Showing titles in Poetry

The oldest long poem in Old English, written about AD 1,000, Beowulf tells the story of a great warrior of southern Scandinavia, in both youth and maturity. The monster Grendel terrorizes the Scyldings of Hrothgar's Danish Kingdom until Beowulf defeats him. As a result, he has to face her enraged mother. Beowulf dies after a battle against a fierce dragon.

The poem relates the experiences of a sailor who has returned from a long sea voyage. The mariner stops a man who is on the way to a wedding ceremony and begins to narrate a story. The wedding guest's reaction turns from bemusement to impatience to fear to fascination as the mariner's story progresses, as can be seen in the language style: Coleridge uses narrative techniques such as personification and repetition to create a sense of danger, the supernatural, or serenity, depending on the mood in different parts of the poem.

There is a man blazing a trail across the silver screen, delivering performances of such electric intensity that he has united critics and casual moviegoers alike. That man is Tom Hardy. Starring roles as Britain's most dangerous prisoner in Bronson, both Kray twins in Legend and the villainous brute Bane in The Dark Knight Rises have showcased his raw talent, edginess and ability to utterly inhabit his characters.

Author and humorist Garrison Keillor presents Brisk Verse, a collection of original invigorating verse: one hundred and thirty-two poems in all—diverse topics, including Brevity, Thongs, Minnesota, Manners, Mozart, Marilyn Monroe, Failure, Fatherhood, Episcopalians, Plumbing, Spaghetti, Spring, Online Love, Eighty, and the National Anthem as it might’ve been written by Whitman, Dickinson, Eliot, Frost, and other poets.

A diaspora of memories runs through this poetry collection—a multiplicity of voices, bodies, and houses hold archival material for one another, tracing paths between Brooklyn, Beirut, and Jerusalem. Boundaries and borders blur between space and time and poetic form—small banal moments of daily life live within geopolitical brutalities and, vice versa, the desire for stability lives in familiarity with displacement.

John Clare was born on 13th July, 1793 in Helpston, a few miles north of Peterborough. Schooled only until the age of 12, his early career was that of agricultural labourer, pot boy, gardener and lime burner. His early life of hardship and frequent malnutrition led to his diminutive stature of five feet and contributed to his later health problems. In 1820 his first poems were published and began to earn him a reputation as the 'Northamptonshire Peasant Poet'. His poetry sold well, but only occasionally did that and other incomes keep his head above water.

It is hard to top the pleasure of a woodland walk in Spring unless of course you have a lyric poet as your guide. Now that is possible with Poets of Nature. Let Walt Whitman, John Keats, Emily Dickinson, Henry David Thoreau, Emily Bronte, and Ralph Waldo Emerson take you into that realm of Nature "where we seldom wander".

"Amazing Peace" is a beautiful and deeply moving poem from Maya Angelou. Here she inspires us to embrace the peace and promise of Christmas, so that hope and love can once again light up our holidays and the world. "Angels and Mortals, Believers and Nonbelievers, look heavenward," she writes, "and speak the word aloud. Peace." "Amazing Peace" is Maya Angelou's radiant affirmation of the goodness of life and is a touching celebration of the "Glad Season" that will resonate with people of all faiths.

A monster collection of poems by the hugely talented Brian Moses. Brian Moses' greatest hits! This brilliant audiobook is packed with old friends: "What Teachers Wear in Bed", "An Alien Stole My Underpants", "Shopping Trolley", and "Monster Crazy", and introduces us to some wonderful new poems too.

Kahlil Gibran was a master of capturing stories through poetic tales. He somehow managed to take a simple human thought or concept, and breathe life into it through his words in such a way that one cannot help but be instantly transported right into the midst of it. When you listen to Gibran’s poetry, you aren’t just listening to the words, you are listening to living breathing people; or at least it feels that way.

Padraic Colum reads a selection of poetry and prose by Mangan, Moore, Swift, Curran and MacManus.

Gertrude Stein's work flourished in a world which was finding bold new ways of expressing itself. Forms like Impressionism, cubism, expressionsism and other non-representational styles were developed that provoked and challenged the observer (as well as the established art world). What avant-garde artists did with paint and ink, Gertrude Stein did with words – dispensing with conventions of grammar and clarity, she gave free rein to word play and the musicality of sounds, without regard to their meaning or relationships.

War poet Robin Horsfall became a soldier in 1972. He served from the age of 15 up to the age of 32 with the Parachute Regiment, the SAS, the Sultans of Oman’s Armed Forces, the Army of Sri Lanka and was a Major in "Frelimo" the Army of Mozambique. He studied Karate for most of his adult life achieving the rank of 6th Dan Black Belt until 2011 when a neck fracture changed his life.

Maggie Millner's seductive debut is a novel-in-verse about a woman in her late twenties who leaves a long-term relationship with a boyfriend for another woman. The affair thrusts her from an outwardly conventional life into queerness, polyamory, kink, and unalloyed, consuming desire. What ensues is an exploration of obsession, gender, identity-making, sexual experiment, and the art and act of literary transformation.

Acerbic wit and stinging satire are contrasted with delicate sensibility and passionate desire in the work of the Latin poet Catullus. Armed with an urbane sophistication and an aristocratic circle of friends, Catullus moved about easily in the upper ranks of Roman society and was acquainted with Cicero, Caesar, and Pompey among others.

The second volume of Clive James poetry, following on from The Poems from the Book of my Enemy. Following the publication of his 1986 collection, Other Passports, Clive James has emerged as one of the most prominent poets of his generation, going on to publish new works in such mainstream outlets as the TLS, the London Review of Books, the Spectator, The New Yorker, and the Australian Book Review, and now culminating in this updated collection.

Rachel Long’s much anticipated debut collection of poems, My Darling from the Lions, announces the arrival of a thrilling new presence in poetry. Each poem has a vivid story to tell - of family quirks, the perils of dating, the grip of religion or sexual awakening - stories that are, by turn, emotionally insightful, politically conscious, wise, funny and outrageous.

This anthology of twenty poems was Yeats's first major collection after he received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1923.

In January 1866 Hopkins composed his most ascetic poem, The Habit of Perfection, but a few days later he included poetry in the list of things to be given up for Lent. In July he decided to become a Catholic, and by May 1868 Hopkins firmly 'resolved to be religious'. Less than a week later, he made a bonfire of his poems and ceased to write for almost seven years.

The Argonautica, also known as Jason and the Golden Fleece or Jason and the Argonauts, is the only surviving epic poem from Hellenistic Greece. It is a masterpiece whose story was well known to the audiences of the time. Virgil and other later poets were greatly influenced by it. Its author, Apollonius, was a well-known third century BC scholar living in Alexandria during the great age of Ptolomaic scholarship, and his bold attempt at writing a Homeric epic about Jason and his quest for the Golden Fleece faced a daunting audience of knowledgeable contemporaries.