English Poetry Literature

The gym is where Claire shines and she’s on her way to qualifying for the state championships. But at school, she’s known as a troublemaker—which is fine with her since it helps her hide her reading problem. Claire has never been able to make sense of the wobbling jumble of letters on a page. When a sympathetic principal wonders if she’s acting out because she may have dyslexia, she’s stunned. Claire has always assumed she’s dumb, so she’s eager to get evaluated. But her mother balks.

"The sonnet, like poverty, teaches you what you can do / without," Diane Seuss writes in this brilliant, candid work, her most personal collection to date. These poems tell the story of a life at risk of spilling over the edge of the page, from Seuss's working-class childhood in rural Michigan to the dangerous allures of New York City and back again. With sheer virtuosity, Seuss moves nimbly across thought and time, poetry and punk, AIDS and addiction, Christ and motherhood, showing us what we can do, what we can do without, and what we offer to one another when we have nothing left to spare.

So begins Joy Sullivan’s Instructions for Traveling West—a lush debut collection that examines what happens when we leave home and leap into the deep unknown. Mid-pandemic, Sullivan left the man she planned to marry, sold her house, quit her corporate job, and drove west. This dazzling collection tells that story as it illuminates the questions haunting us all: What possible futures lie on the horizon? What happens when we heed the call of furious reinvention?

It is the year 778. The mighty French army, led by Emperor Charlemagne, confronts Saracen forces in the bloody Battle of Roncevaux Pass. In the course of this thrilling epic poem we follow the emperor’s hot-headed nephew Roland into battle. We are privy to the deal struck between the Saracen king Marsilie and Roland’s conniving stepfather Guene.

Helium is the debut poetry collection by internet phenom Rudy Francisco, whose work has defined poetry for a generation of new audiences. Rudy's poems and quotes have been viewed and shared millions of times as he has traveled the country and the world performing for sell-out crowds. Helium is filled with work that is simultaneously personal and political, blending love poems, self-reflection, and biting cultural critique on class, race, and gender into an unforgettable whole.

Poetry with attitude. Some might find it rude. Insights of a life well lived. Poems that speak about contemporary culture. Poems that challenge conventional views on protests, social justice and social change.

“When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.” So ends Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me”. In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels” she challenges her listener to consider their grandmother’s cake, the taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance” about her son's birth she writes, “What is the word for when the light leaves the body/What is the word for when it/ at last, returns”.

Timeless poetry for moments of reflection and contemplation. The masters of literature brought together in this unique program.

In Stephen Mitchell's The Iliad, the epic story resounds again across 2,700 years, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector, and Priam flows in every word. And we are there with them, amid the horror and ecstasy of war, carried along by a poetry that lifts even the most devastating human events into the realm of the beautiful. Mitchell's The Iliad is the first translation based on the work of the preeminent Homeric scholar Martin L. West.

Angels are undeniably associated with religion and more usually Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Often they are seen as supernatural beings, benevolent celestial intermediaries interposed between God, Heaven and humanity. Obviously there are complications, a fact that our classic poets through the centuries, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser, Radclyffe Hall and Hafiz, use as they write verse to explain, to reveal and to help us understand exactly why Angels are so prevalent amongst our thoughts.

There is a gift so simple that it requires no ribbons for wrapping yet which is so miraculous, it has the power to transform our lives. This is The Gift of Story, a tale of love and wisdom from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, eminent psychoanalyst and author. When an old woman flees to a hut in a lonely forest, begins Dr. Estés, she seeks safety from the savage war that has devastated her village. What sustains her is the greatest of all gifts: a story.

The epitome of the romantic literary hero, Lord Byron was as well known in his time for the revolutionary panache with which he lived as for his extremely popular verse. “As a myth,” wrote Bertrand Russell, “his importance, especially on the continent, was enormous.” His many tempestuous relationships were the subject of scandal which only added to his celebrity. His name has even entered into our language to describe a man of deep passion and defiance.

A collection of poems written by someone who is no stranger to everyday struggles of love and mayhem. These poems vary in topics and length. Judith understands struggles and that with hope a little faith that strengthen our beliefs, there is always a brighter day tomorrow. With faith and understanding, the bitter realities of human relations makes us stronger today.

Along with Virgil, Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was the greatest poet produced by Rome, and in many ways his work has had arguably an even greater impact. His brilliant expression and astonishing acumen continue to amaze readers today, either in their original Latin or in innumerable worldwide translations. Shakespeare's debt to Horace is incalculable, and it is difficult to read his Sonnets today without immediately being reminded of the famous Odes.

Before she became one of the world's most important and loved novelists, Margaret Atwood was a poet. Dearly is her first collection in over a decade. It brings together many of her most recognizable and celebrated themes, but distilled - from minutely perfect descriptions of the natural world to startlingly witty encounters with aliens, from pressing political issues to myth and legend.

The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Have you ever heard the sounds of Hell? Felt the darkness and the ice? Tasted the burnt air on your tongue? Dante’s Inferno will give you a flavor of the wretchedness of sin that you will never forget. The images and action that bring you down into the very center of judgment and consequence, into that eternal realm of woe, will stick to the ribcages of your mind, and change the way you see the world, the devil, and your own flesh.

A work that has inspired generations, this new edition of Letters to a Young Poet features a fresh translation of Rilke's 10 classic letters, along with the missing letters from the young poet himself.

Painter and writer Calef Brown pours his boundless creative energy into his poetry. In Flamingos on the Roof, Brown crafts 29 nonsense poems conjuring mythic and contemporary images of everything from gatorflies to light-bulb-topped birthday cakes. Kids will revel in the lively wordplay, while parents and teachers will recognize the value in teaching kids alliterative and assonant sounds.

Kate Coombs’ children’s books have garnered rave reviews from School Library Journal and been ALA Notable Book selections. Filled with imagery sure to inspire wonder in young listeners, Water Sings Blue is a delightful collection of poems celebrating the beauty of the ocean.