August 31, 2026 — For the 2026 Sealey Challenge, Civitella shared selections from the Castle Library every week during the month of August, totaling 31 books for 31 days. The Challenge, founded by Nicole Sealey in 2023, is a community activity in which participants read a book of poetry each day during the month of August. The Challenge invites us to deepen our connection to poetry and spend time with the genre each day, focusing in particular on work by marginalized poets.
Week One
Above Ground by Clint Smith (DG 2026)
Dark Hours by Conchitina Cruz (CRF 2025)
Black Peculiar by Khadijah Queen (CRF 2023)
Tree of Knowledge by Victoria Chang (CRF 2026)
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky (CRF 2025)
Nothing to Declare: Poems by Henri Cole (CRF 2009, DG 2017)
Boy with Thorn by Rickey Laurentiis (CRF 2014)
Against Which by Ross Gay (CRF 2016)
Week Two
Overtakelessness: Poems by Daniel Moysaenko (CRF/AAP 2026)
Silver: Poems by Rowan Ricardo Phillips (DG 2025)
The Blue Mimes: Poems by Sara Daniele Rivera (CRF 2025)
Black Blossoms by Rigoberto González (CRF 2013)
Digest by Gregory Pardlo (CRF 2019)
Millefiori by Omar Musa (CRF 2018)
The New Testament by Jericho Brown (CRF 2015)
Eye Level by Jenny Xie (CRF/AAP/Walt Whitman 2018)
Week Three
The Country Where Everyone’s Name Is Fear: Selected Poems by Borys Khersonsky (DG 2022) & Lyudmyla Khersonska (DG 2022), translated by Ilya Kaminsky (CRF 2025), Katie Farris, and multiple translators
Grand Tour: Poems by Elisa Gonzalez (CRF/Rona Jaffe Foundation 2025)
The Big Melt by Emily Riddle (CRF/Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize 2024)
Sacrilegion by L. Lamar Wilson (CRF 2024)
Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong (CRF 2016, DG 2022)
When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz (CRF 2015)
Black + blues by Kamau Brathwaite (CRF 1996)
Looking Out from Death: From the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square by Duo Duo (CRF 1995) translated by Gregory Lee
Week Four
Signs, Music by Raymond Antrobus (CRF 2025)
Afterland by Mai Der Vang (CRF/AAP/Walt Whitman 2017)
Excerpts from a Secret Prophecy by Joanna Klink (CRF 2012, DG 2017)
Down to My Last Skin by Antjie Krog (CRF 2006)
The Country Between Us by Carolyn Forché 9CRF 2012)
How to Be Drawn by Terrance Hayes (CRF 2015)
Mystery and Solitude in Topeka by Mark Strand (DG 2008, 2011, 2012)