Yes, the holidays are here, a time for making extra sugar cookies, seeing friends and family…and buying them presents! Specifically, poetry presents! Remember, supporting this industry (rather than some other multi-industrial-complex) might actually bring about a better, happier tomorrow!
So here are a handful of recommended poetry books (I can’t fit them all, this is just a sample of the terrific work out there) I propose you buy for your friends and family. I promise most of them won’t scare away poetry-phobes, and might be a good introduction to a whole new world of fun. The links are all to Amazon, but a lot of these are available through the publishers as well!

Becoming the Villainess is a book of poems in the voices of characters from Superheroes to fairy tale and mythological characters. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but it’s funny, approachable, and edgy – perfect for your daughter, wife, girlfriend, etc, especially if she’s supercool. A lot of guys like it too, I’ve heard.
Becoming the Villainess

Looking for more pop-culture references, play with language, and general goodness? Check out Lana Ayers’ new book, Chicken Farmer I Still Love You, worth the price of admission for the title alone, don’t you think?
Chicken Farmer I Still Love You

No, this isn’t about machine-languages, you techies. Laurel Snyder’s new book, The Myth of Simple Machines, is fresh, playful, melancholy, and fun to read. A can’t miss.
Myth of Simple Machines

For friends who can handle something a little more challenging, a little more complex, and a little sexy/grittier, I prescribe the dazzling books of Rebecca Loudon, Tarantella and Radish King:
Tarantella
Radish King

More hot, sexy, faintly disturbing, feminist genius work you say? Look no further than Kristy Bowen’s The Fever Almanac and Mary Biddinger’s Prairie Fever:
The Fever Almanac
Prairie Fever

Looking for some juicy and delicious poetry that magically makes everything taste better? Try Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s Miracle Fruit. Looking for moody, witty tales of love and grace? Try her At the Drive in Volcano.
Miracle Fruit
At the Drive-in Volcano

Elegant and graceful, Suzanne Frischkorn’s work has long been dazzling me, and soon will come to feature-length fruition! Til then, her chapbooks are available here:
http://www.suzannefrischkorn.net/books.htm

Does someone you know need a vacation from heartbreak? Try Collin Kelley’s Better to Travel!
Better to Travel

Have you got a doctor or other medical professional on your list? Nothing better than kicking back between patients with the work of Dr. Peter Pereira, Poet Doctor Extraordinaire.
Saying the World
What’s Written on the Body

Inspiring, humorous, strong and generous, Kelli Russell Agodon’s Small Knots deals with breast cancer, motherhood, love and angst in even-handed and surprisingly whimsical ways.
Small Knots

Also whimsical, heart-breaking, and defiant, Oliver de la Paz delights and surprises in Names Above Houses, and takes a more serious, elegiac view in Furious Lullaby.
Names Above Houses
Furious Lullaby

Dorianne Laux’s sensitive, earthy and passionate work is a good gift for almost anyone – here are links to her newest, Facts About the Moon, and her reissued Awake:
Facts About the Moon
Awake

I mentioned this list is incomplete, since there are so many good books out there I could go on forever – Diane Lockward’s What Feeds Us, Ivy Alvarez’ Mortal, Paul Guest’s Notes to my Body Double, Rebecca Livingston’s Your Ten Favorite Words, many chapbooks by poets lile Rachel Dacus and Charles Jensen, Kathleen Flenniken’s Famous, Matthea Harvey’s Modern Life, Catherynne Valente’s spooky, mythical stories and poems – and check the blogroll for more great books too – but if you buy, please support small presses like Steel Toe Books, No Tell Books, Switchback, Wind Publicatons, and a host of others that depend on little buyers like us to survive. And giving a subscription to your favorite small magazine is always a great gift too!

Update: the hard part of this post is I keep remembering so many great books and chapbooks that came out in the last couple of years. So please, help me out by adding your fave books to my comment field!