English Poetry

One of the great masterpieces of Western literature, The Odyssey chronicles the many trials and adventures Odysseus must pass through on his long journey home from the Trojan wars. Though the stormy god of the ocean is determined to keep him off course, Odysseus is clever and has the brilliant goddess Athena on his side.

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.

As the phoenix emerges from its ashes, Zebian emerges ablaze in these words, not only as a survivor of abuse, but as a teacher and healer for all those who have struggled to understand, reclaim, and rise above a history of pain. The book is divided into six chapters, and six stages of healing: Falling, Burning to Ashes, Sparks of Phoenix, Rising, Soaring, and finally, A New Chapter, which demonstrates a healthy response to new love as the result of authentic healing.

Following the innovative collection Spill, Alexis Pauline Gumbs's M Archive - the second book in a planned experimental triptych - is a series of poetic artifacts that speculatively documents the persistence of Black life following a worldwide cataclysm.

In Self Love Poetry, Melody introduces her signature style of dual poetry, with each pair of poems speaking to left brain thinkers and right brain feelers, and takes listeners on a self-love journey that activates not just the left and right brain, but the heart, body, and soul. In The Shift, Godfred again uses a dual style, this time using her poetry pairs to reframe how listeners move through a brave, new, post-pandemic world.

She was known for her outrageous one-liners, her ruthless theater criticism, her clever verses and bittersweet stories. But there was another side to Dorothy Parker, a private life set on a course of destruction.

Part of the #TwentyIn2020 collection for Black British writing, In Her Voice is an anthology that celebrates five poetry collections. This includes Locating Strongwoman by Tolu Agbelusi, Where the Memory Was by Hibaq Osman, Jamakespeare by Brenda Garrick, The First Collection by Sarah Lipton-Sidibeh and On Reflection by Adjoa Wiredu. 

Najwa Zebian: The Collected Poems is an audio collection of Zebian's bestselling poetry, including the full text of Mind Platter, The Nectar of Pain, and Sparks of Phoenix. This bundled audiobook allows listeners to access all of Zebian’s moving work in one place, in the author’s own voice.

The status of John Donne (1572-1631) as one of the greatest poets in the English language is firmly established. He strongly influenced writers of the 17th century, and modern poets such as T.S. Eliot have praised and imitated Donne's work. His poetry is characterized by dramatic, witty, and bold language; by strikingly original imagery; and rhythms based on everyday speech.

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.

Poetry is more than rhyming words on a page. A poem is crafted by carefully selecting each word and rhythm. But how does a poet get started? Finding inspiration is as easy as looking at a picture.

Author of Sutter's Cross, a Booklist Top Pick, W. Dale Cramer evokes the ambiance of a small Southern town in this inspiring novel. Jeremy's mother has passed away, leaving him with an odd request. He is to find his Uncle Aiden, a hardrock miner, and stay with him, regardless of Aiden's wishes. Jeremy's faith in God gives him the courage to find the humanity behind this tough-as-steel man.

Argonautika is the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. This epic story of gods and goddesses, mythical beasts, thrilling adventures, and narrow escapes may be the oldest surviving Greek myth, which Homer referred to as something "familiar to all." Listen to this masterpiece of classical literature in an all-new translation that captures the timeless magic and quiet humor of this ancient legend.

Jericho Brown's daring 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? Brown makes mythical pastorals to question the terrors to which we've become accustomed, and to celebrate how we survive.

Few writers have so brilliantly and poignantly conjured the desperation and absurdity of ordinary life as Charles Bukowski. Resonant with his powerful, perceptive voice, his visceral, hilarious, and transcendent poetry speaks to us as forcefully today as when it was written. Encompassing a wide range of subjects—from love to death and sex to writing—Bukowski’s unvarnished and self-deprecating verse illuminates the deepest and most enduring concerns of the human condition while remaining sharply aware of the day to day.

For Hala Alyan, 29 is a year of transformation and upheaval, a year in which the past - memories of family members, old friends and past lovers, the heat of another land, another language, a different faith - winds itself around the present. Hala's ever-shifting, subversive verse sifts together and through different forms of forced displacement and the tolls they take on mind and body. Poems leap from war-torn cities in the Middle East, to an Oklahoma Olive Garden, a Brooklyn brownstone; from alcoholism to recovery; from a single woman to a wife.

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.

Books of Poetry and Wisdom, Part 1 is Volume 11 from the "Books of Poetry and Wisdom" in the Old Testament, from the Unabridged Contemporary English Version Translation of the Holy Bible. Part 1 consists of the Book of Job.

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....

Now published in over 70 languages, this number one international best seller gently offers answers to life's biggest questions as well as a practical process to help you create prosperity, vitality, happiness and inner peace. This is the incredible story of Julian Mantle, a superstar lawyer whose out-of-balance lifestyle leads him to a near-fatal heart attack in a packed courtroom. His collapse brings on a spiritual crisis, forcing him to seek answers to life's most important questions.