20 must-read nonfiction books like The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) by Su Cho

Cover of The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) by Su Cho

The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

By: Su Cho

3.83

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

From National Poetry Series winner Su Cho, chosen by Paige Lewis, a debut poetry collection about i…

If you liked the nonfiction plot in The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) by Su Cho , here is a list of 20 books like this:

Cover of When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Jericho Brown, None, Chen Chen

1. When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

By: Jericho Brown , None , Chen Chen

4.26

Format: 96 pages, Paperback

In this ferocious and tender debut, Chen Chen investigates inherited forms of love and family—the s… read more

Similar categories in Jericho Brown's When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"What is it, to remember nothing, of what one loved?"

-Jericho Brown, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

"But sometimes no one said anything & I saw him, the local paper boy on his route. His beanstalk frame & fragile bicycle. & I knew: we would be so terribly happy."

-Jericho Brown, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

"My mother was in the hospital & everyone wanted to be my friend. But I was busy making a list: good dog, bad citizen, short skeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday. My mother was in the hospital & no o…"

-Jericho Brown, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

2. Calling a Wolf a Wolf

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.00

Format: 98 pages, Paperback

"The struggle from late youth on, with and without God, agony, narcotics and love is a torment rare… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Calling a Wolf a Wolf book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

Cover of frank: sonnets by Diane Seuss

3. frank: sonnets

By: Diane Seuss

4.50

Format: 137 pages, Paperback

WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN POETRY WINNER OF THE 2021 NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD … read more

Similar categories in Diane Seuss's frank: sonnets book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"I saw a little movie of a person stroking a small bird with two Q-tips, one held between the forefinger and thumb of each hand. It tipped back its head to receive the minor tenderness, which to the b…"

-Diane Seuss, frank: sonnets

Cover of Pilgrim Bell: Poems by Kaveh Akbar

4. Pilgrim Bell: Poems

By: Kaveh Akbar

4.24

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

Kaveh Akbar’s exquisite, highly anticipated follow-up to Calling a Wolf a Wolf. With formal virtuos… read more

Similar categories in Kaveh Akbar's Pilgrim Bell: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"Wrath is the desire to repay what you've suffered."

-Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell: Poems

"Whatever I learn makes me angry to have learned it."

-Kaveh Akbar, Pilgrim Bell: Poems

Cover of Obit by Victoria Chang

5. Obit

By: Victoria Chang

4.27

Format: 113 pages, Paperback

After her mother died, poet Victoria Chang refused to write elegies. Rather, she distilled her grie… read more

Similar categories in Victoria Chang's Obit book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"That darkness is not the absorption of color but the absorption of language."

-Victoria Chang, Obit

"The way grief is really about future absence. The way the future closes its offices when a mother dies. What's left: a hole in the ground the size of violence."

-Victoria Chang, Obit

"If you cut out a rectangle of a perfectly blue sky, no clouds, no wind, no birds, frame it with a blue frame, place it faceup on the floor of an empty museum with an open atrium to the sky, that is g…"

-Victoria Chang, Obit

"The artist is only visiting pain, imagining it. We praise the artist, not the apple, not the apple's shadow, which is murdered slowly. There must be some way of drawing a picture so that it doesn't b…"

-Victoria Chang, Obit

Cover of The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On by Franny Choi

6. The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

By: Franny Choi

3.99

Format: 144 pages, Hardcover

From acclaimed poet Franny Choi comes a poetry collection for the ends of worlds--past, present, an… read more

Similar categories in Franny Choi's The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • audiobook
"I have last year's ashes in my throat, stories stuffed so full of morals they bleed sugar."

-Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

"How can I explain the things and things and things I did wrong? I was never any good at telling the difference between what wanted me and what wanted me gone"

-Franny Choi, The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Cover of The Hurting Kind: Poems by Ada Limon

7. The Hurting Kind: Poems

By: Ada Limon

4.34

Format: 120 pages, Hardcover

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ou… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's The Hurting Kind: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"There is a solitude in this world I cannot pierce. I would die for it."

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

"Before, the only thing I was interested in was love, how it grips you, how it terrifies you, how it annihilates and resuscitates you. I didn’t know then that it wasn’t even love that I was interested…"

-Ada Limon, The Hurting Kind: Poems

Cover of Girls That Never Die: Poems by Safia Elhillo

8. Girls That Never Die: Poems

By: Safia Elhillo

4.30

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

Intimate poems that explore feminine shame and violence and imagine what liberation from these thre… read more

Similar categories in Safia Elhillo's Girls That Never Die: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"I will begin by writing a sentence about cutting. I will begin by writing a sentence about silence. I will continue by writing a sentence about cutting. I will proceed to ask the question about cutti…"

-Safia Elhillo, Girls That Never Die: Poems

Cover of I Do Everything I'm Told by Megan Fernandes

9. I Do Everything I'm Told

By: Megan Fernandes

4.17

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Restless, contradictory, and witty, Megan Fernandes’ I Do Everything I’m Told explores disobedience… read more

Similar categories in Megan Fernandes's I Do Everything I'm Told book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
Cover of All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets) by Paul Tran

10. All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

By: Paul Tran

3.87

Format: 112 pages, Paperback

A profound meditation on physical, emotional, and psychological transformation in the aftermath of … read more

Similar categories in Paul Tran's All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets) book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"There is no truth. Only a version. Aversion. A verge. A vengeance."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"I see not stars but their light reaching across the distance between us."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"I, after so much isolation, so much indifference, kept going even if going meant only waiting, hovering in place. So far below, so far away from the rest of life...."

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

"...an actualized poem requires the actualization, or radical transformation, of the poet - that a poem is the discovery and enactment of an emotional and psychological investigation into the vexed in…"

-Paul Tran, All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

Cover of Alive At The End Of The World by Saeed Jones

11. Alive At The End Of The World

By: Saeed Jones

4.35

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Pierced by grief and charged with history, this new poetry collection from the award-winning author… read more

Similar categories in Saeed Jones's Alive At The End Of The World book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"The end of the world was mistaken for just another midday massacre in America."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"I wish I knew a woman who was both the light and every shadow the light pierces."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"I'm most dangerous when I'm hungry. I'm most hungry when I'm hurting. Seems like I'm always hurting."

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

"A few months and many deaths ago, I asked someone "how are you doing" and felt, in the way her eye fell, how I had failed her before I had even reached the end of my question. I've hurt many people b…"

-Saeed Jones, Alive At The End Of The World

Cover of Golden Ax (Penguin Poets) by Rio Cortez

12. Golden Ax (Penguin Poets)

By: Rio Cortez

4.02

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

From a visionary writer praised for her captivating work on Black history and experience, comes a p… read more

Similar categories in Rio Cortez's Golden Ax (Penguin Poets) book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Above Ground by Clint   Smith

13. Above Ground

By: Clint Smith

4.56

Format: 128 pages, Hardcover

A remarkable poetry collection with "inextinguishable generosity and abundant wisdom" (Monica Youn)… read more

Similar categories in Clint Smith's Above Ground book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Modern Poetry: Poems by Diane Seuss

14. Modern Poetry: Poems

By: Diane Seuss

4.53

Format: 112 pages, Hardcover

Diane Seuss’s signature voice―audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its … read more

Similar categories in Diane Seuss's Modern Poetry: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
Cover of The Trees Witness Everything by Victoria Chang

15. The Trees Witness Everything

By: Victoria Chang

4.20

Format: 144 pages, Paperback

*Named one of the Best Books of the Year by the The New Yorker *Named one of the Best Books of the… read more

Similar categories in Victoria Chang's The Trees Witness Everything book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • nonfiction
Cover of Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Díaz

16. Postcolonial Love Poem

By: Natalie Díaz

4.33

Format: 107 pages, Paperback

Natalie Diaz’s highly anticipated follow-up to When My Brother Was an Aztec, winner of an American … read more

Similar categories in Natalie Díaz's Postcolonial Love Poem book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"Unsoothable thirst is one kind of haunting"

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"In Mojave, our words for want and need are the same – because why would you want what you don’t need?"

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"Maybe death is a way to clean the self, of the body, to finally celebrate it. A celebration should leave a mess."

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

"At the National Museum of the American Indian, 68 percent of the collection is from the United States. I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out."

-Natalie Díaz, Postcolonial Love Poem

Cover of Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years by Joy Harjo

17. Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years

By: Joy Harjo

4.34

Format: 160 pages, Hardcover

Over a long, influential career in poetry, Joy Harjo has been praised for her “warm, oracular voice… read more

Similar categories in Joy Harjo's Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
"Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time. Do not hold regrets."

-Joy Harjo, Weaving Sundown in a Scarlet Light: Fifty Poems for Fifty Years

Cover of Judas Goat: Poems by Gabrielle Bates

18. Judas Goat: Poems

By: Gabrielle Bates

4.21

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Gabrielle Bates’s electric debut collection Judas Goat plumbs the depths of intimate relationships.… read more

Similar categories in Gabrielle Bates's Judas Goat: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
Cover of Soft Science by Franny Choi

19. Soft Science

By: Franny Choi

3.93

Format: 100 pages, Paperback

Soft Science explores queer, Asian American femininity. A series of Turing Test-inspired poems grou… read more

Similar categories in Franny Choi's Soft Science book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
"having been hurt before"

-Franny Choi, Soft Science

"fiended; fell for another"

-Franny Choi, Soft Science

"it's too late to stop smiling."

-Franny Choi, Soft Science

"shouldn't a god have blood to lose"

-Franny Choi, Soft Science

Cover of You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World by Ada Limon

20. You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World

By: Ada Limon

4.11

Format: 176 pages, Hardcover

Published association  with the Library of Congress and edited by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate o… read more

Similar categories in Ada Limon's You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
Cover of Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency by Chen Chen

21. Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

By: Chen Chen

4.15

Format: 128 pages, Paperback

What happens when everything falls away, when those you call on in times of need are themselves cal… read more

Similar categories in Chen Chen's Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • audiobook
"If we could communicate fully, there would be no need to communicate. If we could love perfectly, there would be no need to love. If we could finish grieving, there would be no need to live. If we co…"

-Chen Chen, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

"You climb back in bed & touch my face. You climb back in bed to touch my face. You wrap your arms around me & it’s like you’re the patron saint if touch as well as soft sunlight & soothed dogs. Or yo…"

-Chen Chen, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

Cover of Punks: New & Selected Poems by John  Keene

22. Punks: New & Selected Poems

By: John Keene

4.26

Format: 222 pages, Paperback

A landmark collection of poetry by acclaimed fiction writer, translator, and MacArthur Fellow John … read more

Similar categories in John Keene's Punks: New & Selected Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
Cover of Space Struck by Paige Lewis

23. Space Struck

By: Paige Lewis

4.07

Format: 72 pages, Paperback

Consider this glowing debut from Paige Lewis a menagerie of near-extinction. Space Struck explores … read more

Similar categories in Paige Lewis's Space Struck book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"A miracle is anything that God forgot to forbid."

-Paige Lewis, Space Struck

"On this planet, you have to be useful to be kept around"

-Paige Lewis, Space Struck

"I’m the vice president of panic, and the president is missing."

-Paige Lewis, Space Struck

"I might ask you one day to go camping, and if you have the desire to dance."

-Paige Lewis, Space Struck

Cover of Root Fractures: Poems by Diana Khoi Nguyen

24. Root Fractures: Poems

By: Diana Khoi Nguyen

4.31

Format: 128 pages, Paperback

National Book Award finalist Diana Khoi Nguyen’s second poetry collection, a haunting of a family’s… read more

Similar categories in Diana Khoi Nguyen's Root Fractures: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • audiobook
Cover of Ædnan by Linnea Axelsson

25. Ædnan

By: Linnea Axelsson

4.23

Format: 762 pages, Hardcover

Ædnan är ett mäktigt epos som på en ordknapp vers berättar om två samiska familjer. I deras öden sp… read more

Similar categories in Linnea Axelsson's Ædnan book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • audiobook
Cover of The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems by Hala Alyan

26. The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems

By: Hala Alyan

4.22

Format: 112 pages, Paperback

From the author of The Arsonists’ City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that t… read more

Similar categories in Hala Alyan's The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
"My favorite house is my mother."

-Hala Alyan, The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems

"I don’t have time to write about the soul. There are bodies to count. There’s a man wearing his wedding tuxedo to sleep in case I meet God and there’s a brick of light before each bombing."

-Hala Alyan, The Moon That Turns You Back: Poems

Cover of Ask the Brindled: Poems (National Poetry Series) by No‘u Revilla

27. Ask the Brindled: Poems (National Poetry Series)

By: No‘u Revilla

4.28

Format: 104 pages, Paperback

Ask the Brindled, selected by Rick Barot as a winner of the 2021 National Poetry Series, bares ever… read more

Similar categories in No‘u Revilla's Ask the Brindled: Poems (National Poetry Series) book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
Cover of The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) by Su Cho

28. The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

By: Su Cho

3.83

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

From National Poetry Series winner Su Cho, chosen by Paige Lewis, a debut poetry collection about i… read more

Similar categories in Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • asian literature
  • poetry
  • nonfiction
  • audiobook
Cover of Pleasure Principle: Poems by Madeleine Cravens

29. Pleasure Principle: Poems

By: Madeleine Cravens

4.32

Format: 80 pages, Paperback

An astonishing debut collection of poems about desire and the chaos of youth. In her stunning debu… read more

Similar categories in Madeleine Cravens's Pleasure Principle: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
Cover of From Unincorporated Territory [åmot] by Craig Santos Pérez

30. From Unincorporated Territory [åmot]

By: Craig Santos Pérez

4.42

Format: 148 pages, Paperback

Experimental and visual poems diving into the history and culture of the poet’s homeland, Guam.   … read more

Similar categories in Craig Santos Pérez's From Unincorporated Territory [åmot] book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • nonfiction
Cover of Bluff: Poems by Danez Smith

31. Bluff: Poems

By: Danez Smith

4.53

Format: 160 pages, Paperback

Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID… read more

Similar categories in Danez Smith's Bluff: Poems book and Su Cho's The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets)

  • poetry
  • audiobook

14 best-selling audiobook books like The Symmetry of Fish (Penguin Poets) by Su Cho

Transform Your Habits

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

Franny Choi

3.99

Transform Your Habits

The Hurting Kind: Poems

Ada Limon

4.34

Transform Your Habits

Girls That Never Die: Poems

Safia Elhillo

4.30

Transform Your Habits

All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

Paul Tran

3.87

View all the books

16 Best nonfiction books like Ask the Brindled: Poems (National Poetry Series) by No‘u Revilla

Transform Your Habits

Don't Call Us Dead: Poems

Danez Smith

3.97

Transform Your Habits

Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza

Mosab Abu Toha

4.74

Transform Your Habits

All the Flowers Kneeling (Penguin Poets)

Paul Tran

3.87

Transform Your Habits

From From: Poems

Monica Youn

4.18

View all the books

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