Poetry

The Odyssey

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Homer, Robert Fagles - translator
• Narrated By Ian McKellen
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

The great adventure story tells of Odysseus, a veteran of the Trojan War, who - through a landscape peopled with monsters, sea nymphs, evil enchantresses, and vengeful gods - makes his tortuous way home to his faithful wife, Penelope. Shipwrecked numerous times, faced with apparently insurmountable obstacles, offered the temptations of ease, comfort, and even immortality, Odysseus remains steadfast and determined. Themes of courage and perseverance, fidelity and fortitude.

Adultolescence

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 18 mins)
• By Gabbie Hanna
• Narrated By Gabbie Hanna

Full of confessional, whimsical, and darkly humorous observations about life, love, and the early years of adulthood, this collection of over 150 poems will introduce you to the unique point of view of one of the Internet's most remarkable voices.

Milk and Honey

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 6 mins)
• By Rupi Kaur
• Narrated By Rupi Kaur

From Rupi Kaur, the top 10 Sunday Times best-selling author, comes the beautiful audio edition of milk and honey, her debut poetry collection. Read to you by the author, milk and honey is a book about survival, love, loss and femininity. milk and honey takes you on a journey of hurting, loving, breaking and healing. Listen to Rupi Kaur's incredible poetry, in her own words.

The Poets' Corner: The One-and-Only Poetry Book for the Whole Family

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 31 mins)
• By John Lithgow
• Narrated By John Lithgow, Morgan Freeman, Susan Sarandon, and others

John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them. The wide variety of carefully selected poetry in this audiobook provides the perfect introduction to reel in those who are new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. Lithgow offers insightful and sometimes poignant commentary to accompany each poem. His essential criterion is that "each poem's light shines more brightly when read aloud".

The Great Poets: W. B. Yeats

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 4 mins)
• By W. B. Yeats
• Narrated By Jim Norton, Denys Hawthorne, Marcella Riordan, and others

Naxos AudioBooks continues its new series of Great Poets, represented by collections of their most popular poems in one program. W. B. Yeats was one of the most beloved poets of the 20th century. He left a large legacy of outstanding poems, and the finest are collected here: "Down by the Salley Gardens," "The Lake Isle of Inisfree," "The Secret Rose," and "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven". They are read by a strong cast, led by Olivier award-winner Jim Norton.

Beowulf: A New Translation

• ABRIDGED (2 hrs and 15 mins)
• By Seamus Heaney
• Narrated By Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney’s new translation of Beowulf is a work that is both true to the original poem and an expression of something fundamental to Heaney’s own creative gift.One of the great classics of English literature, it tells the story of a hero who wins glory and learns wisdom and is then called upon to face a final test against the monstrous. There are obvious parallels to be found in the history of the twentieth century, and Heaney’s Beowulf cannot fail to be read partly in the light of his Northern Irish upbringing. But it also transcends such considerations, revealing psychological and spiritual truths that are both permanent and liberating.

The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs)
• By Stephen Fry
• Narrated By Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry believes that if you can speak and read English, you can write poetry. But it is no fun if you don't know where to start or have been led to believe that anything goes. Stephen, who has long written poems, and indeed has written long poems, for his own private pleasure, invites you to discover the incomparable delights of metre, rhyme and verse forms.

The Divine Comedy

• UNABRIDGED (13 hrs and 18 mins)
• By Dante Alighieri
• Narrated By Ralph Cosham

One of the greatest works in literature, Dante's story-poem is an allegory that represents mankind as it exposes itself, by its merits or demerits, to the rewards or the punishments of justice. A single listen will reveal Dante's visual imagination and uncanny power to make the spiritual visible.

The Waste Land and Other Poems

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 9 mins)
• By T. S. Eliot
• Narrated By Ted Hughes

'The Waste Land' is a landmark in 20th-century poetry. Here it is read by the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. Published in 1922, it is a brilliant exploration of a faithless, immoral society trying to rebuild itself after the devastation of the Great War. Rich in literary references and steeped in allusive and evocative imagery, 'The Waste Land' is widely considered to be the pinnacle of modernist poetry.

And Still I Rise (Unabridged Selections)

• ABRIDGED (21 mins)
• By Maya Angelou
• Narrated By Maya Angelou

The beloved and best-selling author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings reads aloud from her third book of verse. She not only gives life to many of her most cherished poems, but she also presents personal introductions to several favorites, including "One More Round", "Woman Work", and "Life Doesn't Frighten Me".

Poems of the Elder Edda: The Middle Ages Series

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 24 mins)
• By Patricia Terry
• Narrated By Shiromi Arserio, Wanda Moats, Matthew Posner, and others

The great poetic tradition of pre-Christian Scandinavia is known to us almost exclusively though the Prose Edda, a collection of narrative literature, and its companion, the Poetic Edda. The poems originated in Iceland, Norway, and Greenland between the ninth and 13th centuries, when they were compiled in a unique manuscript known as the Codex Regius. The poems are primarily lyrical rather than narrative.

Collection: Popular Poetry / Popular Verse, Vol. 2

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 36 mins)
• By William Blake, John Donne, Alfred Tennyson, and others
• Narrated By Jasper Britton, Emma Fielding, Tony Britton

Nearly 100 of the most popular and loved poems in the English language, this collection is one of the most comprehensive anthologies of its kind available. It covers a remarkable range, from the striking vision of Blake and Shelley and the insights of Keats to lighter but equally memorable verse by Tennyson, Donne, and Edward Lear.

Aimless Love: A Selection of Poems

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 24 mins)
• By Billy Collins
• Narrated By Billy Collins

From the two-term Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins comes his first compilation of new and selected poems in 12 years. Aimless Love combines new poems with selections from four previous books—Nine Horses, The Trouble with Poetry, Ballistics, and Horoscopes for the Dead. Collins’s unmistakable voice, which brings together plain speech with imaginative surprise, is clearly heard with every word, reminding us how he has managed to enrich the tapestry of contemporary poetry and greatly expand its audience.

The Gruffalo

• UNABRIDGED (16 mins)
• By Julia Donaldson
• Narrated By Imelda Staunton

Here's a rhyming story of a mouse and a monster. Little mouse goes for a walk in a dangerous forest. To scare off his enemies, he invents tales of a fantastical creature called the Gruffalo. So imagine his surprise when he meets the real Gruffalo.

The Iliad

• UNABRIDGED (22 hrs and 12 mins)
• By Homer, Richmond Lattimore - translator
• Narrated By Charlton Griffin

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century B.C.,and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

When the Heart Breaks: A Journey Through Requited and Unrequited Love

• ORIGINAL (2 hrs and 23 mins)
• By David Whyte
• Narrated By David Whyte

If you never knew disappointment, would you ever grow? If you had never felt loss, could you have compassion for another? Without real heartache, would you ever know the greatness of love? On When the Heart Breaks, David Whyte invites you to join him in an investigation of a question that rests at the center of human experience. With a poet's insight into the landscape of the soul, he offers a deeply moving exploration of how we experience love and loss, and how with resilience and time we can rise again each time we are broken.

Paradise Lost

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 45 mins)
• By John Milton
• Narrated By Anton Lesser
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In words remarkable for their richness of rhythm and imagery, Milton tells the story of man's creation, fall, and redemption, "to justify the ways of God to men". Here, unabridged, and told with exceptional sensitivity and power by Anton Lesser, is the plight of Adam and Eve, the ambition and vengefulness of Satan and his cohorts.

Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire and Beauty

• UNABRIDGED
• By Nikita Gill
• Narrated By Nikita Gill

'They have lightning in their souls, thunder in their hearts, chaos in their bones.' Nikita Gill's poetry has captured hearts and minds all over the world; her inspirational words have been shared hundreds of thousands of times online, plastered across placards on international women's marches and even transformed into tattoos. This collection will showcase mostly unseen poetry and prose, delving into ideas about passion, identity, empowerment and femininity. Written and read by Nikita Gill.

Letters to a Young Poet

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 18 mins)
• By Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Stephen Mitchell)
• Narrated By Stephen Mitchell
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Ranier Maria Rilke challenges you, "...to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers." Rilke's ability to combine the sensual and the spiritual into an inspired vision of the art of living is brought to vivid life in his letters. Through his eyes, the everyday difficulties of love, sex, solitude, sadness, and doubt are seen as the archetypal elements of the drama called life.

The Invitation

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 30 mins)
• By Oriah Mountain Dreamer
• Narrated By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Speaking from the heart, Oriah Mountain Dreamer invites you to confront the varieties of human experience, from desire and commitment to sorrow and betrayal, and challenges you to open repeatedly to love and life. Unique, practical, and often surprising, The Invitation is an invaluable guide to living the ecstasy of everyday life, learning to recognize true beauty in yourself and the world, and finding the sustenance your spirit longs for.

Bone

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 35 mins)
• By Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon - foreword
• Narrated By Yrsa Daley-Ward, Kiese Laymon

From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire to balancing society's expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first-generation black British woman to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward's Bone resonate to the core of what it means to be human.

Freedom 3/15: Poetry Upon Release

• UNABRIDGED (6 mins)
• By Pay Day the Author, Julian Hill
• Narrated By David Rainey

Freedom 3/15 was written by Julian the day following his release from Fayette County Jail in Georgia. He had been incarcerated 11 months and four days due to family issues while being off his medication for mental illness. Pay Day had written a lot of pieces in jail. However, this is the first collection he wrote when he got out. It all was constructed within one day of his release. Topics vary from speaking about relationship with God and Jesus Christ, to motivational, to being an admirer of big and beautiful women.

Mean Time

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 9 mins)
• By Carol Ann Duffy
• Narrated By Carol Ann Duffy

In her prize-winning fourth collection, Mean Time, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy dramatizes scenes from childhood, adolescence and adulthood, finding moments of grace or consolation in memory, love and language amid the complexities of life. These are powerful poems of loss, betrayal and desire.

Timeless Tales: Poems of Childhood

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 13 mins)
• By E. V. Eklund
• Narrated By Nina Marie Escasa

A compilation of over seventy poems complete with illustrations dedicated to the age-old classics we all grew up with. A journey into a world of adventure and imagination, this book features a wealth of beloved poems every child will connect with. Whether reliving old memories or building new ones, Timeless Tales will be cherished by families for generations. Come and enjoy a whole new collection of poems for young and old readers alike.

Screaming in Silence

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Tony McNally
• Narrated By Adam Stubbs

Tony McNally is a Falklands War veteran and the author of Still Watching Men Burn. A tireless campaigner for better understanding and treatment of servicemen and women suffering from mental health problems like PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). After leaving the forces he was diagnosed with PTSD by a civilian doctor and was at first unable to talk about his wartime experiences, he was told to go home and try and write down his thoughts and feelings.

Adultolescence

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 18 mins)
• By Gabbie Hanna
• Narrated By Gabbie Hanna

Full of confessional, whimsical, and darkly humorous observations about life, love, and the early years of adulthood, this collection of over 150 poems will introduce you to the unique point of view of one of the Internet's most remarkable voices.

The Raven

• UNABRIDGED (9 mins)
• By Edgar Allan Poe
• Narrated By Kevin Theis

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door!"

Youthful

• UNABRIDGED (44 mins)
• By Alan McGeough
• Narrated By Alan McGeough

A collection of poems about life, love, art, and politics from a youthful soul, this work is an interpretation of humanity, as seen through the prism of words and verse.

Beginner's Guide to a Head-On Collision

• UNABRIDGED (47 mins)
• By Sebastian Matthews
• Narrated By Sebastian Matthews

Beginner's Guide to a Head-on Collision offers the deeply moving poetic memoir of Sebastian Matthews's life in the years after the car accident that devastated him and his wife and son. The poems, which often feel like electric improvised prayer-songs, intimately evoke the terrors and wonders of catastrophic physical injury and of life re-booted. They are disturbing, eerie poems that embody the paradoxes of being The Dead Man at the crossing.

My Life, My Death

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 12 mins)
• By Luke Savage, JP Hart, Kelsey Jordan
• Narrated By Emily Golden

My Life, My Death is a sometimes dark, sometimes inspirational, poetic journey into the mind of an author who has taken the time to thoroughly ponder the human experience. Luke Savage recently graduated with a master's degree in English and creative writing from Southern New Hampshire University, and previously studied psychology at Rochester College. This poet has a strong voice and tone, one that will challenge, cause deep thought, inspire, and enrage.

Life on Mars: Poems

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 22 mins)
• By Tracy K. Smith
• Narrated By Tracy K. Smith

In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the ground, where a daughter is imprisoned in the basement by her own father, where celebrities and pop stars walk among us, and where the poet herself loses her father, one of the engineers who worked on the Hubble Space Telescope.

Robert Burns' Typewriter: Poems in Scots

• UNABRIDGED (32 mins)
• By William Clark
• Narrated By William Clark

Suppose Scotland's national poet Robert Burns' had used a magic typewriter to write his greatest works. What if someone discovered it and put it to work today? What would the poetry be like? No need to wonder - it has happened - this audiobook is the result. A varied collection of listenable verse in Scots, suitable for a wide age range. if you like Burns' poems, you will enjoy these. Subjects range from clootie dumplings, through Nature, to scary kirkyards. Humor and pathos in carefully metered verse makes for ease of recitation.

Hope

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 49 mins)
• By Rima Jbara
• Narrated By Melanie Taylor
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Hope is about a woman who lives in a drowned world and is going through a silent ruin, and finds comfort in believing that her own self exists as another being, and confides her innermost secrets to her. It all started with a dream, advancing to a nightmare that then became a reality. Hope plays a lonely game in silence, until her dreams turn to dust. She lives her life through an illusion that ends with capturing her own light, making that moment an unforgettable day. This novel reveals in detail how a woman suffers from depression, and how it rules and guides her life through her journey in finding solace.

Where the Birds Go When They Die: Selections from a Lifetime Collection of Poetry

• UNABRIDGED (2 hrs)
• By Kent E. Gunnison
• Narrated By Kent E. Gunnison

Two hours of poetic listening pleasure that you will enjoy many times over. This book contains over 50 selected poems and song lyrics from a lifetime collection of writings by the author Kent E. Gunnison. A wide range of topics is covered within these minutes. Many contain serious, thought-provoking insights to life in general. Many are based upon the spiritual relationship we can have with God through prayer. There are some that simply examine the true meaning of a relationship between two or more people.

Special Edition Book of PoetryII: As Done by Paramount

• UNABRIDGED (35 mins)
• By Josh Vecchiarelli
• Narrated By J. D. Kelly

This is the second special edition book of Poetry. This book contains 45 new poems.

Songs of Love in a Beaten Light

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 9 mins)
• By Geoffrey Charles Pate
• Narrated By Shrada HD

A collection of poems about love, loss, and just a little hope.

The Beautiful Poetry of Donald Trump

• UNABRIDGED (32 mins)
• By Robert Sears
• Narrated By Jon Culshaw

What if there's another side to Donald Trump? A sensitive, poetic side? Driven by this question, Rob Sears began combing The Donald's words for signs of poetry. What he found was a revelation. By simply taking the President's tweets and transcripts, cutting them up, and reordering them, he unearthed a trove of beautiful verse that was just waiting to be discovered.

Southern Brewed Poetry

• UNABRIDGED (46 mins)
• By Ron Shaw
• Narrated By CJ Stephens

Southern Brewed Poetry is Georgia author Ron Shaw's third publication of poems. The listener will find them to be unique, at times, quite literary, thought-provoking, and intriguing. As the title indicates, the author has tapped into his southern roots to brew an eclectic mixture of marvelous poetry certain to capture the imagination, whimsy, heart, and soul of the listener.

Charlotte Mew: The Lost Muse: Complete Poems, Including Previously Unreleased Works

• UNABRIDGED (3 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Charlotte Mew, Stephen R. Pastore
• Narrated By Erika Valencic

Charlotte Mew's poems explore a wide range of themes, including passionate discussions of faith and the possibility of belief in God and proto-modernism. Many of her poems are in the form of dramatic monologues, and she often wrote from the point of view of a male persona, allowing her to gain the patronage of several literary figures, notably Thomas Hardy, who called her the best woman poet of her day; Virginia Woolf, who said she was 'very good and quite unlike anyone else', and Siegfried Sassoon.

Rummage

• UNABRIDGED (1 hr and 17 mins)
• By Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa
• Narrated By Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa

In an astounding debut poetry collection, Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Lambda Literary fellow Ife-Chudeni A. Oputa presents a relentless but refined portrait of one young woman's journey toward self-discovery. Her poems explore the eternal themes of the human condition - nature, origin, shame, identity, desire, mortality - with sensitivity and specificity. They illuminate and interrogate the ways that her characters inflict and experience pain, ultimately revealing how we must all face our shame in order to grow. No voice is blameless; no person is exempt.