Life Poetry

Have you ever wondered what life would be like without love? Life is a priceless gift deliberately crafted and packaged for our enjoyment, but it is not a bed of roses. It is a mixture of the good, bad and ugly-including pains and gains, sadness and joy, despair and hope, failures and successes- and it ends in death. Death reminds us we must make the most of this gift before it expires. How can we do this? Love and life are inseparable, dependent and complementary; love powers life while life makes love visible.

From Vanessa Brantley-Newton, the author of Grandma's Purse, comes a collection of poetry filled with engaging mini-stories about girls of all kinds: girls who feel happy, sad, scared, powerful; girls who love their bodies and girls who don't; country girls, city girls; girls who love their mother and girls who wish they had a father. This book invites listeners to find themselves and each other within.

What starts with young Jim Hawkins meeting a beggar and ends in a climactic battle between him and one of the most infamous villains in literature — Long John Silver — has long been revered as the ultimate pirate adventure story. This non - dramatized classic will sweep you off to a world of sly and savvy seafarers as the young Hawkins navigates treachery, assassination and the ominous prophecy of the black spot in the greatest treasure hunt known to literature.

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.

This is a true story of growing up, breaking down, and coming to grips with a psychological disorder. When Samantha Schutz first left home for college, she was excited by the possibilities - freedom from parents, freedom from a boyfriend who was reckless with her affections, freedom from the person she was supposed to be. At first, she revelled in the independence...but as pressures increased, she began to suffer anxiety attacks that would leave her mentally shaken and physically incapacitated.

Gay icon, great poet, leather daddy, eccentric professor, English, American, biker, non-driver, drug addict, hedonist, intellectual, enigmatic, friendly, Everyman, one-of-a-kind, brother, roommate, HIV-negative, paradigmatic AIDS writer, Nazi belt wearer, Jeff Dahmer scholar, Guggenheim Genius, secret philanthropist, Formalist, Existentialist, prolific letter writer, some-sort-of-an-angel...Thom Gunn was all of these and more... But hovering above these figures lay the memory of his mother.

This collection includes new and classic poems by Chaz Yorick.

I Am Mighty Me is a book that parents and children will love listening to again and again. This sweet rhyming story empowers children to be their best and lets them know that they are in control of their own thoughts and feelings and that they can use their powers for good!

"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.

Rumi was an ancient teacher, poet, and mystic who had his fair share of tough times. Through the ups and downs, he wrote poetry that, to this day, moves the soul. We all know it's easy to get stuck in places we don't want to be: a dead end job, an unhappy marriage, a toxic family or friendship. Your goal is not to transform all of those areas at once. Your mission is to focus on transforming yourself and, as a result, your relationship to everything else in your life will change.

Growing up with a mother suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and a mostly absent father, Nikki Grimes found herself terrorized by babysitters, shunted from foster family to foster family, and preyed upon by those she trusted. At the age of six, she poured her pain onto a piece of paper late one night - and discovered the magic and impact of writing. For many years, Nikki's notebooks were her most enduing companions. In this accessible and inspiring memoir, Nikki shows how the power of those words helped her conquer the hazards - ordinary and extraordinary - of her life.

It's 1969, and the Apollo 11 mission is getting ready to go to the moon. But for half-black, half-Japanese Mimi, moving to a predominantly white Vermont town is enough to make her feel alien. Suddenly, Mimi's appearance is all anyone notices. She struggles to fit in with her classmates, even as she fights for her right to stand out. This historical middle-grade novel is told in poems from Mimi's perspective over the course of one year in her new town, and shows listeners that positive change can start with just one person speaking up.

With fun-loving rhymes and a curious mystery to solve, Bear's New Friend, from acclaimed children's author Karma Wilson, is sure to become a new favorite of kids everywhere. A warm and fuzzy reading from narrator John McDonough makes this a delightful listen for youngsters and adults alike.

Twelve-year-old Victoria Reeves is all set for her “First Magnificent Summer with Dad,” even though it’s been more than two years since she last saw him. She’s ready to impress him with her wit, her maturity, and her smarts—at least until he shows up for the long road trip to Ohio with his new family, The Replacements, in tow. But that’s not the only unpleasant surprise in store for Victoria. As Victoria captures every moment of her less than magnificent summer in her journal, she discovers that the odds are stacked against her in the contest-no-one-knows-is-a-contest.

Over four decades, Carolyn Forché's visionary work has reinvigorated poetry's power to awaken the reader. Her groundbreaking poems have been testimonies, inquiries, and wonderments. They daringly map a territory where poetry asserts our inexhaustible responsibility to each other. Her first new collection in 17 years, In the Lateness of the World is a tenebrous book of crossings, of migrations across oceans and borders but also between the present and the past, life and death.

A girl discovers a connection between her home in the Philippines and her new home in the U.S. through a special garden in this middle grade novel that celebrates nourishment and growth. Twelve-year-old Isabel is the new kid in her San Francisco middle school. It’s the first time in many years that she’ll be living with her mother again. Mama's job in the US allowed Isabel and her grandparents to live more comfortably in the Philippines, but now Isabel doesn't really know her own mother anymore.

Mark Doty has always felt haunted by Walt Whitman's bold, perennially new American voice, and by his equally radical claims about body and soul and what it means to be a self. In What Is the Grass, Doty - a poet, a New Yorker, and an American - keeps company with Whitman and his Leaves of Grass, tracing the resonances between his own experience and the legendary poet's life and work.

As children all over the world get ready for bed, the moon watches over them. The moon knows that when we sleep, we dream. And when we dream, we imagine what is possible and what the world can be. With poetic prose, Goodnight Racism delivers important messages about antiracism, justice, and equality in an easy-to-listen format that empowers listeners both big and small. Goodnight Racism gives children the language to dream of a better world and is the perfect audiobook to add to their social justice toolkit.

Una historia irresistible y un mensaje al puro estilo de Roald Dahl: no crezcas nunca, aunque te hagas mayor.

New York Times best-selling author Emily Winfield Martin joyously and thoughtfully shares the different ways of giving and loving. Like a beautifully wrapped gift, life's everyday moments are precious: In both the little things and the big things, we can all find wonder. From a feather, to a hug, to a sunset, this book captures these gifts to remind listeners how much they are loved and how incredible this world we share is.