English Poetry

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful, and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century BC, and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

As we open up to life and love and each other, as we awaken from our dream of separation, we encounter not just the bliss of existence, but its pain, too; not only life's ecstasy, but also its agony. Healing doesn't always feel good or comfortable or even "spiritual", for we are inevitably forced to confront our shadows, fears, and deepest longings - those secret parts of ourselves that we have denied, repressed, or deemed "negative" and unworthy of our love.

This poetry companion puts favorite poetry and poets from around the world at your fingertips, enabling you to revisit the classics, encounter unfamiliar masterworks and rediscover old favorites.

Snowflakes, sleds, and skates are just the beginning of the joys of winter.

The little red hen finds none of the lazy barnyard animals willing to help her plant, harvest, or grind wheat into flour, but all are eager to eat the bread she makes from it.

In Clarity and Connection, Yung Pueblo explores how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react the ways we do. With his distinctive voice, at once spare and evocative, the author guides us through the excavation and release of the past that is required for growth.

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.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay Nature.

Journey into the captivating world of poetic expression with renowned author and poet Zachary Phillips. Whether you are an aspiring poet or a seasoned writer looking to elevate your craft, this enlightening guide is your key to unlocking the power of words and creating evocative, soul-stirring poetry.

The prolific writings of Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet, continue to inspire a devoted international following and have transformed modern Arabic literature. In this volume of early writings, Gibran’s simple yet lyrical style crosses from prose to poetry and yields insight into his dedication and inner vision of beauty, including the tale of a strange hermit in “The Tempest”, the discovery of love lost to war in “The Mermaids”, and the long voyage of sea and soul in the prose poem “Between Night and Morn”.

Avan Jogia grew up as a teen idol. He stumbled into the spotlight during the birth of the internet, the early days of Instagram and Twitter, before everyone online was a star. He spent his time in that spotlight writing, observing the cult of celebrity, the hilarity, the absurdity, and sometimes sinister side of being idolized before you’ve even had the chance to decide for yourself who you are. Now, in his most revealing and honest work to date, he has assembled a book of poems as an act of self-dissection.

The Wandering Paddy, aka Jamie Mooney, has more than 400,000 followers on social media, a following that's growing at the rate of 20,000 a month, with 6 million account interactions and views a month. His unique perspective on life has resonated with people both in his native Ireland and around the world, as The Wandering Paddy shares his thoughts and experiences, his challenges in overcoming cancer, his mental health struggles and the invaluable life lessons he has learned and can now pass on. The Book of Truths captures the essence of what The Wandering Paddy has learned about life.

Diane Seuss's signature voice—audacious in its honesty, virtuosic in its artistry, outsider in its attitude—has become one of the most original in contemporary poetry. Her latest collection takes its title, Modern Poetry, from the first textbook Seuss encountered as a child and the first poetry course she took in college, as an enrapt but ill-equipped student, one who felt poetry was beyond her reach. Many of the poems make use of the forms and terms of musical and poetic craft and contend with the works of writers overrepresented in textbooks and anthologies and those often underrepresented.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma or 'duty' and moksha or 'liberation') takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'self') and the workings of karma.

Dead Souls, Gogol's epic poem in prose, is widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. We follow Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned conman, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise as he arrives in the provincial town of 'N' and begins visiting various landowners to make each a strange and ghostly offer.

“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness,” says Fox.

Melody Godfred explores concepts like authenticity, surrender, resilience, gratitude, believing in yourself, and of course, love, through 100 pairs of poems, each dedicated to a central theme. The first poem in each pair is a "thinker" poem that lights up the analytical, more literal left side of the brain, and the second poem is a companion "feeler" poem that speaks to the creative, more emotional right side of the brain. Combined, the poems electrify the mind, body, and soul through a completely unique poetry experience that inspires each of us to embrace all parts of ourselves.

A selection of poems by Hannah More on various topics. A word about the author: Hannah More (1745-1833) was born in Gloucestershire, England. In middle age, she was closely connected with William Wilberforce and his fellow abolitionists. She was also a friend of the evangelical hymn-writer John Newton. She wrote moral stories and ballads on many topics and was one of the most successful writers, and perhaps the most influential Christian woman, of her day.

Since it was first published more than 25 years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. Fitzgerald's work is accessible, ironic, faithful, written in a swift vernacular blank verse that "makes Homer live as never before" ( Library Journal).

Paradise Lost, along with its companion piece, Paradise Regained, remain the most successful attempts at Greco-Roman style epic poetry in the English language. Remarkably enough, they were written near the end of John Milton's amazing life, a bold testimonial to his mental powers in old age. And, since he had gone completely blind in 1652, 15 years prior to Paradise Lost, he dictated it and all his other works to his daughter.