English Poetry Literature

In Wade in the Water, Tracy K. Smith boldly ties America's contemporary moment both to our nation's fraught founding history and to a sense of the spirit, the everlasting. These are poems of sliding scale: some capture a flicker of song or memory; some collage an array of documents and voices; and some push past the known world into the haunted, the holy. Smith's signature voice - inquisitive, lyrical, and wry - turns over what it means to be a citizen, a mother, and an artist in a culture arbitrated by wealth, men, and violence.

On April 11, 1931, Virginia Woolf ended her entry in A Writer's Diary with the words "too much and not the mood." She was describing how tired she was of correcting her own writing, of the "cramming in and the cutting out" to please other readers, wondering if she had anything at all that was truly worth saying. The character of that sentiment, the attitude of it, inspired Durga Chew-Bose to write and collect her own work. The result is a lyrical and piercingly insightful collection of essays and her own brand of essay-meets-prose poetry about identity and culture.

Unspoken Words will captivate your emotions throughout the journey of buried memories, events of pain, and multiple tests of faith. In the end, can a legacy survive the silence? As a pastor, nothing gives you greater pride than seeing your son follow in your footsteps by learning to teach, believe, and abide by the Word. Pastor Derek Lewis is not any different in wanting his legacy to continue through his only son, Zayvon. But what happens when the only heir to the legacy that you built is born deaf? Do you question God?

Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater’s compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the “holy writ of beauty.” It was Pater’s cry of “art for art’s sake” that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art should be sensual and that beauty should rank as the highest ideal. Marked by elegant fluency, Pater’s essays discuss Botticelli, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and other artists who, for him, embodied the spirit of the Renaissance.

Du Fu (712-70) is one of China’s greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the common folk of his nation, ensured that he soon became revered. Like Shakespeare or Dante, his poetry resonates in a timeless manner that ensures it is always relevant and offers something new to the modern generation. Broadcaster and historian Michael Wood follows in his footsteps to try to understand the places that inspired Du Fu to write some of the most famous and best-loved poetry the world has known.

The most captivating part of perhaps the greatest epic poem ever written, Dante's Inferno still holds the power to thrill and inspire. The medieval equivalent of a thriller, Inferno follows Dante and his faithful guide, Virgil, as they traverse the complex geography of hell, confronting its many threats, macabre punishments, and historical figures before reaching the deep chamber where Satan himself resides.

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.

Internationally celebrated for his writing and his music, Leonard Cohen is revered as one of the great writers, performers, and most consistently daring artists of our time. Now available on audio for the first time, the poems in Book of Mercy brim with praise, despair, anger, doubt, and trust. Speaking from the heart of the modern world, yet in tones that resonate with an older devotional tradition, these verses give voice to our deepest, most powerful intuitions.

Finding Daisies takes the listener through the life stages of a girl who endures untold trauma and ultimately overcomes it. From pre-birth to motherhood, Jessica Jocelyn imparts the listeners with an inside look of navigating the tumultuous process of healing from the mother and father wounds.

This varied, well-chosen selection brings onto one audiobook the best of Dylan Thomas. Here is the legendary recording of "Under Milk Wood", with Richard Burton and Richard Bebb as narrators; but here also are two radio productions he wrote before that great classic, and though interesting in their own right, they show how "Under Milk Wood" grew gradually in his imagination.

"100 Best-Loved Poems" is a cherished anthology that brings together some of the most timeless and evocative works of poetry in the English language. This collection features a diverse array of poems from celebrated poets such as William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, Edgar Allan Poe, and many others.

Humphries has rendered (Ovid's) love poetry with conspicuous success into English which is neither obtrusively colloquial nor awkwardly antique.

In recent years, our poetic landscape has evolved in profound and exciting ways. So has our planet. Edited and introduced by the twenty-fourth Poet Laureate of the United States, Ada Limon, this book challenges what we think we know about "nature poetry," illuminating the myriad ways our landscapes—both literal and literary—are changing. You Are Here features fifty previously unpublished poems from some of the nation's most accomplished poets, including Joy Harjo, Diane Seuss, Rigoberto González, Jericho Brown, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Paul Tran, and more.

William Wordsworth (1770 -1850) is one of the most popular and enduring of the English poets. His poetry is beloved for its deep feeling, its use of ordinary speech, and its celebration of nature and of the beauty and poetry in the commonplace. Together with his friend, the poet and political activist Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth helped launch the romantic age in English literature. These poems demonstrate the astonishing range and beauty of Wordsworth’s work and his sustained, coherent vision.

A dirty, skinny, dog shows up in Sam and Katie's neighborhood. They start to follow it, and they don't like what they see: The Wilson sisters yell at it because it goes in their garden and the Tracy twins chase it on their bikes and throw things at it. Sam and Katie want the dog to know they'll be its friends. They think it should have a name. Most of all, they want it to like them. But then they do something thoughtless, and after that, it's hard to make things right, especially because the dog now won't come near them.

Eve is a bold, unprecedented exploration of the creation narrative, true to the original texts and centuries of scholarship - yet with breathtaking discoveries that challenge traditional misconceptions about who we are and how we're made. As The Shack awakened listeners to a personal, nonreligious understanding of God, Eve will free us from faulty interpretations that have compromised human relationships since the Garden of Eden.

Beowulf is the greatest surviving work of literature in Old English, unparalleled in its epic grandeur and scope. It tells the story of the heroic Beowulf and of his battles, first with the monster Grendel, who has laid waste to the great hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, then with Grendel's avenging mother and finally with a dragon that threatens to devastate his homeland.

There is no deeper and more troubled journey than the one we undertake within ourselves. Although it's not exactly easy, there's nothing better than getting to know ourselves truly. Self-knowledge allows us to heal and finally be free, being ourselves.

The 251 poems are read in entirely, with a light commentary at the end. Wilfred Campbell focuses on the English Canadian tradition since French Canadians had their own history & influences, though Montreal & Quebec loom large in many poems. Women poets are not specifically recognized though authoring 40% of the poems.

Zero at the Bone begins with Wiman's preoccupation with despair, and through fifty brief pieces, he unravels its seductive appeal. The book is studded with the poetry and prose of writers who inhabit Wiman's thoughts, and the voices of Wallace Stevens, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and others join his own.