Tanya Olson's "Boyishly" (published in 2013) is moving and hilarious. Nearly every poem has something special about it. This is a volume of poetry I'd recommend to anyone who feels intimidated by poetry or who thinks they "don't like contemporary poetry." There are poems written to John Brown; to Gertrude Stein from John Brown; about Muhammad Ali; and from the perspective of the prophet Jonah. Each poem captures something small and precious about living in human skin. Some highlights:

"Gates of Beauty" is a perfect poem, written from the perspective (I think) of a cultural revolutionary from a Communist regime who hopes to implement something called "The People's Act of Love." She has trouble implementing the policy, however, because reality throws all kinds of obstacles at her.

"Lady Wonder" tells the story of a psychic horse who can read the minds of humans. The horse becomes a sensation; she is hired to help people with their problems and to find missing children. Throughout the poem, she reflects on the lives and desires of the people whose minds she reads. At the poem's conclusion, Olson writes:

Lady rubs her rump against a tree,
then gums the apple off the ground.
She wonders of warning the tups and ewes
humans think their grief unique
and the world is mostly water.

And then there's the final line of the volume, from "Absolutely a Particle, Absolutely a Wave," a poem about modern physics and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan:

This will continue until nothing changes. There are no openings in perfect circles.
It is bittersweet to live by principle; I wonder what it feels like to be victorious in war?

I'm not sure if Olson means that living by principle is bittersweet, or if living itself is, by principle, bittersweet. Either way, it's probably true.