English Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer, who died in 1400, lived a surprisingly eventful life. He served with the Duke of Clarence and with Edward III, and in 1359 was taken prisoner in France and ransomed. Through his wife, Philippa, he gained the patronage of John of Gaunt, which helped him carve out a career at Court. His posts included Controller of Customs at the Port of London, Knight of the Shire for Kent, and King's Forester. He went on numerous adventurous diplomatic missions to France and Italy.

Sometimes the best way to learn about a unique region is to listen to the stories told by those who've actually lived there. You learn things that no guidebook would ever tell you. You meet unforgettable characters who've strayed far off the beaten path. And you see clearly again how the power of memory is so strong that they can still recall incidents decades later. Michigan's Upper Peninsula has always been filled with remarkable sensations and indelible stories.

A beautiful and moving collection of poems and stories from the author of the #1 bestselling memoir From the Ashes. Fans of Jesse Thistle’s extraordinary debut From the Ashes have already had the pleasure of reading his poetry, which is sprinkled throughout this bestselling memoir. In Scars...

Adopting the methodology of the music charts, The Classic Hundred Poems presents the "top 100" poems of all time. The selections are illuminated by the informative notes of editor William Harmon and read by an ensemble of contemporary poets including Alfred Corn and Rita Dove.

Are you ready to view motherhood and raising kids in a new light? For My Daughter is a recklessly honest debut poetry collection that embraces the free-spirit of wild women everywhere. Open this audiobook and be inspired by a fresh way of mothering, one that owes nothing to the world and everything to the children. Let go of outdated beliefs about who and what mothers and daughters should be and embrace everything you want. You can do it your way. The poems in this audiobook prove it.

From the renowned translator of Rilke, Tao Te Ching, and Gilgamesh, a vivid new translation of Western civilization’s foundational epic: The Iliad. Tolstoy called the Iliad a miracle; Goethe said that it always thrust him into a state of astonishment. Homer’s story is thrilling, and his...

After living in the city of Orphalese for 12 years, a prophet is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a seeress and the people of the city, who ask him for his insights into life. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death.

From internationally bestselling author Courtney Peppernell comes a new book of poetry and prose, Watering the Soul – a timeless reminder that everyone needs time, love, and forgiveness. In the deepest, most enchanting part of the forest, a creature hands you a seed. Within the seed is your...

In recognition of her long and lauded career as a master essayist, a landmark collection including her most beloved pieces and some rarely seen work, rigorously curated by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author herself. With a foreword by Geoff Dyer. “A writer who never seems tired, who has never...

A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders is a compendium of natural and unnatural astonishment, anatomizing all those big, hairy monsters that haunt the human condition. Follow their footprints through these words, and Martin Achatz may just make you a believer in the greatest mystery of all: Love with a capital "L".

“Probably the most finely accomplished and ... most enduring" translation (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of this essential work of world literature—from a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante and an accomplished poet. “The Hollanders … act as latter-day Virgils, guiding us...

Through poetry, prose, and the compassionate encouragement you would expect from someone who knows exactly what you're working through, Sparacino is here with the words you need. The Strength in Our Scars tackles the gut-wrenching but relatable experiences of moving on, self-love, and ultimately learning to heal. In this book you will find peace, you will find a rock, you will find understanding, and you will find hope.

Rumi's Spiritual Verses is the greatest mystical poem in Islamic culture - and of all time. Rumi examines our human separation from reality, love, and truth. He shows how love - neither erotic nor sentimental but divine, by which the universe is held together - enlightens ignorance and dissolves suffering. The first book of the Masnavi is the key to the whole work: It takes off from simple, amusing tales into realms unimaginable, but wholly familiar to the human heart.

Poems, essays, and prompts to sing a new world into being--Queer & BIPOC perspectives on poetry as an insurgent ritual for manifesting liberation and reclaiming power. For poets, spellcasters, and social justice witches, Poetry as Spellcasting positions poetry as a vehicle for...

Low-life writer and unrepentant alcoholic Henry Chinaski was born to survive. After decades of slacking off at low-paying dead-end jobs, blowing his cash on booze and women, and scrimping by in flea-bitten apartments, Chinaski sees his poetic star rising at last. Now, at fifty, he is reveling in...

In 1945, the great American poet Ezra Pound was deemed insane. He was due to stand trial for treason for his fascist broadcasts in Italy during the war. Instead, he escaped a possible death sentence and was held at St. Elizabeths Hospital for the insane for more than a decade. While there, his visitors included the stars of modern poetry: T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Charles Olson, and William Carlos Williams, among others. They would sit with Pound on the hospital grounds and discuss everything from literary gossip to past escapades.

Deep, deep down, at the very bottom of the ocean, lies a secret world. Through lyrical narration, this story takes listeners on a journey to a place very few humans have ever been—the Mariana Trench. The imagined voyage debunks scary myths about this mysterious place with surprising and beautiful truths about life at Earth's deepest point.

Rushing home to sit by her ailing grandmother's bedside, Violet Waverly is shocked to find Grandma Daisy the picture of perfect health. Violet doesn't need to read between the lines: Her grandma wants Violet back home and working in her magical store, Charming Books. It's where the perfect book tends to fly off the shelf and pick you.... Violet has every intention to hightail it back to Chicago, but then a dead man is discovered clutching a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems from Grandma Daisy's shop.

The Divine Comedy is Dante's record of his visionary journey through the triple realms of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. This, the first epic of which its author is the protagonist and his individual imaginings the content, weaves together the three threads of classical and Christian history, contemporary Medieval politics and religion, and Dante's own inner life including his love for Beatrice, to create the most complex and highly structured long poem extant.

The long-awaited new and selected collection by the author of “some of the most important poetry in the world today” (The New York Times Magazine), assaying the ranges of our shared and borrowed lives: our bonds of eros and responsibilities to the planet; the singing dictions and searchlight...