1) Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, “Live from the Ryman, Vol. 2” / A Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit show is a life-affirming experience, a tent revival animated by the gospel of human decency and guitar solos. This latest volume from Isbell’s favorite church, the Ryman, beautifully frames the strength of his newer material.
2) Alycia Lang, “Speak the Word to Hear the Sound” / The North Carolina-based singer-songwriter uses the language of indie rock to invent new shapes and then find new ways to shift them. The dips and dives and momentum within these songs always feels refreshing.
3) Johnny Coley, “Mister Sweet Whisper” / Imagine the Beats lived on—and lived on in Alabama—and you’d have something like Coley’s effort here. This is personal, paradoxical poetry set to buoyant and scraping jazz soundscapes. A real fusion of intimacy and strange, imaginative puzzling.
4) Bruna Dantas Lobato, “Blue Light Hours” / This lovely, lyric refresh of the campus novel centers a Brazilian student attending school in New England. As her protagonist finds more of herself while losing connections back home, Lobato’s prose finds the beauty in small gestures and great longings.
5) Danez Smith, “Bluff” / Smith’s latest feels like the definitive argument for never separating the poetic from the personal and political.
These poems travel the country; call hometowns to account (“Minneapolis, my murderer, my mother / ship, my moose heart, my mercy / will end in you …”); call for liberation across the map (as each of god’s great creatures cries out for Palestinian freedom); play with form; and deal in some of the most beautiful images you’ll read this year (“i read the ink / between the stars. i heard God’s / voice, it left me swollen this way”).