Showing titles in Poetry

The landmark selection of poems from the greatest poet of our age, read on audio by Seamus Heaney himself. 'His is "close-up" poetry - close up to thought, to the world, to the emotions. Few writers at work today, in verse or fiction, can give the sense of rich, fecund, lived life that Heaney does.(John Banville )More than any other poet since Wordsworth he can make us understand that the outside world is not outside, but what we are made of. (John Carey)

These two great poems date from Shakespeare’s early years and are full of passion and invention. In Venus and Adonis, the goddess of love pleads with the beautiful boy to submit to her advances and become her love - but he only wants to hunt boar. In the more serious Rape of Lucrece, Shakespeare draws on the Roman tale of the Emperor Tarquin’s desire for Lucrece and its tragic consequencies. These poems give prominent parts to the two heroines, and Clare Corbett and Eve Best shine.

A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. The familiar elements of the epic poem are seen with a novelist’s eye toward gender, genre, and history - Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men seeking to become more powerful, and one woman seeking justice for her child, but this version brings new context to an old story.

The greatest of all the medieval romances about the Holy Grail, Parzival was written in the early 13th century. The narrative describes the quest of the Arthurian knight Parzival for the Holy Grail. His journey is filled with incident, from tournaments and sieges to chivalrous deeds and displays of true love.

The epic story of this hero’s battle against dragons, monsters, and their mothers is particularly suited to being recorded as an audiobook given that for the first 300 years of its existence it was only ever spoken. The first known (and indeed the only surviving manuscript) of the poem was written in AD 1,000. It survived Henry VIII’s attempts to destroy it (as a religious artifact) and a catastrophic fire that destroyed many other historical British documents.

This selection of Hardy's poetry does full justice to its humanity, integrity, humour and evocative power, ranging from charming anthology pieces such as Weathers to the great love poems he wrote after the death of his first wife and his meditations on war and phillosophy.

In summer 2010 Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256 mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born.

You may think you know Vergil’s epic poem, The Aeneid - the story of Aeneas, a Trojan hero, prophesized to found Rome. Or maybe you’ve heard of the fearsome Cyclopes, the tragic queen Dido, the Trojan horse, the River Styx and the three headed dog who guards the underworld. But what of the man who wrote it and why? This is that story.

Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Fifty Poems presents the "top 50" poems of all time. Newly revised, and read by an ensemble of contemporary poets, The Classic Fifty Poems is a feast for poetry lovers.

John Keats' letters paint an unforgettably vivid and moving picture of the richly productive but also tragic final years of the poet's life. As he ponders on the nature of the writer's craft, he must first confront his brother's death from tuberculosis and then the imminent prospect of his own, tormented by the fear that he will not live to consummate his relationship with Fanny Brawne.

Poems that ignite the 'human spirit' and lift up your mind to higher heights of wisdom.

In this stunning volume, acclaimed poet Kwame Dawes explores the mythic, ancestral, and spiritual journeys that make up a life. The site of the ruined ancestral home of Kwame Dawes’s family, in one of the earliest post-slavery free villages in Jamaica, Sturge Town is at once a place of myth and, for Dawes, a metaphor of the journeying that has taken him from Ghana, through Jamaica, and to the United States.

21 Days of poetry from my heart and mind. Civil Rights, childhood and science all share 1 thing, existence in this chapbook.

Winner of the 2023 Trio Award, Christian Gullette's critically acclaimed Coachella Elegy explores the queer promised lands and poolside utopias of the American West even as they are threatened by environmental destruction. With precision and clarity, Gullette's poems wander the desert landscape of California, reveling in its beauties and challenging its sacred myths. His speaker seamlessly transports us from a hospital room where his husband battles cancer to the Palm Springs oasis where the vacationing couple celebrates survival.

Maravillosa fábula acerca del sentido de la vida y el insospechado valor de nuestros actos diarios. ¿Qué nos espera en el paraíso? ¿Algo que nos permita...

Acrobata é um livro de poemas que pode ser lido como um romance. Ao trazer a experiência da vida para a escrita, os versos descrevem momentos marcados pela mudança — como o nascimento de um filho, a morte de alguém próximo e a adaptação a uma nova cidade. O inesperado surge tanto no corte dos versos quanto nas diferentes vozes, entreouvidas ou lidas, que se entrelaçam com a do eu lírico. Um poema puxa o outro em surpreendentes trocas de assuntos, cenas e situações.

It's easy to feel at home in Mitford. In these high, green hills, the air is pure, the village is charming, and the people are generally lovable. Yet Father Tim, the bachelor rector, wants something more. Enter a dog the size of a sofa who moves in and won't go away. Add an attractive neighbor who begins wearing a path through the hedge. Now, stir in a lovable but unloved boy, a mystifying jewel theft, and a secret that's 60 years old.

The most famous, beautiful, and spiritually moving poems of the 20th century, read by the most famous poet. These are historic recordings of the cream of Eliot's poetry. It is always something of a revelation to listen to a poet reading his own words, and these recordings are no exception. Eliot clearly and evenly characterises and reveals the voices of some of his most important works in this excellent reading.

One of the foremost achievements in Western literature, Homer's Iliad tells the story of the darkest episode in the Trojan War. At its centre is Achilles, the greatest warrior-champion of the Greeks, and his refusal to fight after being humiliated by his leader, Agamemnon. But when the Trojan Hector kills Achilles' close friend Patroclus, he storms back into battle to take revenge - although knowing this will ensure his own early death.

This varied, well-chosen selection brings onto one audiobook the best of Dylan Thomas. Here is the legendary recording of "Under Milk Wood", with Richard Burton and Richard Bebb as narrators; but here also are two radio productions he wrote before that great classic, and though interesting in their own right, they show how "Under Milk Wood" grew gradually in his imagination.