English Poetry Literature

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny.

In Paradise Regained, Satan again is on the prowl, having successfully tempted Adam and Eve, and forced their departure from the Garden of Eden, here he sets out to tempt again - this time Jesus himself, as he comes to the end of his 40 days in the desert. The magisterial poetry of Milton enriches the encounter and, while not matching the greatness achieved in Paradise Lost, provides drama and depth.

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

After a painting triggers strange memories, Ben Martin comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, in search of answers. Although Annie and this enchanting outsider are from different worlds, she wonders why Ben's kindness seems so familiar and his presence so calming to her - and to the troubled husband of her best friend.

Go 'Grrrr' with the Gruffalo, sing along with the Smartest Giant, help Monkey search for his mum and see if the little old lady can make some room in her house! The Gruffalo and Other Stories is brilliantly performed by well-known actors Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter and Steven Pacey, as well as by the author herself, Julia Donaldson. Each story also has a song and sound effects.

Kahlil Gibran's aphorisms, stories, and poetry on a theme remain among some of those best known to Western readers. His views, however, extend beyond the most-quoted "greeting card" sayings to a wide realm of human emotions and relationships - passion, desire, idealized love, justice, friendship, and the challenges of dealing with strangers, neighbors, and enemies. This little book captures love and life in all of their complexities and nuances.

Nine complete Dr. Seuss stories at a great price, featuring performances by Jason Alexander, Michael McKean, and David Hyde Pierce.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again takes its title from the last line of Dante's Inferno, when the poet and his guide emerge from hell to once again behold the beauty of the heavens. In that spirit, the stories, essays, and poems in this collection - from beloved authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Mario Vargas Llosa, Eavan Boland, Daniel Alarcón, Jon Lee Anderson, Claire Messud, Ariel Dorfman, and many more - detail the harrowing experiences of life in the pandemic, while pointing toward a less isolated future.

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.

Nature Poem follows Teebs - a young, queer, American Indian (or NDN) poet - who can't bring himself to write a nature poem. For the reservation-born, urban-dwelling hipster, the exercise feels stereotypical, reductive, and boring. He hates nature. He prefers city lights to the night sky. He'd slap a tree across the face. He'd rather write a mountain of hashtag punchlines about death and give head in a pizza-parlor bathroom; he'd rather write odes to Aretha Franklin and Hole.

The intellectual and cultural revival of African-American arts and politics in the 1920s and 1930s was centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City. Here are poems from three major contributors to that rebirth: The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes, The Heart of a Woman and Other Poems by Georgia Douglas Johnson, and Copper Sun by Countee Cullen, delivered by three multiaward–winning narrators.

Crafting together the power of words and womanhood, writer Tanya Markul has written a completely unique poetry collection fit for the phenomenal listeners of today. In Tanya's words, "May we raise the bar for how we live our lives. May we ridiculously increase the amount of peace, play, creativity, beauty, love, and joy in everything we do. May we all sip from the wisdom of our suffering. And awaken with the courage to share our stories that can heal our inner and outer worlds."

From Malawian storyteller Upile Chisala comes a collection of poetry and prose exploring the self, joy, Blackness, gender, matters of the heart, spirituality, the experience of Diaspora, and above all, how we survive. Told in five parts, soft magic is a shared healing journey.

Within this book, you will find that each of us has the ability to be both soft & fierce at the same time. There is no need to choose one or the other.

Sometimes, we all need a little boost in our outlook on the world around us and giving ourselves positive daily messages can deepen our understanding of life’s mysteries. This compilation of spoken messages and poems is an ideal companion for daily meditation practice. You can listen to the messages in succession, or one at a time.Ilchi Lee’s messages and poems communicate the sublime wisdom that speaks to the inherent greatness in each one of us.

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.

In the gentle world of one of England’s beautiful old cathedral towns, crisis looms: Funds are short, and the cathedral is in need of major repair. One faction of the community argues that the obvious solution is to abolish the expensive, and nowadays rather irrelevant, boys’ choir. But of course, there are those who disagree: the choir school’s headmaster, a conscientious scholar somewhat out of his depth with his elusive, poetical wife; the cathedral organist and choirmaster, brilliant, wayward, and in love with the lead chorister’s married mother; the former lead chorister, now twenty-three and directionless....

Jericho Brown's daring new book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown's poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human: What is safety? Who is this nation? Where does freedom truly lie?

In these rapidly changing times, it is more important than ever to know ourselves well and fully, even and especially in the face of turmoil. The Way Forward encourages listeners to connect more deeply to their intuition, using it to remain focused and grounded amidst a world in constant flux. In his latest collection of poetry and short prose, Yung Pueblo offers clear strategies for managing the unknown, inhabiting your personal power, and bringing your truest, healthiest self to relationships.

In the years since he first had the idea of prescribing short, powerful poems for all manner of spiritual ailments, William Sieghart has taken his Poetry Pharmacy around Britain, into the pages of the Guardian, onto BBC Radio 4 and onto the television, honing his prescriptions all the time. This audiobook presents the most essential poems in his dispensary: those which, again and again, have really shown themselves to work. Whether you are suffering from loneliness, lack of courage, heartbreak, hopelessness or an excess of ego, there is something here to ease your pain.