English Poetry Literature

This highly entertaining anthology of verse is the comic, tragic, tender, and telling story of life's seven ages, from childhood to old age. Within the framework of Shakespeare's speech, "The Seven Ages of Man," performed by Sir Ian McKellen, are 150 great poems from all ages, from Chaucer to Emily Dickinson to Walt Whitman and many others. The poem are presented by the finest cast ever assembled on one recording and includes Ralph Fiennes, Dame Judi Dench, John Cleese, Michael Caine, and more.

The quartercentenary of John Milton (1608-1674) is celebrated next year. This selection of his finest poetry includes sections from "Paradise Lost", "Samson Agonistes", the masque "Comus", as well as sonnets and other poems. They are read by two of Britain's leading classical actors.

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets, represented by collections of their most popular poems in one program. W. B. Yeats was one of the most beloved poets of the 20th century. He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Lake Isle of Inisfree," "The Secret Rose," and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". They are read by a strong cast, led by Olivier award-winner Jim Norton.

Take a look into the mind of the undead bohemian Jack Townson, an artist who found himself trapped in a world of nightmares, a life without sunlight, never to feel the warmth of day or the permanence of true love. Jack dives inward to put pen to paper, filling each minute with forbidden secrets—from the loves he's lost, to the friends he's made, to the villains who have plagued him, and the dreams of tomorrow. Step into the shoes of a child of dusk trying to find his way back into the dawn.

A collection of the finest work of one of America's best-loved poets. Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. Critics now consider Dickinson to be a major American poet. Read by Julie Harris.

Listen and relive exciting tales from Highlights, now on audio! Hear about a child who helps a butterfly return to where it belongs and the beauty of the summer sky, along with other poems. Stories include: Animal Crackers by Heidi Bee Roemer, Barnyard Breakfast by Melanie Rook Welfing, Camping Out with Honey by Gale Sypher Jacob, Dancing the Blues Away by Eileen Spinelli, Fourth of July by Yuko Green, and more.

In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has ben banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve. The actions get Adam and Eve banished from paradise, and in the aftermath of their sin they get to glimpse the future of humanity based on their actions.

Acerbic wit and stinging satire are contrasted with delicate sensibility and passionate desire in the work of the Latin poet Catullus. Armed with an urbane sophistication and an aristocratic circle of friends, Catullus moved about easily in the upper ranks of Roman society and was acquainted with Cicero, Caesar, and Pompey among others.

In this follow-up to "Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead" these poems guide the listener ever deeper into union with the inner Divine Beloved. Dedicated to the One who patiently awaits our attention, devotion....and longing.

This poem describes a battle with a fearsome beast called The Jabberwocky and is considered to be one of the greatest nonsense poems written in the English language. The poem is included in Lewis Carroll's 1871 novel, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Diary entries, medical records, book reports, phone calls, dates (the romantic kind), dreams, index cards, passive aggressive post-it notes, stories, emails to professors, dates (the month/day kind), worries, and resumes that never led to job interviews....

This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity. All of the great ones are here: Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier.

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.

Also known as the Roman Elegies, Erotica Romana is von Goethe's literary tribute to human sexuality and eroticism. Written in 24 elegies to emulate classical Roman elegy writers such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Catullus, von Goethe creates a lyrical work of art that has often been subject to censorship because of the erotic content.

Poetry, our most ancient form of prayer, is a necessary medicine for our times: a companion through difficulty; a guide when we are lost; a salve when we are wounded; and a conduit to an inner source of joy, freedom, and insight. Through poetry, the unspeakable can be spoken, the unendurable endured, and the miraculous shared. Whether you are a lover of poetry or have yet to discover its power, Rosen offers a new way to experience a poem.

Known for his meaty seriocomic novels–expansive works that are simultaneously lowbrow and highbrow–Tom Robbins has also published over the years a number of short pieces, predominantly nonfiction. His travel articles, essays, and tributes to actors, musicians, sex kittens, and thinkers have appeared in publications ranging from Esquire to Harper’s, from Playboy to the New York Times, High Times, and Life.

The mystics who coined the phrase "the way of affirmation" understood the apocalyptic nature of the word yes, the way it can lead out of one life and into another. Moving among the languages of Christian conversion, Classical metamorphosis, seasonal transformation, and gender transition, Luke Hathaway tells the story of the love that rewired his being, asking each of us to experience the transfiguration that can follow upon saying yes—with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul, with all one’s mind, with all one’s strength ... and with all one’s body, too.

At the end of his life, William Blake (1757-1827) gave up hope of being widely understood, but the twentieth century brought to his work a new and intense interest and acclaim.

Willa Cather's early poem, "April Twilights," serves as a precursor to themes of love and nature that appear in her later novels. This collection also includes poems by poetesses Christina Rossetti, Sarah Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Amy Lowell, as well as a sampling of works by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures.