English Poetry Literature

Poetry. Even all by themselves, the titles of Patricia Lockwood's poems reveal the sort of surreal, enigmatic, rhetorically- longated world her sensibility inhabits effortlessly.

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?

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.

Volume three of the definitive collection of Seamus Heaney reading his own work, recorded in in 2009 by RTE. Volume three contains four collections published between 1996 and 2010: The Spirit Level, Electric Light, District and Circle and Human Chain. To the RTE recordings Faber has added live readings by the poet of 11 poems from his 12th and final collection, Human Chain (2010).

Crisis! An explosive public meltdown. A violent incident in the psychiatric ward. Now the Pastor stares into the abyss of his own secret shame. Before he can be free, he must confront his demons and find grace. But will he let go? Will he allow himself to be healed?

Piers Plowman, William Langland's visionary medieval work about one man's quest for the true Christian life, is an allegorical journey through dream visions and visions within dreams. During the course of his journey, the narrator (William Langland) meets Piers Plowman, who gradually reveals himself to be the son of God. Through Piers, William learns of the virtues in poverty, the temptations of wealth, and of the perfect society that is to come under the rule of Piers Plowman.

When Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, “Yes. Me too.” For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety, and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.

At long last, a book of poetry for people who didn’t even know they liked poetry. And they’re in good company: author Lyndsay Rush didn’t know she liked it either. That is, until she embarked on an internet experiment under the Instagram username @MaryOliversDrunkCousin that turned into a body of work that struck a chord with women across the country; thanks to her signature wordplay, witticisms, and—against all odds—wisdom.

John Keats was largely unappreciated during his lifetime and died in Rome at the age of 26. Most of his 150 poems were written in just nine extraordinary months in 1819. This selection contains some of his finest works, including the principal "Odes", "La Belle Dame Sans Merci", "Old Meg", and "Much Have I Travelled".

Published at the author’s own expense in 1896, after rejection from publishers, this collection contains a cycle of 63 poems. Despite exploring themes of lost love, obsession, pessimism, and death, the poems touched English readers and the book became a best seller during the Second Boer War and World War I. The collection, set in a half-imagined pastoral Shropshire, includes the well-known poems "When I Was One-and-Twenty", "To an Athlete Dying Young", and "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now".

Wordsworth's The Prelude is the consummation of his achievement as the great founder of English romanticism. An autobiography in verse, it tells of his childhood in the Lake District, his student days in Cambridge, his passion for the French Revolution and his later disenchantment with it. It also tells of his personal journey to a belief in Nature as the great moral and spiritual force which shapes human life, but on which human society all too often turns its back.

Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Hundred Poems presents the "top 100" poems of all time. The selections are illuminated by the informative notes of editor William Harmon and read by an ensemble of contemporary poets including Alfred Corn and Rita Dove.

The Kalevala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. The Kalevala was instrumental in the development of the Finnish national identity and the sense of nationality that led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917. Beginning with the traditional Finnish creation myth, the Kalevala branches out into stories of the creation of the earth, plants, creatures, and the sky. There are many stories of, romance, kidnapping, seduction, and magical spell casting and singing.

Join in the adventure with Sugarlump the rocking horse when a unicorn grants his every wish, help the Singing Mermaid escape the circus and return to her seaside home, join Josephine and her extraordinary new shoes for an action-packed adventure and much more! This magical collection features seven much-loved stories from the best-selling picture-book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard.

Virgil's Aeneid, one of the greatest classical poems, tells the story of Aeneas, son of Priam, after the fall of Troy. His quest is to find the site "in the west" where he will found a new town prophesied to be the seat of a world empire: Rome.

In this middle grade novel-in-verse by the Newbery Medal-winning and Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning author of The Crossover, soccer, family, love, and friendship take center stage as 12-year-old Nick learns the power of words when he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate, Coby; and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read.

Taliesin's is one of the most important names in all Welsh literature - and one of its greatest mysteries. He has fascinated and inspired some of our greatest poets, including Tennyson and Robert Graves. He is a poet; a shape-shifter; a seer; a chronicler of battles fought, by sword and with magic, between the ancient kingdoms of the fifth- and sixth-century British Isles; a bridge between old Welsh mythologies and the new Christian theology; and a figure whose literary legend culminated with the compilation in 13th-century North Wales of The Book of Taliesin.

This collection arguably contains some of the most charming lyrics ever written in English. Blake’s poems can be enjoyed, not only for their historical importance in an age which was fiercely proud of its genius and its traditions, but also for their simple and beautiful expression of “two contrary states of the human soul.” Songs of Innocence was originally a complete collection of twenty-three poems, first printed in 1789. In 1794, a composite collection entitled Songs of Innocence and of Experience, containing forty-seven poems, was published.

Following the innovative collection Spill, Alexis Pauline Gumbs's M Archive - the second book in a planned experimental triptych - is a series of poetic artifacts that speculatively documents the persistence of Black life following a worldwide cataclysm.

Educated in Lebanon, United States, and France, Gibran was influenced by the European modernists of the late 19th century, but even more by Francis Marrash, who introduced poetic prose and prose poetry in the Arab world. Gibran's style of writing and ideas he wrote about are believed to have been greatly influenced by Marrash, particularly the concept of universal love.