Showing titles in Poetry

This first audio edition of Poetry in Person: 25 Years of Conversation with America’s Poets (Knopf, 2010), invites listeners into an intimate classroom with eight acclaimed poets. Full of compelling, in-depth conversation about manuscripts and drafts by the poets themselves, plus readings of the finished poems, these historic recordings offer one of the most detailed portraits ever produced of how poems are actually made.

This dazzling Christmas poem by Maya Angelou is powerful and inspiring for people of all faiths. In this beautiful, deeply moving poem, Maya Angelou 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...

Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, and his ideology was disseminated through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of transcendentalism in his 1836 essay Nature.

Presented as 73 narrative-style poems, some of which are rhyming and others in prose or blank verse, Reflections on Mountaineering, A Revised and Expanded Edition: A Journey Through Life as Experienced in the Mountains summarizes much of what the author, Alan V. Goldman, learned in his more than 30 years of climbing. Many of the same moral issues that confront us in everyday life are present in the high mountains, only to a sharper degree.

The "Songs of Innocence" were published in 1789 and republished in 1794 together with the "Songs of Experience". They represent Blake's two perspectives on the world, that of the child (innocence) and that of the adult (experience). Blake's poetical works were largely neglected in their own time but are today considered some of the most brilliant of English verse. The "songs" are presented here together with "Auguries of Innocence".

In the '70s he was a huge pop star, with number-one hits like 'Rock On' and 'Hold Me Close'. In the '80s and '90s, he became a star of the stage with lead roles in Godspell and Mutiny! Now comes a wonderful collection of David Essex’s poetry and lyrics. Here are nostalgic poems recalling his family's traveller roots, verses filled with memories of his warm and loving boyhood and poetry reliving the highs and lows of fame.

Virgil's Aeneid, one of the greatest classical poems, tells the story of Aeneas, son of Priam, after the fall of Troy. His quest is to find the site "in the west" where he will found a new town prophesied to be the seat of a world empire: Rome.

The Divine Comedy (La Divina Commedia) by Dante Alighieri is one of the greatest works of art known to the world, a "comedy", that became a "divine book" for ancestors. It is an encyclopedia of "moral, natural, philosophical and theological" knowledges, a tremendous synthesis of the feudal catholic ideology and the same tremendous epiphany that spread during the new culture times. A great poetic genius of the author put this comedy above the era and made it a legacy of centuries. It is divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise.

Sir Jonathan Bate examines eight iconic poems inspired by great historical events - and explores the Romantics, John Clare and William Wordsworth. In this BBC Radio 4 series, eminent Biographer and Broadcaster Sir Jonathan Bate looks at major historical events through the poems they inspired, exploring how history influences poetry and how poetry shapes the way we regard history.

Geoffrey Chaucer is one of our grandest and most enduring poets; an architect of our vocabulary and our literary style. By examining the English writer's texts, from his short love lyrics to the copious profusion of character and incident that is The Canterbury Tales, these 12 lectures will prepare you for the challenges of Chaucer's oeuvre, and will provide an understanding of what makes him the true "father" of English poetry.

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.

Se è vero, come dice Borges, che la Divina Commedia è il dono più grande che la letteratura possa offrire a ciascun lettore, è altrettanto vero che l'ascolto di una interpretazione ad alta voce di questo capolavoro può trasformarsi in una esperienza unica, un'occasione preziosa per scoprire emozioni e sentimenti racchiusi in un capolavoro che è ormai al di fuori di qualsiasi epoca.

This collection of John Milton's finest poetry offers an ideal overview of his work. It is read by several of Britain's foremost classical actors, including Anton Lesser, Samantha Bond and Derek Jacobi. Milton's uncompromising views set him firmly on the side of Cromwell, putting his life in danger when the Stuart monarchy was restored.

Sophisticated wit and intense emotion, religious fervor and erotic sensuality, delight in life’s pleasures and fascination with death, are all to be found in the paradoxical poetry of John Donne. One of the foremost metaphysical poets, Donne’s ingenious metaphors and inspired use of language has earned him affection and reverence in near equal measure to Shakespeare.

This book is a collection of Gibran's words on how to live. Here are his thoughts on what it means to live in community and solitude and what gives life meaning, along with his often prescient views on government, organized religion, wealth, and commerce. Gibran's sensibility feels contemporary. He did not recognize any ultimate authority outside of the human soul: "It were wiser to speak less of God, whom we cannot understand and more of each other, whom we may understand."

But what is a Snark? "Humpty Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a portmanteau, seems to me the right explanation for all." (Lewis Carroll)

Algernon Charles Swinburne was born on April 5th, 1837, in London, into a wealthy Northumbrian family. He was educated at Eton and at Balliol College, Oxford, but did not complete a degree. In 1860 Swinburne published two verse dramas but achieved his first literary success in 1865 with Atalanta in Calydon, written in the form of classical Greek tragedy. The following year Poems and Ballads brought him instant notoriety. He was now identified with 'indecent' themes and the precept of art for art's sake.

In this follow-up to "Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead" these poems guide the listener ever deeper into union with the inner Divine Beloved. Dedicated to the One who patiently awaits our attention, devotion....and longing.

The Iliad by Homer is an epic poem central to ancient Greek literature, narrating the siege of Troy. It explores themes of heroism, the wrath of Achilles, the nature of fate, and the quest for glory. Homer, a semi-legendary figure, is credited with composing both "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," foundational works of Western literature.

Robert Browning's intensely romantic love affair with Elizabeth Barrett inspired some of literature's most celebrated verse. His view that love is the key to the meaning of life and life's animating force is evident in these collected poems.