Memoir Poetry

In Ten Bridges I've Burnt, Brontez Purnell—the bard of the underloved and overlooked—turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his peripatetic life, whose ups and downs have nothing on the turmoil within. The thirty-eight autobiographical pieces pulsing in Ten Bridges I've Burnt find Purnell at his no-holds-barred best.

Joan Baez shares poems for or about her contemporaries (such as Bob Dylan, Judy Collins, and Jimi Hendrix), reflections from her childhood, personal thoughts, and cherished memories of her family, including pieces about her younger sister, singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña. Speaking to the people, places, and moments that have had the greatest impact on her art, this collection is an inspiring personal diary in the form of poetry.

Why do dogs speak so profoundly to our inner lives? When Mark Doty decides to adopt a dog as a companion for his dying partner, he finds himself bringing home Beau, a large golden retriever, malnourished and in need of loving care. Beau joins Arden, the black retriever, to complete their family...

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

In this special recording, we travel with Dr. Gerald G. Jampolsky and Dr. Diane Cirincione into the most intimate of their internal journeys. We move with Jerry from militant atheism through an awakening by direct experience with the Divine. Detailed accounts of his spiritual transformation are chronicled through his never-before-seen poetry and notes to himself from the early years when the unpublished manuscript of A Course in Miracles was placed in his hands and, in that moment of Divine Grace, his life changed forever.

The final work from the Pulitzer Prize–winning writer, actor, and musician, drawn from his transformative last days In searing, beautiful prose, Sam Shepard’s extraordinary narrative leaps off the page with its immediacy and power. It tells in a brilliant braid of voices the story of an...

“When I become mayor, we become mayor.” Ras Baraka’s famous words speak to exactly who he is as a leader - a fiercely loyal member of his community. In this innovative and ground-breaking Audible Original, hear how Baraka - the mayor of Newark, New Jersey - grew from spoken-word artist to school principal to successful politician.

Zen monk Santoka Taneda (1882 - 1940) is one of Japan's most beloved modern poets, famous for his "free-verse" haiku, the dominant style today. This book tells the fascinating story of his life, liberally sprinkled with more than 300 of his poems and extracts from his essays and journals - compiled by his best friend and biographer Sumita Oyama and elegantly translated by William Scott Wilson.

Have you ever felt plucked out and suddenly dropped by the hand of God into the wasteland? Have you felt desolate, dry, and fragile? No sign of God, no sound of water? Here is the personal and passionate, "Me too!" that fans of Leslie Parrott have been waiting for. For "Seattlite" Parrott, rain...

Expressions of Poetry by Montice Harmon is a beautiful collection of semi-confessional poems that speak about the poet's trials and tribulations. The poems are a kind of motivation for depressed minds and discouraged people to rise above their problems and face the world with a positive attitude. Most of Harmon's poems are prose poems. He takes prose poems to another level with this collection. The poems all deal with some aspect of the poet's personal struggles - his joys and sorrows - and they connect you with his spirit and inner mind.

From the wild imagination of Tyler Gaca, also known as TikTok's Ghosthoney, comes a beautiful compendium of poems, personal stories, and vignettes that explore magic, queerness, Tyler’s unique story, and the enchantment and comfort to be found in the weird, the dark, and the different. In this...

Margaretta Matilda Odell's 1834 Memoir and Poems of Phillis Wheatley is the only substantive early source on Wheatley's life. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784) is considered the first African American poet to write for a transatlantic audience, and her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) kindled debates about race.

From a writer whose work has been called “breathtaking and dazzling” by Roxane Gay, this moving, illuminating, and multifaceted memoir explores, in a series of essays, the emotional scars we carry when dealing with mental and physical illnesses—reminiscent of The Collected Schizophrenias...

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.

Du Fu (712-70) is one of China’s greatest poets. His career coincided with periods of famine, war and huge upheaval, yet his secular philosophical vision, combined with his empathy for the common folk of his nation, ensured that he soon became revered. Like Shakespeare or Dante, his poetry resonates in a timeless manner that ensures it is always relevant and offers something new to the modern generation. Broadcaster and historian Michael Wood follows in his footsteps to try to understand the places that inspired Du Fu to write some of the most famous and best-loved poetry the world has known.

Meet. Love. Break. Recover. That’s been the routine of Staceyann Chin’s romantic life. But at 35, after yet another devasting breakup and overcome by an urgent and all-consuming desire to have a child, Chin realizes she’s running out of time. So she sets her sights on a single target: motherhood.

2025 National Book Award Finalist Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry of 2024 and 2025 Electric Literature’s Best Poetry Collections, 2025 NPR’s Books We Love 2025 The long-awaited sophomore poetry collection by award-winning writer Cathy Linh Che, on familial estrangement, the Vietnam War, and...

Read by Ellen Burstyn The legendary Academy Award–winning actress reflects on her love affair with poetry and makes us believers. In this beautiful book, Ellen Burstyn celebrates poetic magic and shares her favorite works. Now into her nineties, Ellen reveals she had an evangelical response to...

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. “In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in...

Will Massey let fate guide him in his life's journey, had misfortune change his charted course, and took opportunities as they presented themselves, all the while upholding the morals and values he learned as a child. Inspired by a sense of adventure, he recorded many of his life's experiences in prose and poetry with humour and a respect for others. When Bill Massey was old enough, he began a remarkable journey with his grandfather.