English Poetry Literature

Teenage girls have a lot to say, and poet Betsy Franco shares some of it in this unique work. In both poetry and prose, the young voices here share their thoughts on topics all teens are familiar with—from self-confidence to body image, from sexuality to loneliness, and everything in between.

Books are disappearing from shelves across the country. What does this mean for authors, illustrators, and—most crucially—for young readers? This bold collection of fiction, memoir, poetry, graphic narratives, essays, and other genres explores book bans through various lenses, and empowers teens to fight back. From moving personal accounts to clever comebacks aimed at censorship, fifteen legendary YA authors and illustrators confront the high-stakes question of what is lost when books are kept from teens.

The John Milton Poetry Collection includes four of his most beloved works, sharing Milton's pioneering writing on everything from politics to religion. As you listen, be transported to the 17th century when political and religious tensions were high and war was imminent. Listen as Milton's works reveal his opinions on biblical themes, political division, and personal freedoms.

Vowing at an early age "to be a poet or nothing at all", Hermann Hesse rebelled against formal education, focusing on a rigorous program of independent study that included literature, philosophy, art, and history. One result of these efforts was a series of novels that became counterculture bibles that remain widely influential today. Another was a body of evocative spiritual poetry. Published for the first time in English, these vivid, probing short works reflect deeply on the challenges of life.

All three volumes of Amanda Lovelace’s poetry in one audio collection - read by the author and guest contributors! Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet and USA Today best-selling author Amanda Lovelace’s 'women are some kind of magic' series is now available in one amazing audio collection! Includes: the princess saves herself in this one; the witch doesn't burn in this one; and the mermaid's voice returns in this one.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Swan Middleton is devastated when her artistic mother is killed in a plane crash. The family maid, seeing Mary's loneliness and desperation, suggests she volunteer to help the poor. Soon, Mary realizes there is more to life, love, and faith, than she ever knew.

After living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years, a prophet is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a seeress and the people of the city, who ask him for his insights into life. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

More than 100 years after his birth, Pablo Neruda's poetry is as vital and beloved as ever. This collection presents 50 of the most essential poems by one of history's greatest poets in dynamic new translations, the result of an unprecedented collaboration among a team of poets, translators, and the world's leading Neruda scholars.

Inspired largely by the poet's experiences as a young man working in the Saskatchewan oilfields, Mathew Henderson's The Lease explores masculinity and the roles morality, violence, and hard labor play in it. Equal parts character study, cultural documentary, and coming-of-age narrative, Henderson's poems make it clear that however we may try to stay apart from them, the stubborn and often unflattering realities of masculine culture persist, not just in isolated, dangerous environments like this, but in our very idea of what work is.

Having developed an impressive reputation for his many novels and non-fiction works, Richard Wagamese now presents a collection of stunning poems ranging over a broad landscape. These are Medicine teachings told from the experience of one who lived and still lives them. He also describes his life on the road when he repeatedly ran away at an early age, and the beatings he received when the authorities tried “to beat the Indian right out of me.” Yet even in the most desperate situations, Wagamese shows us Canada as seen through the eyes and soul of a well-worn traveler.

Join Natalie Miller on a poetic odyssey to find the meaning in life, love and loss. When sleep abandons you, take the path forged by cloven hooves and never stop chasing the stars…

In the same way, to reach one's khudi or rooh, one needs to go through multiple stages which Iqbal himself went through, a spiritual path which he encourages others to travel. He notes that not all seeds reach the level of fragrance. Many die along the way, incomplete. In the same way, few people could climb this Mount Everest of spirituality—most get consumed along the way by materialism.

On a lonely wharf a clerk in an ink blue coat inspects bales and bales of paper that hold a poet's accumulated left-hand pages--the unwritten, the withheld, the unexpressed, the withdrawn, the restrained. In The Blue Clerk award-winning poet Dionne Brand stages a conversation and an argument between the poet and the Blue Clerk, who is the keeper of the poet's pages.

Travis Campbell has been at this hockey thing for a while. He knows his days on the ice are numbered, but he’s happy with the Moncton Ice Cats and he’s still got some time to figure out what comes next. He’s been taking college classes online and thought he knew what he was doing, but then he made the ultimate rookie mistake. It turns out the poetry class is not the easier way to get his required English credits.

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is one of the most beautiful and celebrated of all English poems. It is also the precursor of what would become the artistic movement known as Romanticism. In addition to this masterpiece, this recording includes some of Coleridge's finest poems, including the haunting "Kubla Kahn" and "Christabel."

Author and humorist Garrison Keillor presents Brisk Verse, a collection of original invigorating verse: one hundred and thirty-two poems in all—diverse topics, including Brevity, Thongs, Minnesota, Manners, Mozart, Marilyn Monroe, Failure, Fatherhood, Episcopalians, Plumbing, Spaghetti, Spring, Online Love, Eighty, and the National Anthem as it might’ve been written by Whitman, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, and other poets.

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 - 1892), one of the most popular of poets, is celebrated in 2009. Works such as The Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar and Tears, Idle Tears have made him an internationally famous figure, and the second most quoted writer of all time (after Shakespeare).

Wild Embers explores the fire that lies within every soul, weaving words around ideas of feeling at home in your own skin, allowing yourself to heal, and learning to embrace your uniqueness with love from the universe. Featuring rewritten fairy-tale heroines, goddess wisdom, and poetry that burns with revolution, this collection is an explosion of femininity, empowerment, and personal growth.

One of the finest German medieval epic poems, The Lay of the Nibelungs is perhaps best known now as one of the principal sources for Wagner’s four-part music drama The Ring of the Nibelung. It is easy to see how Wagner was enthralled by the story and the poetry for the power of the tale drives the narrative: intense love, loyalty, jealousy, murder, duty, honour and massacre are all interwoven into a classic.

Odysseus has been away from Ithaca, the Greek city-state under his rule, for ten years while fighting in the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus begins the long journey home to his wife and son; however, his journey is plagued by misfortune as the gods feud over his fate, leaving the Ithacans to believe that he has died. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.