Life Poetry

The only way to awaken all the dormant magic within is to feel grateful that we have already unlocked it. I adore this apparent paradox - Dean Fraser. Living at peace with all that makes you…well, you! This is home…simply takes a change in point of view. Being happy in your skin, everywhere feels like home. Constantly at home wherever you choose to roam. I see them. Seeking a bluer sky. Those streets seemingly paved with gold. A charmed life looked at from a distance. What about me? I am grateful to waken this morning.

After what seems like so many years of struggling due to the death of their big brother and their missing in action father; the triplets, Yasmin, York and Yancy finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mom has a great job, everyone's grades are up, they're all making new friends and have even gotten involved in afterschool activities. Now their father is back in the picture and everyone knows its smooth sailing from there, right? Wrong.

Bighearted and observant twelve-year-old Murray O’Shea loves the ocean. Every chance she gets, she’s in it. It could be because the ocean never makes her apologize for being exactly who she is—something her family refuses to do—but it could also be because of the secret magic that Murray shares with the ocean. Though she can’t explain its presence, the electric buzz she feels from her fingertips down to her toes allows her to become one with the ocean and all its creatures, and it makes Murray feel seen in a way she never feels on land.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again takes its title from the last line of Dante's Inferno, when the poet and his guide emerge from hell to once again behold the beauty of the heavens. In that spirit, the stories, essays, and poems in this collection - from beloved authors including Jhumpa Lahiri, Mario Vargas Llosa, Eavan Boland, Daniel Alarcón, Jon Lee Anderson, Claire Messud, Ariel Dorfman, and many more - detail the harrowing experiences of life in the pandemic, while pointing toward a less isolated future.

Double Vision: Seeing God in Everyday Life Through Devotions and Poetry contains 30 devotions, each paired with a poem on the same subject - a double eye-opener. Viewing the same spiritual truth from two angles will help you see daily life from an eternal perspective. Pasch's simple yet thought-provoking analogies will prompt you to take a second look at the most ordinary experience.

"How can I teach a prayer / I only know how to recite?" "America, whose death / didn't you come from?" These are some of the questions that poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller wrestles with in his beautiful, gripping new collection. By turns experimental and documentary, Dybbuk Americana draws out the questions around Jewish identity in the United States, and what it means to pass on Jewish identity to one's child. This hybrid text draws on art, mysticism, and history, taking the dybbuk, a figure from Jewish folklore, as its central metaphor.

While the poetry you’ll listen to in Ron Wallace’s latest collection speaks of serious topics such as loss and the inescapable progression of time, you’ll also find plenty of humor in this book. His words bring to life his beloved Oklahoma prairies and skies, and his own family members. Wallace’s reflections on childhood, his parents, and, of course, baseball, are heartwarming.

In a series of fascinating conversations with eighteen American poets, and in dozens of poems, The Language of Life celebrates language in its "most exalted, wrenching, delighted, and concentrated form," and its unique power to recreate the human experience: falling in love, facing death, leaving home, losing faith, finding God.

Keeping her brother, Benji, warm, fed, and away from their father is Louisa's only goal in life. When the state steps in and places them in separate foster homes, her world falls apart. Louisa, in crisis, discovers slam poetry. The spoken word performances reveal people sharing pieces of themselves on stage for the world to hear. The transparency she sees frightens her but also holds the key to her future...if she's brave enough to give her story a voice.

The start of the school year is bringing a lot of changes for Rain: New school. No Circle Group. No Dr. McCalla. No Miss Walia. No step team. And Xander, her older brother and superhero, is away at college. Although everyone else seems okay with change, Rain struggles to open up to her new counselor, her mom, Umi, Alyssa, and even Xander, who seems to have forgotten all about her while away at college. But when an older boy starts giving Rain more attention than she asked for—will she be able to open up again before things go too far?

Ever since twelve-year-old Josh Kline found an antisemitic note in his family’s mailbox in third grade, he has felt uncomfortable about his Jewish identity. At a new school where he’s pretty sure he’s the only Jew, he’s hoping to just keep religion out of everything . . . until the morning someone sprays swastikas all over the building. That’s when everything changes.

Adnan Zakir loves table tennis. He's also colorblind, left-handed, and has a fondness for the aviation alphabet. He's super close with his sister, Aaliyah, who is a great dancer and memorizer of Quran, and he loves his little toddler brother Rizwan, who only wants to grow up and play table tennis like his big brother. All Adnan dreams of is making it to the Ultimate Table Tennis Championship in Florida, and if he qualifies for the tournament, he knows he will get to spend the Eid holiday with his cousins!

Ebony and De’Kari (aka Flow) do not get along. How could they when their cafeteria scuffle ended with De'Kari's ruined shoes, Ebony on the ground, and both of them with ten days of at-home suspension? Now Eb and Flow have two weeks to think about and explain their behavior—to their families, to each other, and ultimately to themselves. Single-parent homes, tight funds, and sibling dynamics provide a balancing act for the growing tweens. And whether they realize it or not, these two have a lot more in common than they think.

The poems in this rich and imaginative debut collection speak of people, life, loss, and love. They weave threads of myth and fairy-tale into commentaries of society, explorations of self, nature, and humanity. Some surreal and sinister, others playful and light, the poems in A Book For Pandora encompass an array of flavors that will delight any listener.

In the late 1980s, the vibrant Los Angeles poetry scene gave voice to a new wave of writers and spoken-word artists. The essence of Don’t Be Shy represents one man’s passage through the eclectic coffee houses and performance art venues that celebrated diversity and uncensored self-expression. This collection of poems navigates the existential and often humorous landscape of love and longing, social commentary and spiritual awakening, to arrive at an awareness shared by one who embraced the enigmatic creative promise of the City of Angels.

Smiles and Cries is a book of life-affirming storytelling poetry that will move, inspire, motivate, encourage, and enlighten anyone, anywhere who has the opportunity to hear it. I truly feel that everyone who listens to this book will find that much of its content applies to them in their daily lives or that they can relate to most of its content in some way. If you enjoy hearing truly unique poetry, then this is one you don't want to miss!

Ever felt like a grump? In this delightful musical audiobook. The House That Jack Built, poor old Jack starts out grim and grumbly. But even Jack can't resist warming up with the help of his singing and dancing barnyard friends right out of your favorite nursery rhymes. A tale - or tail? - of love, life, and forgiveness promises fun-filled family entertainment with bluegrass music and memorable moments.

When twelve-year-old Estie is expelled from school, she's sent to stay with her aunt in Scotland over the summer. Even though Estie knows what she did was right. Even though nobody, not even her mum, asked to hear her side of the story. Estie's determined to keep her barriers up and stick to herself until the holidays are over. But when she comes across an intricately folded paper bird with a secret message written inside - a message from someone desperate to tell their own unbelieved story - a chord is struck, and Estie can't help but follow the clues to the next piece of artwork.

With flowing rhymes, intoxicating free verse explorations, and vivid imagery, LIFE AS IT IS & OTHER POEMS will take you on a powerful journey through life and loss, depression and self-acceptance, nature and the universe, and everything in between.

This is a brilliant collection of poems and prose that’s inspiring and uplifting, that’s caring and sensitive, that’s sensually seductive, that's heartbreaking and heart-wrenching. The collection reflects life's ever-changing experiences in a uniquely captivating way. You will find poems under a variety of themes.