English Poetry

Few of Emily Dickinson’s poems were published in her lifetime. Her posthumous fame is largely due to the efforts of her editors and supporters Thomas W. Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd.

Life’s Poetic Glossary is best paired with slow sips of your morning coffee or with your evening tea before you drift off into sleep with gratifying musings.

A vibrant selection of poems by the great Persian mystic with groundbreaking translations by Haleh Liza Gafori, an American poet of Persian descent. Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as well as aesthetic delight.

Mai Der Vang's poetry—lyrically insistent and visually compelling—constitutes a groundbreaking investigation into the collective trauma and resilience experienced by Hmong people and communities, the ongoing cultural and environmental repercussions of the war in Vietnam, the lives of refugees afterward, and the postmemory carried by their descendants. Primordial is a crucial turn to the ecological and generational impact of violence, a powerful and rousing meditation on climate, origin, and fate.

A nameless, ageless, genderless protagonist wishes nothing more than to be someone- anyone- else. And they can. Sort of. They can "ride backseat" in other people's lives. They see what they see, hear what they hear, think what they think, and feel what they feel, but they have no control. I Am You follows our protagonist as they follow the lives of three individuals.

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.

Over the course of three years, Alice Oswald recorded conversations with people who live and work on the River Dart in Devon. Using these records and voices as a sort of poetic census, she creates in Dart a narrative of the river, tracking its life from source to sea.

A collection and selection of poetry by Ohio-based poet, blogger, and flash fiction author Cat Russell, author of the short story and flash fiction collection The Optimist's Journal of the End of Days. This audiobook is read by the author.

“When life throws you a bag of sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.” So ends Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me”. In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny Feels” she challenges her listener to consider their grandmother’s cake, the taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance” about her son's birth she writes, “What is the word for when the light leaves the body/What is the word for when it/ at last, returns”.

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.’

The Iliad, set 9 years into the Trojan War, tells the story of the wrath of Achilles. The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus as he wearily travels home from the war. The two epics provide the basis of Greek education and culture in the classical age. They have long remained among the most significant poems of European tradition. Produced here in full cast arrangement and narrated by Rob Goll, one can experience these age-old stories in a brand new way.

The best-selling author of The Road Less Traveled and In Search of Stones presents a novel of the afterlife that teaches important spiritual lessons for his life. The soul of Daniel—the author-psychiatrist who narrates this story—awakens in the afterlife infused with fear and excitement. Two spiritual "greeters" guide him as he begins to negotiate the "corridors" of this new environment, encountering welcome and unwelcome spirits.

Lauded for the power of her writing and having attracted an online fan base of millions for her extraordinary spoken-word performances, Olivia Gatwood now weaves together her own coming-of-age with an investigation into our culture’s romanticization of violence against women. At times blistering and riotous, at times soulful and exuberant, Life of the Party explores the boundary between what is real and what is imagined in a life saturated with fear. Gatwood asks, How does a girl grow into a woman in a world racked by violence? Where is the line between perpetrator and victim?

Following the success of Catching LIfe by the Throat, Josephine Hart compiles more poetry from the like of such poets as Milton, Byron, Keats, Shelley, Browning, Frost and Lowell.

Read by a dazzling cast of actors including Eileen Atkins, Nancy Carroll, Alan Cox, Charles Dance, Joanna David, Lindsay Duncan, Edward Fox, Emilia Fox, Robert Hardy, Tom Hollander, Jeremy Irons, Felicity Kendal, Elizabeth McGovern, Mark Strong, Dominic West, Greg Wise.

Francesco Petrarch’s Canzoniere (translated in English as ‘Scattered Rhymes’) is a collection of 14th century poems famed for their exploration of love, grief, spirituality and nature. Peter Thornton's accessible new translation brings Petrarch to the 21st century in direct, rhymed, English verse - for academics and poetry enthusiasts alike.

Milton was to now publish his greatest works, which had been gestating for many years. Paradise Lost, perhaps the classic English epic poem was originally published in 10 books in 1667. This was followed by Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes in 1671. Because of his anti-monarchy views their reception was muted, but over the centuries since, Milton has established himself as second only to Shakespeare. He died of kidney failure on November 8th, 1674, and was buried in the church of St Giles Cripplegate.

Sleep. That most mysterious of times. The unconscious hours. Everyone needs it. Sleep offers a respite from the rigors and challenges of the day - a chance for the brain to process what has happened and bring rest and recuperation before the cycle of daytime activity begins again. Our poets, from Kipling and Swinburne through Hafiz, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe and a pillowful of others, explore the wish to rest, to close the eyes and reside in the land of nod.

Cap the narrator makes a deal with his pal Sam McGee that he will cremate him when he dies. Now the problem is where to do this deed in the frozen Yukon.

A book of helpful directions for the lay Minister, ordained Minister, or even a life coach, on how to counsel and recognize mental disorders and sinful nature/behavior of any and all people so that you can counsel them using Biblical principles.

Hundreds of people submitted recordings of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and Roger McGough in an attempt to win a prize: Participation in the recording of this new poetry collection by Christina Hardyment, historian and audiobook reviewer for The Times. This collection covers a wide range of classics by Shakespeare, Keats, Clare, Blake, and others, as well as modern poems by Roger McGough, among others. They are read mainly by the male and female first-prize winners, but also by the runners-up.