Best poetry of 2019

In a year of political uncertainty, acclaimed collections have tackled racism, authoritarianism and masculinity with great grace and beauty. Sandeep Parmar shares her favourites

• Best books of 2019: genre by genre
• Bernardine Evaristo, Lee Child and more pick the best books of 2019

Often poems conjure an event, a lyric occasion marked by stillness and observation. But in a year characterised by frenzy, political anticlimax and uncertainty, poetry should afford us no such luxury. As the American poet Robert Lowell wrote “history has to live with what was here, / clutching and close to fumbling all we had”. Each of these collections takes a long view of the present, often expanding the single isolated poem to a wider book-length analysis. The poets ask not how history will live with what was, but how we come to terms with our history now.