Michigan Notable Books

Every year, the Library of Michigan selects up to twenty of the most notable books for its Michigan Notable Books program, either written by a Michigan resident or about Michigan or the Great Lakes. The selected books are honored in the year after their publication or copyright date. Each selected title speaks to our state's rich cultural, historical, and literary heritage and proves without a doubt that some of the greatest stories are found in the Great Lakes State.

This year Brittany Rogers was selected for her poetry collection Good Dress. From her publisher Tin House:

Following the tradition of Nikky Finney, Krista Franklin, and Morgan Parker, Brittany Rogers’s Good Dress documents the extravagant beauty and audacity of Black Detroit, Black womanhood, community, class, luxury, materialism, and matrilineage. A nontraditional coming of age, this collection witnesses a speaker coming into her own autonomy and selfhood as a young adult, reflecting on formative experiences. With care and incandescent energy, the poems engage with memory, time, interiority, and community. They also nudge tenderly toward curiosity: What does it mean to belong to a person, to a city? Can intimacy and romance be found outside the heteronormative confines of partnership? And in what ways can the pursuit of pleasure be an anchor that returns us to ourselves?

Brittany Rogers is poet, visual artist, educator, and life-long Detroiter. She has work published or forthcoming in Lit Hub, The Hopkins Review, Scalawag, The Poet Lore, Indiana Review, Four Way Review, Underbelly, Mississippi Review, Lambda Literary, and Oprah Daily. Brittany is a fellow of VONA, The Watering Hole, Poetry Incubator, and Pink Door Writing Retreat. Brittany is Editor-in-Chief of Muzzle Magazine and co-host of VS Podcast. She is the author of the poetry collection Good Dress, a Michigan Notable Book for 2025, and finalist for the NAACP Image Award. (Tin House, 2024).

Join us at Elmwood Park Branch Library as we welcome Brittany Rogers for an evening of poetry. Books will be available to purchase. Light refreshments provided. Free and open to the public.

Host or Publisher Elmwood | Detroit Public Library