You Don't Have to Be Everything

Created and compiled just for young women by Diana Whitney, former longtime poetry columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, You Don't Have to Be Everything is filled with work by a wide range of female poets who are honest, unafraid, and so wonderfully skilful at addressing the big feelings of coming-of-age – aloneness, longing, doubt, fear, sadness, anger, a need for approval, and an attitude that pretends none of it matters. But also joy, hope, celebration, solace, and all the good things poetry brings, including humour (see “Questions to Ask Google”).

The cast of 70 poets is extraordinary: bestselling authors like Maya Angelou, Elizabeth Acevedo, Sharon Olds, Joy Harjo, Lucille Clifton, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Mary Oliver; our new national Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman, Instagram-famous poets including Kate Baer, Melody Lee, and Andrea Gibson; poets who are LGBTQ, poets of diverse racial and cultural backgrounds, poets who sing of the body that breaks free of conventional ideas of beauty.

Illustrated in full colour with the work of three female artists – Kate Mockford, Stephanie Singleton, and Christina Gonzalez – You Don't Have to Be Everything is a treasury of wisdom, compassion, and understanding, a collection to read again and again, and a perfect gift for daughters, granddaughters, or any young woman in your life.