Family Poetry

Thomas's recording of this holiday classic is considered the first official audiobook. You'll hear the author's recollection of a holiday in the seaside town of his youth as well as some of his most celebrated poems, including "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."

“Marigold was absorbed in her book; she had gotten as far as the V.” So begins Marigold and Rose, Louise Glück’s astonishing chronicle of the first year in the life of twin girls. Imagine a fairy tale that is also a multigenerational saga; a piece for two hands that is also a symphony; a poem that is also, in the spirit of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, an incandescent act of autobiography. Here are the elements you’d expect to find in a story of infant twins—but more than that, Marigold and Rose is an investigation of the great mystery of language and of time itself.

woke up no light is a Black girl’s saunter turned to a woman’s defiant strut. These are the hymns of a new generation of poetry. Young, alive, yearning. A mouth swung open and ready to devour. A quest for home in a world that knows only wasteland and wanting.

Matthew Turner doesn't have faith in anything. Not in family - his is a shambles after his younger brother was bullied into suicide. Not in so-called friends who turn their backs when things get tough. Not in some all-powerful creator who lets too much bad stuff happen. And certainly not in some "It Gets Better" psychobabble. No matter what his girlfriend Hayden says about faith and forgiveness, there's no way Matt's letting go of blame.

Radiant and tender, My Baby First Birthday is a collection that examines innocence, asking us who gets to be loved and who has to deplete themselves just to survive. It's about existence and nonexistence, about being born - without consent. Jenny Zhang writes about accepting pain, about the way we fetishize womanhood and motherhood, and reduce women to their violations, traumas, and body parts.

Renowned for his inventive mind, ambitious play with language, and dexterity with a wide range of tones and styles, John Ashbery has been a major artistic figure in the cultural life of our time. Parallel Movement of the Hands gathers unpublished, book-length projects and long poems written between 1993 and 2007, along with one (as yet) undated work, to showcase Ashbery’s diverse and multifaceted artistic obsessions and sources, such as children’s literature, cliff-hanger cinema reels, silent films, and classical music variations by Beethoven’s pupil Carl Czerny.

Here is a book as joyous and painful, as mysterious and memorable, as childhood itself. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings captures the longing of lonely children, the brute insult of bigotry, and the wonder of words that can make the world right. Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic beloved worldwide.

From one of the most-viewed spoken word poets of all time, a poetry collection exploring themes of loneliness, anxiety, and longing, while also celebrating the gifts that come with being alone - the chance to live on your own terms, to learn to love yourself without any distractions, and to become your own biggest champion.

One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing - most notably the Native American oral tradition - are the centerpiece of his work.

From Finnish saunas and soppy otters to grief, grandparents and Kellogg's anti-masturbation pants, Slug is a book which holds a mirror lovingly up to the world, past and present, through Hollie's driving, funny, hopeful poetry and prose. Slug is about the human condition: of birth and death and how we manage the possibilities in between.

The Life of a Wannabe Mogul: Mental Disarray, Bella Thorne’s collection of illuminating and inspiring poems chronicles her personal struggles, relationships, and wild-child lifestyle, all with her trademark wit and wisdom.

In this middle grade novel-in-verse by the Newbery Medal-winning and Coretta Scott King Honor Award-winning author of The Crossover, soccer, family, love, and friendship take center stage as 12-year-old Nick learns the power of words when he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate, Coby; and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read.

Clint Smith’s vibrant and compelling new collection traverses the vast emotional terrain of fatherhood, and explores how becoming a parent has recalibrated his sense of the world. There are poems that interrogate the ways our lives are shaped by both personal lineages and historical institutions. There are poems that revel in the wonder of discovering the world anew through the eyes of your children, as they discover it for the first time. There are poems that meditate on what it means to raise a family in a world filled with constant social and political tumult.

Confronting loss, historical intersections with race and family, and the threshold between childhood and adulthood, Smith gathers courage and direction from the many disparate selves encountered in these poems, until, as she writes, "I was anyone I wanted to be."

Rese Barrett and Lance Michelli have agreed to run her Sonoma B&B as partners. But Lance is still driven to unravel the mystery behind papers he found buried in the basement there: papers left by his grandfather, who built this house two generations ago. Now they have gone to Lance's family in New York to find some answers.

Eighteen kids, one year of poems, one school set to close. Two yellow bulldozers crouched outside, ready to eat the building in one greedy gulp. But look out, bulldozers. Ms. Hill's fifth-grade class has plans for you. They're going to speak up and work together to save their school.

With her first full-length poetry collection, Warsan Shire introduces us to a young girl, who, in the absence of a nurturing guide, makes her own way toward womanhood. Drawing from her own life, as well as pop culture and news headlines, Shire finds vivid, unique details in the experiences of refugees and immigrants, mothers and daughters, Black women and teenage girls.

She Walks in Beauty draws on poetry’s eloquent wisdom to ponder the many joys and challenges of being a woman. Caroline Kennedy has divided the collection into sections that signify to her the most notable milestones, passages, and universal experiences in a woman’s life, and she begins each of these sections with an introduction in which she explores and celebrates the most important elements of life’s journey.

From a cemetery in a mythical small town in Illinois, the dead speak about their lives. Each free-verse monologue stands as an epitaph for the person speaking, yet the play is ultimately about life, not death. Featuring 50 performers with specially commissioned original music, this is the only audio version of this landmark classic available.

The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history, and it has never been out of print. The prophet, Al Mustafa, has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition.