverse staff and team here at Entropy, as well as thousands of nominations from our readers. The lists this year are especially meaningful as they mark the final time we’ll be doing them, and some of the last content that will be going up on the website. (Read the farewell post from our founder here.)

This list brings together some of our favorite poems published online in 2020 and 2021.

(For last year’s list, click here.)

In no particular order…

1. “Surge” by Natalie Eilbert (Hoxie Gorge Review)

2. “Heart Medicine for Courage” by Naomi Ortiz (About Place Journal)

3. “Celebrate Good Times” by Franny Choi (The Nation)

4. “Are We” by Jorie Graham (London Review of Books)

5. “On Their Birthday, Suge Knight and My Daddy Discuss Forgiveness” by Tariq Thompson (The Adroit Journal)

6. “Incantation of the First Order” by Rita Dove (Poets.org)

7. “December 3, 1975” by Cathy Linh Che (The Nation)

8. “Waking After the Surgery” by Leila Chatti (The New York Times)

9. “What New Map” by Canisia Lubrin (Thresholds Project)

10. “Dream 17” by Canisia Lubrin (CBC)

11. “Black Pastoral” by Ariana Benson (World Literature Today)

12. “Cruisy & Drony” by Petra Kuppers (About Place Journal)

13. “I was a Good Wife” by Vanessa Angélica Villareal (Poets.org)

14. “In My Next Life Let Me Be a Tomato” by Natasha Rao (The Adroit Journal)

15. “We Came Here to Get Away From You” by Donika Kelly (The Nation)

16. “During Lockdown, I Let the Dog Sleep in My Bed Again” by Maggie Smith (Green Linden Press)

17. “Happiness, I, Thou, You, Me” by Angie Sijun Lou (Poetry Northwest)

18. “a feeling has passed before a charted present” by Kimberly Alidio (Poets.org)

19. “Palestine is a Futurism: The Dream” by Fargo Tbakhi (Strange Horizons)

20. “Chronically” by Diannely Antigua (Pangyrus)

21. “Echolocation With Self and Body Parts” by Leslie Contreras Schwartz (Anomaly)

22. “Twelve Chinese Confessions, 1963” by Jade Cho (Apogee Journal)

23. “Why I don’t write about George Floyd” by Toi Derricotte (Poets.org)

24. “Self-Portrait as Contained Swarm” by Emily Mitamura (AAWW: The Margins)

25. “Anyway, Here’s Wonderwall” by Brandon Amico (Waxwing)

26. “Annex” by Nilufar Karimi (Echoverse)

27. “I am always busy wanting others lives” by Claudia Delfina Cardona (Wildness)

28. “Blood Aria” by Christopher Nelson (Image)

29. “Verge Notes” by Bhanu Kapil (Wildness)

30. “Loop (in Dirt and Gold)” by Hadara Bar-Nadav (Poetry Foundation)

31. “Almonds” by Olivia M Sokolowski (Tupelo Quarterly)

32. “Of angels waltzing out their wingspans, who remains compassionate?” by Sylvia Chan (Contra Viento)

33. “Art of Revision” by Cynthia Dewi Oka (Court Green)

34. “Custody” by Luisa A. Igloria (Poets.org)

35. “from Affiliation” by Mira Mattar (Granta)

36. “For every tweet that reads ‘Black Women will save America’” by Bri Little (West Branch)

37. “Dear Mempis” by Rachel Edelman (The Seventh Wave)

38. “In the Future, the Garden Grows Over Everything” by Jane Wong (West Branch)

39. “Say I Held a Revolver to Charlotte’s Web” by Khalisa Rae (Moonchild Magazine)

40. “Me and Primi, We Love Sleeping Across the Border” by Gabriel Dozal (Poetry Foundation)

41. “Searching for a Palestinian After” by George Abraham (The Nation)

42. “Clarification Card: The Spiral” by Hari Alluri (Split This Rock)

43. “Postcards From the Living” by Jenny Qi (The Atlantic)

44. “A Boy Ago Visits His Shadow” by Tyler Allen Penny (Crazyhorse)

45. “Letter to the Daughter I Would Have Liked to Have” by Abigail Chabitnoy (The Capilano Review)

46. “In a Language Not Mine, Speak” by Sanam Sheriff (Kweli)

47. “Impervious Poem No. CV19-93-INF” by David Maduli (Kweli)

48. “Related Matters” by Emily Jungmin Yoon (The New Yorker)

49. “Not Even This” by Ocean Vuong (Poetry Foundation)

50. Various Poems by Molly Brodak (The Volta)

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