Showing results for "The Group" in Poetry

A man seduces another's wife then kidnaps her. The husband and his brother get a gang together to steal her back and take revenge. The woman regrets being seduced and wants to escape whilst the man's entourage resent the position they have been placed in. Yet the battle lines have been drawn and there is no going back... Not the plot of the latest Hollywood thriller, but the basis of The Iliad - the Greek classic that details the war between the Greeks and the Trojans after the kidnapping of Helen of Sparta.

I first read Edward Fitzgerald’s celebrated, if controversial, version of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat when I happened upon it in my father’s extensive library when I was a sophomore at Notre Dame High School. While there is much debate about Omar Khayyam’s philosophical outlook (is his message Sufi-oriented or existentially hedonistic?), there is no doubting its beauty and its profundity of thought.

Bo Burnham was a teenager living in his parents' attic in Massachusetts when he started posting funny songs to YouTube that immediately turned heads with their wise satire that belied his very young age. He quickly struck a chord. Over 16 million people watched his videos and he soon amassed a gigantic (and young) online following that excitedly awaited each new video. Soon after that, Bo became revered in all comedy circles for being a wholly original, highly intelligent young voice.

Diary entries, medical records, book reports, phone calls, dates (the romantic kind), dreams, index cards, passive aggressive post-it notes, stories, emails to professors, dates (the month/day kind), worries, and resumes that never led to job interviews....

In this volume of nonsense verse, you’ll find many favourites to take you back to the time and place where most things are a little upside down or back to front, including favourites from Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, and quite a few others to giggle along with.

This poet of Victorian times was held in awe for his magnificent works, including "In Memoriam", "Morte D'Arthur", and "Charge of the Light Brigade". His language and command of vocabulary seem particularly in keeping with the grand sweep of Victorian ambition. Many selections are asembled here and read with great character by Dame Sybil Thorndike, Sir Edward Casson, and Robert Speaight.

The remarkable Gertrude Bell, one of the great scholars/adventurers of the late 19th and early 20th century, translated the poems of Hafiz of Persia and introduced the English world to one of the great minds of the 15th century. This is her work in an inexpensive and highly understandable new edition.

WS Gilbert – The Bab Ballads. Before Gilbert was part of the famous Gilbert & Sullivan opera team, he wrote light verse that was very odd but arrived at a logical conclusion...we think! Luckily, the joyous Stanley Holloway is on hand to read and make sense of it all.

William Wordsworth was amongst the greatest of English Poets. Included here are selections that put into perspective his great talent. The works are brought beautifully to life by Sir Cedric Hardwicke.

The now familiar poem posters first appeared in London's tube and underground trains in 1986. The idea was simple enough: why not convert the empty advertising space above the passenger's heads into a simple celebration of the poetry that has underscored English literature for a thousand years or more? Here on the trains there was at last something different, words to soothe, inspire, move, charm, surprise, arouse, even occasionally to shock, but never to sell.

This audiobook on Kabir, the great Indian mystic, contains selected poems from the Sikh's holy book Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The narration illuminates the deep insights of this wonderful saint-poet. It also includes a brief introduction and biography.

THE POETRY OF GERALD MANLEY HOPKINS. Gerald Manley Hopkins work was not celebrated until after his death when he then took his rightful place amongst leading Victorian poets. He had an individual lyrical style employed on subjects such as nature although his central theme for much of his work including his profoundly dark sonnets, was religion and his dialogue with God.

Rudyard Kipling. With our almost religious zeal to categorise and pigeon hole everything it should come as little surprise that one of the poems we learnt at school should so regularly be voted the best ever poem. Whether ‘If..’ deserves that credit or not is irrelevant to this empire wandering artist who was not only a fine story teller but a great poet of the Empires, its people and views.

Love is a universal feeling but a few lines of musings from a poet - assembled words perhaps softly spoken - can express a romance or desire that if we don't yet have we'd probably like to. And so poets have burnished their dreams throughout history and across the globe, in every culture past and present. For most of us Indian Love Poetry tends to be the erotic and explicit Kama Sutra and The Perfumed Garden.

Many nations have produced outstanding poets who they would gladly have represent their Culture. But can any Nation say they have an equivalent of Robert Burns...The Ploughman Poet, The Bard Of Scotland? This one poet is indelibly linked and intertwined with the culture and people of Scotland. His life, loves, politics, verse and songs speak as them and for them. Politically he was an inspiration to both liberalism and socialism as well as a Scottish parliament.

These humorous verses were originally written for children but the taste is much more to an adult liking. They are strange, perverse and the morals they provide….well, that’s for you to decide. Luckily Joyce Grenfell is narrating so it’s double the experience

Reynold A. Nicholson has done us all in the English speaking world a wonderful service by translating from the original Persian much of Rumi's writings. The following excerpted poems provide a glimpse into the heart and mind of the one world's greatest mystic poets. It is my hope that a new cadre of listeners will be moved and touched by Rumi's poems, which each have a universal import that transcends both religion and cultural boundaries.

THE PARDONER’S TALE AND THE NUN’S PRIEST’S TALE FROM CHAUCER’S CANTEBURY TALES. It has been said that no translation, however studied and skilful, can do justice to the genius of Chaucer’s writing.

For many of us Autumn, or as the Americans would say; Fall is the season of mixed emotions. Summer's long days are replaced by a chill in the air. The colours on the trees and fields ripen to warmer hues and the harvest is brought safely home. Yet with this bounty there is the knowledge that Nature is turning her attention to the harder, colder Winter month's ahead.

The "Stories of Poems by Famous Tang and Song Dynasty Poets" series, specifically the "Tang Poetry" section, carefully selects over a hundred well-known poems from 35 Tang Dynasty poets. By explaining the poets' life experiences and anecdotes, it vividly portrays the social environment and cultural atmosphere of that era. With a balance of informative content and storytelling, it's easy to understand and convenient for children to enhance their learning interests!