Indies First, a national campaign in support of independent bookstores, takes place on Small Business Saturday (November 28) this year, and we’re ready to celebrate!
In honor of Indies First, we asked Hanif Abdurraqib, the 2026 Indie Bookstore Ambassador, for his reading recommendations. Read on for five poetry collections selected by Hanif that inspired I’m Always Looking Up And You’re Jumping.
I’m Always Looking Up And You’re Jumping
Coming out in April 2027.
A deeply moving poetry collection about grief, love, and the heavens and hells we create on earth, from the New York Times bestselling author of There’s Always This Year.
Through I’m Always Looking Up And You’re Jumping, master poet Hanif Abdurraqib crafts a devastating yet uplifting reflection of the essential contradictions that come with the experience of being human—the immense pain and suffering we feel and inflict upon others and the overwhelming goodness that exists within all of us.
View the audiobook
The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart
By Gabrielle Calvocoressi
“What I cherish about this book, which was the first book of poems I ever owned and read, is that all of the poems are in the voices of speakers other than the author. It reminds me that you can thoughtfully embody and express the pain or wonder or pleasures of an invented character as effectively as you can embody your own.”
Odes
By Frank O’Hara
“I adore O’Hara’s work for how it treats interpersonal affections as holy, both the platonic and the romantic (though within his work, that line blurs to a point of nonexistence).”
Love Poems
By June Jordan
“I think people will find, as I often do, that the engine of the love poem is sometimes disappointment, or rage. I am heartbroken at the state of the world for many reasons, but in part because the state of the world occupies the corners of my heart that you, beloveds, would just as eagerly and easily occupy. No one brings that tension to life as Jordan does.”
Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry
By John Murillo
“I come here for the musicality, but I stay for the affection within descriptions of both landscape and the people upon them.”
Revolutionary Letters
By Diane DiPrima
“Each poem in this book asks someone to prepare their mind or their heart for the world’s collapse, which seems bleak to some, I’m sure. But it is an ask that is teeming with endless possibility, which I require.”
Audiobooks by Hanif Abdurraqib
There’s Always This Year
They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us
A Little Devil in America
Listen to our interview from 2024 with Hanif Abdurraqib
In this episode, we interview author Hanif Abdurraqib about his book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension, his writing process, and the themes of aging and mortality in his book. We also discuss his upcoming tour and the importance of place and community in his work, as well as his favorite style of french fry.