English Poetry

Astrophil and Stella is an enchanting English sonnet sequence composed by Sir Philip Sidney in the 1580s. This collection consists of 108 sonnets and 11 songs, each woven with poetic artistry and emotional depth. The title itself holds a celestial allure: Astrophil derives from the Greek words "aster" (meaning star) and "phil" (meaning lover). Stella is the Latin word for star. In this poetic journey, Astrophil represents the star lover, while Stella embodies the star itself. Their relationship unfolds through the sonnets and songs, capturing the complexities of love, desire, and longing.

Benjamin 'Ben' Jonson was born in June 1572. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair and his equally accomplished lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, including time in jail and a penchant for switching faiths, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets.

A diaspora of memories runs through this poetry collection—a multiplicity of voices, bodies, and houses hold archival material for one another, tracing paths between Brooklyn, Beirut, and Jerusalem. Boundaries and borders blur between space and time and poetic form—small banal moments of daily life live within geopolitical brutalities and, vice versa, the desire for stability lives in familiarity with displacement.

The follow-up to the internationally best-selling sensation The Lost Words, The Lost Spells is an audio treasure that evokes the magic of the everyday natural world.

Show a child just how strong your love is every minute of the day! This is audiobook is a sweet offering and an ideal gift for baby showers, birthdays, and new parents. The sun rises, and a bear and cub begin their day together. They splash in the water, climb mountains, watch the colorful lights in the shimmering sky, and play with friends. They show their love for each other by touching noses, chasing each other, and, of course, hugging and snuggling before bed. A sweet, gentle rhyme, perfect for sharing with a special little one, making this heartwarming audiobook an ideal gift.

"In this resource for poets, Lockward offers practical advice and insights about establishing sound, voice, and syntax in poetry while also providing writing prompts and other poems as inspiration." A poetry tutorial to inform and inspire poets. Includes model poems and prompts, writing tips, and interviews contributed by 56 of our nation's finest poets, including 13 former and current state Poets Laureate.

Petronius’ Satyricon is a rampant and vivacious Roman adventure dating back to the first century, during the reign of Nero. It follows the exploits of Encolpius, an impoverished ex-gladiator, and his boy-lover Giton. The action is fleet and the narrative sweeping: over the course of their journey we meet a host of lewd and comical rogues, including beggars, prostitutes, poets, sodomites, and pedants, and witness many strange and curious events, including a remarkably vulgar multi-course feast, hosted by the pompous nouveau riche Trimalchio

A collection of essays by the Nobel Prize-winning author discusses Robert Frost, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, Baudelaire, Jean Paul Sartre, Luis Bunuel, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, among other fellow poets and writers.

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.

In Preface to Paradise Lost, the Christian apologist and revered scholar and professor of literature closely examines the style, content, structure, and themes of Milton’s masterpiece, a retelling of the biblical story of the Fall of Humankind, Satan’s temptation, and the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Considering the story within the context of the Western literary tradition, Lewis offers invaluable insights into Paradise Lost and the nature of literature itself, unveiling the poem’s beauty and its wisdom.

John Donne (1572 – 1631) was an English poet, preacher, and a major representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works are notable for their realistic and sensual style and include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires, and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and inventiveness of metaphor, especially as compared to those of his contemporaries.

The National Book Award, PEN/Voelker, and NAACP Image Award winner returns with another inventive and boundary-breaking book: a sensual journey ignited in the archives of iconic queer Alexandrian poet C. P. Cavafy.

Shade is a place meanders east-west along Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, seeking “a Black sense of place” at the pace of stressed shade and street trees, the mall’s architectural history, and the speaker’s inner life and ongoing questions. The collection of poems is a moving invitation to open one’s attention by looking up, down, and always within. Through lyric walking poems (“tree walks” and “shade walks”) and Bashō-style travelogue, Shade is a place unfolds as much through arboreal life as through one’s inner life—sometimes alone, sometimes with others, and always among turning trees.

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.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

One of the most recognizable young poets in America, Olivia Gatwood dazzles with her tribute to contemporary American womanhood in her debut book, New American Best Friend. Gatwood's poems deftly deconstruct traditional stereotypes. The focus shifts from childhood to adulthood, gender to sexuality, violence to joy. And always and inexorably, the book moves toward celebration, culminating in a series of odes: odes to the body, to tough women, to embracing your own journey in all its failures and triumphs.

The 12 Lays of Marie de France offer one of the most striking collections of short narrative poems of the 12th century - two centuries before Chaucer. Written in Anglo-French, they contain beguiling and entertaining stories of love and romance, of chivalry and adventure with sometimes even a magical twist. They are especially unique in early literature by being ascribed to a female poet, Marie de France: in the very first Lay - 'Guigemar' - is the introductory line: ‘Hear my Lords, what Marie says, who does not wish to be forgotten in her time.’

In this audiobook, I first read the poem in slow enunciated French then use simple, everyday French language to explain each individual verse. I then talk about the life of the author, give a full analysis of the poem and finally re-read the poem at a faster speed with a more personal interpretation. Not only is it a great cultural subject but it's a fantastic way to learn new vocabulary, verb tenses and improve your understanding of deeper conversations.

Written in the Middle English of the late 14th century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight survives in a single manuscript which also contains three religious poems including "Pearl", written it seems by the same author, who is therefore referred to as The Pearl Poet. The poem tells the story of an incident at the court of King Arthur, involving Sir Gawain’s acceptance of a challenge from the mysterious Green Knight, and leading to a test of his chivalry and courage.

Rushing home to sit by her ailing grandmother's bedside, Violet Waverly is shocked to find Grandma Daisy the picture of perfect health. Violet doesn't need to read between the lines: Her grandma wants Violet back home and working in her magical store, Charming Books. It's where the perfect book tends to fly off the shelf and pick you.... Violet has every intention to hightail it back to Chicago, but then a dead man is discovered clutching a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems from Grandma Daisy's shop.