Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Hafiz's Little Book of Life is a lush collection of more than 250 selections from his lifework (his divan). Alongside a Quran, a copy of his divan can be found in average homes in Iran—where stars can be heard singing his poetry on the radio, and lines from his poems are quoted on the street. His poetry is sure to strike a chord in the hearts of readers everywhere. This vital collection of mystical poetry focuses on the issues we encounter in everyday life. Each brief poem may be savored as an oasis of clarity in the hurried literacy of our time, or the entire book enjoyed in one sitting. 

Theogony & Works and Days by Hesiod are foundational texts of ancient Greek literature, offering a powerful blend of myth, morality, and early philosophical thought. In Theogony, Hesiod presents the first systematic account of Greek mythology, tracing the origins of the cosmos and the genealogy of the gods—from Chaos and Gaia to Zeus and the Olympian order.

A new version of The Epic of Gilgamesh by Sebastian Lockwood. This is the story of Gilgamesh, King of Kings, who brought back knowledge from before the flood - who loved and lost his companion Enkidu and had to find out why we die. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written on clay tablets over 4,000 years ago, in what is today Baghdad Iraq - the Biblical Garden of Eden between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Lockwood gives a passionate reading from a text that faithfully follows the original.

Running Upon The Wires is Kae Tempest’s first book of free-standing poetry since the acclaimed Hold Your Own. In a beautifully varied series of formal poems, spoken songs, fragments, vignettes and ballads, Tempest charts the heartbreak at the end of one relationship and the joy at the...

Read by the author, Kathleen Jamie. A Scotsman Poetry Book of the Year 'Jamie’s poetry offers a new way of seeing the world and a new form of intelligence about ourselves and other species' – Kit Fan, Guardian The Keelie Hawk is a landmark poetry collection from Kathleen Jamie, the former...

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Victorian era, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Science, religion and sexuality are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period.

Dead Souls, Gogol's epic poem in prose, is widely regarded as an exemplar of 19th-century Russian literature. We follow Chichikov, a dismissed civil servant turned conman, through the countryside in pursuit of his shady enterprise as he arrives in the provincial town of 'N' and begins visiting various landowners to make each a strange and ghostly offer.

The conversion of a local beauty spot into a municipal graveyard is the starting point for New Cemetery. From regular walks around the boundary near his moorland home in West Yorkshire, Simon Armitage chronicles the extraordinary transformation of landscape both outer and inner. These luminous and wry poems—composed in short-lined tercets—reflect the changing world: one of unstable weather patterns and unpredictable news events, all observed across a few acres of Pennine upland.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER From the Academy Award–winning actor and author of Greenlights comes an inspiring, faith-filled, and often hilarious collection of personal poetry and prayers about navigating the rodeo of life and chasing down the original dream, belief. My prayers are my...

Jenny Lewis relocates Gilgamesh to its earlier, oral roots in a Sumerian society where men and women were more equal, the reigning deity of Gilgamesh’s city, Uruk, was female (Inanna), only women were allowed to brew beer and keep taverns and women had their own language - emesal. With this shift of emphasis, Lewis captures the powerful allure of the world’s oldest poem and gives it a fresh dynamic while creating a fast-paced narrative for a new generation of listeners.

Joseph Fasano’s The Last Song of the World delves into the chaos of the modern world, and searches for resilience in the face of environmental and societal devastation. Dripping with images of ancient ruins and mythological figures, these poems serve as vignettes of fatherhood, love, and desire against the backdrop of apocalyptic events.

Kate Tempest is one of the most exciting and innovative performers to have emerged in spoken-word poetry in many years; her dramatic poem Brand New Ancients won the prestigious Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Tempest’s wholly unique blend of street poetry, rap and storytelling –...

New Hampshire features Frost's meditations on rural life, love, and death, delivered in the voice of a soft-spoken New Englander. Critics have long marveled at the poet's gift for capturing the speech of the region's natives and his realistic evocations of the area's landscapes. This compilation, first published in 1923, earned Frost the first of his four Pulitzer Prizes and includes several of his best-known poems: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", "Nothing Gold Can Stay", and "Fire and Ice".

The understanding of the nature of reality is the insight upon which the Buddha was able to achieve his own enlightenment. This vision of the sublime is the source of all that is enigmatic and paradoxical about Buddhism. In Verses from the Center, Stephen Batchelor explores the history of this concept and provides listeners with translations of the most important poems ever written on the subject, the poems of 2nd century philosopher Nagarjuna.

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".

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 T.S. ELIOT PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 JOHN POLLARD FOUNDATION INTERNATIONAL POETRY PRIZE bandit country, the much-anticipated debut collection from James Conor Patterson, is a rollicking, hyper-literate and at times deeply troubling account of a young man’s...

A biography of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Rome’s first great poet, a dandy who fell in love with another man’s wife and made it known to the world through his verse. This superb book gives a rare portrait of life during one of the most critical moments in world history through the eyes of one...

This is a minute-by-minute depiction of a typical night at a legendary monthly house party known as 'The Wickedest'. Here, we meet a vivid cast of characters, young and old, all surfing a revelry steeped in camaraderie, community, desire and a spirit of jubilant defiance. A modern epic, The Wickedest explores the institution of shoobs or house parties and their vital role within working-class communities. The poems range from classical English sonnets to experimental forms and are immersively interwoven with text messages and ephemera. 

There is something about the boy. When he is angry, clouds darken. When he cries, rivers burst their banks. And when he touches a basketball, deities want courtside seats. Half Nigerian mortal, half Grecian god: Demi is the Half-God of Rainfall. His mother, Modupe, looks on with a mixture of pride and worry. From close encounters, she knows that gods are just like men: the same fragile egos, the same subsequent fury, the same sense of entitlement to the bodies of mortals. The gods will one day tire of sports fans, their fickle allegiances and their prayers to Demi.

The Courage to Embrace the Gifts and Losses in Life If you never knew disappointment, would you ever grow? If you had never felt loss, could you have compassion for another? Without real heartache, would you ever know the greatness of love? On When the Heart Breaks, David Whyte invites you to...