English Poetry

From rain and puddles to flowers and bugs, the wonders of spring are all around us!

Sailboats, seagulls, and picnics are just a few of the joys of summer.

Snowflakes, sleds, and skates are just the beginning of the joys of winter.

The poem "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman first appeared in his 1855 volume Leaves of Grass. "Song of Myself" is written in Whitman’s signature free verse style. The "I" of the narrator should not be confused with the person of the historical Walt Whitman, as the first-person persona is portrayed as having transcended the conventional boundaries of self. Most critics consider "Song of Myself" as the core of Whitman’s poetic vision, and it remains one of the most acclaimed of all American poems.

Wordsworth's The Prelude is the consummation of his achievement as the great founder of English romanticism. An autobiography in verse, it tells of his childhood in the Lake District, his student days in Cambridge, his passion for the French Revolution and his later disenchantment with it. It also tells of his personal journey to a belief in Nature as the great moral and spiritual force which shapes human life, but on which human society all too often turns its back.

“Roald Dahl sometimes shared a tonal kinship with Ogden Nash, and he could demonstrate a verbal inventiveness nearly Seussian…[His] stories work better in audio than in print.” –The New York Times REVOLTING RHYMES Did you think Cinderella married the prince and lived happily ever after...

One of the great masterpieces of Western literature, The Odyssey chronicles the many trials and adventures Odysseus must pass through on his long journey home from the Trojan wars. Though the stormy god of the ocean is determined to keep him off course, Odysseus is clever and has the brilliant goddess Athena on his side.

Marina’s talent for powerful, evocative song lyrics finds a new outlet in her poetry. Each poem resonates with the same creative melodies and emotional depth that have made her an artistic sensation. Hailed by The New York Times for “redefining songs about coming of age, and the aftermath, with bluntness and crafty intelligence,” Marina delves even further into trauma, youth, and the highs and lows of relationships in these profound, autobiographical poems to form a collection that transcends the boundaries of music and literature.

The poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke addresses the issues of God, death, and "destructive time." Rilke tries to transform these problems into an inner world, what he calls "a whole inner world as if an angel, comprehending all space, were blind and looking into himself." Eminent author and translator Stephen Mitchell brings these ideas vividly to life in this new translation of Rilke's most transcendent works.

Poetry. Even all by themselves, the titles of Patricia Lockwood's poems reveal the sort of surreal, enigmatic, rhetorically- longated world her sensibility inhabits effortlessly.

A collection of poetry that takes one on a trip through the emotional growth of the human spirit, When I Was Not Myself covers the sorrow, joy, grief, and confusion that comes from being human.

Divided into two sections, one inspired by ancient Chinese art, the other limning the ambiguities and incongruities of the contemporary human condition, Frutkin's new volume of poetry, Iron Mountain, often presents human beings wandering in the wilderness between two abysses while still appreciating the smell of pines, the softness of the rain, the brilliance of the stars, the hum of the computer, and the jostle of the crowd on the bus.

Sensual, macabre, joyous and liberating, The Flowers of Evil, or Les Fleurs du Mal, is a beautifully debauched reflection on dreams, sin, life, and death. With subjects ranging from travel to drugs, sex to faith, sleep to contemplation, Baudelaire finds new beauty in the most sinister and corrupt of situations. His morbid and nightmarish Romanticism was completely unique: cynical and bleak, but also inspiring. The book was highly controversial upon its release and Napoleon III’s government prosecuted Baudelaire for "an insult to public decency".

One of the most celebrated poets in the English language, William Blake crafted visions of Heaven, Hell, God, and Apocalypse. Effortlessly leaping from philosophy, to nursery rhymes, to mystic visions, Blake left a body of work that still puzzles scholars, and thrills listeners. So sit beside William Blake, and let him tell you of the Tyger, the Lamb, and the Everlasting Gospel.

Written after two years of artistic silence, during which the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Minneapolis became the epicenter of protest following the murder of George Floyd, Bluff is Danez Smith's powerful reckoning with their role and responsibility as a poet and with their hometown of the Twin Cities. This is a book of awakening out of violence, guilt, shame, and critical pessimism to wonder and imagine how we can strive toward a new existence in a world that seems to be dissolving into desolate futures.

"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 powerful story of love, loss, and redemption. The slow fall from grace. The search for spirit. A journey back to light. A Week of Years takes listeners on a poetry-driven excursion into a young man's soul. Divided into seven days, each day serves as a life chapter. The author captures the pain of love lost and the struggle to find purpose and meaning beyond the end of innocence. A deeply personal journal, encompassed and enhanced by poetry that dances intimately with life’s many faces.

Saris and a Single Malt is a moving collection of poems written by a daughter for and about her mother. The audiobook spans the time from when the poet receives a phone call in New York City that her mother is in a hospital in New Delhi to the time she carries out her mother's last rites. The poems chronicle the author's physical and emotional journey as she flies to India, tries to fight the inevitable, and succumbs to the grief of living in a motherless world.

Kathryn Tucker Windham begins this montage of stories with the sounds of summer and ends with a joyful Christmas memory. The mixture of tales, from the mouth-watering description of good Southern food to the story of a governor more familiar with Tom Sawyer than Tom Jefferson, comes together to evoke the image of a happy childhood.

Award-winning author Helen Frost takes us into the breathtaking Alaskan winter landscape in this thrilling adventure with a touch of fantasy. Twelve-year-old Willow - whose heritage is both Athabascan Indian and European - wants nothing more than to mush the sled dogs to her grandparents’ home. After pressing her parents for some time, she is finally allowed to go alone. But when she commits a critical mistake, Willow wonders how she’ll ever make things right again.