Well-Versed: Five Poets With Punch

Poet Kevin Young picks out his favorite poetry books from 2012, including works from the U.S. poet laureate to up-and-coming writers.

Looking over this past year, it may help to think of this list less as a "best of" than a shoutout to five poets whose work you may know — or should if you don't. All these recent books seem to me deeply personal, but not simply so — they manage to make metaphor from what happened, which is after all one of the poet's chief jobs. Here are five books of transformation, channeling love, loss, history and language.

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