English Poetry

Volume one of the definitive collection of Seamus Heaney reading his own work, recorded in 2009 by RTE. Volume one contains four collections published between 1966 and 1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out and North.

Savor the most celebrated love poems in the English language. Written almost 400 years ago, the sonnets of William Shakespeare are passionate and exalted, rich in imagery and alliteration, and full of mystery and intrigue.

William Butler Yeats was born in Sandymount in County Dublin, Ireland, on 13th June 1865. Yeats is perhaps best described as Ireland’s national poet in addition to being one of the major twentieth-century literary figures of the English tongue. He represents the ‘Romantic poet of modernism,’ with an extraordinary style created from the outward emphasis on the expression of emotions and the extensive use of symbolism, imagery and allusions.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Co-founder of the Women's March Paola Mendoza and award-winning writer Abby Sher’s timely, haunting near-future dystopian where a young girl and her brother must escape a xenophobic government to find sanctuary. It's 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens...

The Christmas Stories and Poetry by George MacDonald is a heartwarming and spiritually enriching collection of holiday tales and poems by the celebrated Scottish author George MacDonald. This anthology includes a selection of his most cherished works, such as "The Gifts of the Child Christ," "A Christmas Carol," "A Christmas Prayer," "Christmas Meditation," and more. George MacDonald's writings are known for their profound spiritual insights and the timeless moral lessons they convey. In this collection, he brings the magic and wonder of Christmas to life through his storytelling and poetry.

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.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work - over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world.

WINNER OF THE 2025 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY “Patricia Smith is the greatest living poet. Every book is better than the last.” —Danez Smith, The Guardian A collection of the finest new and selected poems from one of the most groundbreaking voices in contemporary poetry, a “masterful...

The Odyssey by Homer in the Samuel Butler translation, narrated by Michael Bronks. Follow Odysseus through treacherous seas, encounters with gods like Athena and Poseidon, and mythical creatures such as the Cyclops and Sirens. Experience the epic journey of Greek mythology, heroism, and adventure that defines The Odyssey in its full, timeless form.

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.

In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters - called “The Perfect Nine” - and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humor, and sacrifice.

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves—from National Book Critics Circle Award winner, National Book Award finalist and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.

Dive into this collection of poetry and prose inspired by modern dating and broken relationships, perfect for fans of Rupi Kaur and Orion Carloto.

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional recreation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

One part mixtape, one part disorientation guide, and one part career retrospective, Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre's debut looks you directly in the eye and doesn't let you flinch. Ranging from justice to love, community action to personal reflection, A Love Song, a Death Rattle, a Battle Cry is a dedication to craft. Clocking in before the rest of us are even awake, the book wastes no time. It does the work and beckons you to follow. A compilation of poems, lyrics, and essays from the UN presenter, MC, and two-time National Poetry Slam champion....

A moving manifesto in poems and essays, inviting readers to embrace their humanity and live fully alive in our age of social change, hyper-capitalism, and pervasive loneliness yes, everyone is struggling right now so please be gracious be kind & patient, but subvert every institution that relies...

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" is an analysis of a beleaguered, multilayered, and conflicted suitor, trying to reconcile his dichotomy of having a foray of overwhelming ideas juxtaposed with underwhelming execution, in the arena of life and love. It was the poetic debut of the American-born British poet T.S Eliot. The poem was originally published in 1915.

A fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle physicist Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein shared with her audience an abiding sense of wonder at...

At the age of 17, after a childhood in an fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Here Sissay recounts his life story. It is a story of neglect and determination. Misfortune and hope. Cruelty and triumph.