English Poetry

Messenger 841 is love - love for New York City. As Kurt says in his Preface, "Every day is an adventure." Experience the many facets of New York City from street level through the eyes of foot-messenger Kurt Boone, who also shouts out to his colleagues on bicycle and van. These short poems take you on a journey through daily routines and struggles of a street messenger and can be appreciated by workers and professionals of all kinds.

The realms of illusion and the songs of untold truth, fantasy, desire and pumpkin grins. All told the passion of midnight dreams and Carnival glass done in scarlet.

Here is a bit of poetry that comes from the best of Paul Ieson's song lyrics that still can be found on the web. All these are from different times in my life and some times the come from a dark place in my life. Enjoy.

The period of English romantic poetry occurred roughly between 1800 and 1850 and was represented by poets such as William Blake, Lord Byron, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and William Wordsworth. All of these poets are featured in this collection of more than 50 poems read by award-winning actors that include Joan Allen, Julie Christie, Stephen Fry, Glenda Jackson, and Jude Law.

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.

Robert Lee Frost was born on the 26th March 1874 in San Francisco, California. He sold his first poem in 1894 for $15. In 1924 he received the first of four Pulitzer Prizes. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature 31 times. He died on the 29th January 1963 in Boston.

One hundred and one numbers race each other up the apple tree. As the numerals pile up, suddenly bad bumblebees come buzzing. Numbers tumble out every which way. What number will save the day?

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.

From New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury comes an unforgettable story of love struggling against all odds to snatch hope from the jaws of despair. Annie Warren’s concern for her adult son Josh has intensified ever since a drunk driver careened into him.

Loving the Dying is a collection of poems on life’s different stages. Set against the backdrop of a conflicted society, Len Verwey looks at a person’s life from youth and growing up to aging and dying, considering what the ineluctable reality of death might imply about how we should think about our lives. These are poems of uncertainty rather than certainty. The more overtly biographical ones end with as many questions as they start with, and there is often sympathy for the outsider or the marginalized voice.

Gleaned from Rainer Maria Rilke's voluminous, never-before-translated letters to bereaved friends and acquaintances, The Dark Interval is a profound vision of the mourning process and a meditation on death's place in our lives. Following the format of Letters to a Young Poet, this book arranges Rilke's letters into an uninterrupted sequence, showcasing the full range of the great author's thoughts on death and dying as well as his sensitive and moving expressions of consolation and condolence.

Three-time Christy Award winner Davis Bunn collaborates with the beloved Janette Oke to evoke the spirit of the original followers of the Way. In a first century Jerusalem seething with turmoil, religious and political leaders eye the burgeoning Christian community with suspicion. While a Hebrew merchant and a Roman soldier vie for the hand of a lovely follower of Christ, she finds her heart drawn to another whose tireless care and unflinching faith shine daily.

The Weight of Whiteness is a memoir in poetry form of the author's awareness of her whiteness during the integration of Boston's public schools in the 1950s and during visits with her family in the segregated South. Deeply personal, the poems examine the author's thoughts and feelings as family and others react to her interracial marriage in 1966, the year before the US Supreme Court overturned as unconstitutional 16 states' laws prohibiting miscegenation.

Children learn that sorting, recycling, and giving new life to old things is not only good for the environment. It is a whole lot of fun, too!

Humphries has rendered (Ovid's) love poetry with conspicuous success into English which is neither obtrusively colloquial nor awkwardly antique.

The bookshelves of British literature are incredible collections that have gathered together centuries of very talented authors. From these Isles their fame spread and whilst among their number many are now forgotten or neglected, their talents endure. Among them is one of the first published female poets, Anne Bradstreet. Born in England, she moved to America in her early years, and from there her poetic legacy spread to other continents.

Harold Hart Crane was born on the 21st July 1899 in Garrettsville, Ohio. Crane was drawn to literature at an early age, becoming a voracious reader and pursuing self-education. His early work was already being noticed for its lush and rich use of words. Despite this success his personal life was troubled. Hart Crane died on the 27th April 1932 by jumping from the deck of a steamship into the Gulf of Mexico upon his return to the United States from Mexico. He was 32.

The original edition of this book was written as a diary in poetry during the author’s personal journey through clinical depression. It carries his unique emotions and feelings experienced as a psychologist going through intensive therapy. However, this second edition is not just a book of poetry. It combines the feelings expressed in poetry with the cultivated prose of a writer and psychologist looking back at his days of depression. It then embarks on his twenty-five-year post depression journey that opened the door to a new life filled with the joys of just being alive.

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on the 16th October 1854 in Dublin Ireland. His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in 1890 and he then moved on to writing for the stage with Salome in 1891. His society comedies produced enormous hits and turned him into one of the most successful writers of late Victorian London. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six sipping champagne a friend had brought with the line ‘Alas I am dying beyond my means’.

Death is a subject that few of us talk about, but many think about and more than a few of us dread. Whether it is the actual end of our life’s journey or merely a transit point to heavenly glory, its actual point of impact is, obviously, life-changing. But what do poets think of it? How do their minds tangle with the subject and make sense of this? That’s what we wondered, too. Poets as rich and diverse as Longfellow, Hood, Bronte, Burns, and Gibran here share their words, thoughts and visions with us.