Showing titles in Poetry

The Inferno is the first part of The Divine Comedy, Dante’s epic poem describing man's progress from hell to paradise. In it, the author is lost in dark woods, threatened by wild beasts and unable to find the right path to salvation. Notable for its nine circles of hell, the poem vividly illustrates the poetic justice of punishments faced by earthly sinners. The Inferno is perhaps the most popular of the three books of The Divine Comedy, which is widely considered the preeminent work in Italian literature.

This book is a compilation of small observations and musings. It's filled with moments of reflection and a love letter to simple joys: passing a simple blade of grass on the sidewalk, the freedom of peeing outdoors late at night, or the way a hand-built ceramic mug feels when it's full of warm tea on a chilly morning. It's a catalog and a compendium that examines the complicated experience of being all too human and interacting with a complex, confounding, breathtaking world ... and a reminder to stop and be awake and alive in yourself.

From his remarkable debut The Hawk in the Rain (1957) to his death in 1998, Ted Hughes was a colossal presence in the English literary landscape. He was also admired as a performer of his own work. Crow is one of his most significant collections, focusing on the central figure of the crow - predatory, mocking and indestructible. Crow is read here by the author in its entirety and with narrative links not included in the published text.

Out of the mixture of Latin and Germanic paganism and the Christianity of the Early Middle Ages has sprung one of the world's supremely great pieces of literature. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, delivered a famous lecture to the British Academy in 1936 in which he maintained that Beowulf was a poem all of a piece, and not (as had been suggested) a jumble of fragments for pedantic scholars to paw over.

It was the eye. The dull, sightless, vulture's eye that shredded his final nerve. But the murder was done so carefully, so perfectly, that only one thing could reveal the whereabouts of the body. B. J. Harrison gives a masterful reading of the famous murder that wouldn't keep quiet. This audiobook was the #3 best-selling audiobook in 2008 at the iTunes Music Store!

A beautiful, tragic, and hopeful tale, this story centers around such themes as love, loss, and empathy. While floating through life may provide this heroine with a seemingly carefree existence, she has to find real love to teach her the importance of genuine emotion as well as the gifts of sacrifice and selflessness.

A collection of Larkin's best-known poems, read by the poet. The Sunday Sessions consists of 26 poems, the contents of two tapes recorded by Philip Larkin in Hull in February 1980 - reportedly, each on a Sunday, after lunch with John Weeks, a sound engineer and colleague of the poet. The tapes contain work from Larkin's first major collection, The North Ship as well as poems from his best-known collections, The Whitsun Weddings and High Windows.

Jalaluddin Rumi is unquestionably one of the greatest spiritual poets of the world. This audio features Robert Bly and Coleman Barks each reading his own versons of Rumi. Brilliant musical accompaniment provides playfulness and ground to great spiritual expression.

When the mysterious Green Knight arrives unbidden at the Round Table one Christmas, only Gawain is brave enough to take up his challenge.... This story, first told in the 1400s, is one of the most enthralling, dramatic and beloved poems in the English tradition. Now, in Simon Armitage, the poem has found its perfect modern translator. Armitage's retelling of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight captures all of the magic and wonderful storytelling of the original while also revitalising it.

In summer 2010 Simon Armitage decided to walk the Pennine Way. The challenging 256 mile route is usually approached from south to north, from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm, the other side of the Scottish border. He resolved to tackle it the other way round: through beautiful and bleak terrain, across lonely fells and into the howling wind, he would be walking home, towards the Yorkshire village where he was born.

The poems of Leaves of Grass are loosely connected, with each representing Whitman's celebration of his philosophy of life and humanity. This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass exalted the body and the material world.

This anthology has been in the making for some years in the mind of the editor, Dione Venables, founding member of The Orwell Society. In 2006 she contributed the postscript to her cousin Jacintha Buddicom's memoir about the childhood and early youth of George Orwell. She continues to work for greater clarity and appreciation of the great man's genius and felt that this emotional layer of perception had been largely ignored by academia.

This cheering book of best loved short tales, extracts and poems will calm and restore an anxious mind before sleep. A good night's sleep is essential for our well-being and our health, but in our busy lives sleep is often poor and overlooked. Now is the time to stop a while and find consolation and wonder in other worlds where all is well and sleep just a minute or two away.

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.

Spoken word artist, rapper, and international best-selling author of Unlearn, Humble the Poet, shares raw and honest stories from his own life – from his rocky start becoming a rapper, nearly going broke to being the victim of racial prejudice – to reveal how a change in mindset can radically alter our outlook. Simple yet profound, Things No One Else Can Teach Us show how our hardest moments can help us flourish, but only if we recognise and seize the opportunity.

There were many things that Hollie McNish didn't know before she was pregnant. How her family and friends would react; that Mr Whippy would be off the menu; how quickly ice can melt on a stomach. These were on top of the many other things she didn't know about babies: how to stand while holding one; how to do a poetry gig with your baby as a member of the audience; how drum'n'bass can make a great lullaby. But Hollie learned. And she's still learning, slowly.

Deeply emotional and candid, Feel Your Way Through explores with the challenges and celebrates the experiences faced by Kelsea Ballerini, as she navigates the twists and turns of growing into a woman today. In this book of original poetry, Ballerini addresses themes of family, relationships, body image, self-love, sexuality, and the lessons of youth. Her poems speak to the often harsh, and sometimes beautiful, onset of womanhood. Honest, humble, and ultimately hopeful, this collection reveals a new dimension of Ballerini’s artistry and talent.

A 2009 Nautilus Gold Award Winner, Pure Water is Coleman Barks’ inspired live performance of the poetry of Jellaludin Rumi (1207-1273) - with Sufi stories and jokes, accompanied with music by Bach, O’Carolan, Friesen and others. The performance captured in this recording recalls the essence of the communal celebrations of poetry, stories, jokes, prayer, and music in which Rumi’s work was first uttered, but presents it in a distinctive contemporary setting. Coleman’s words combine with the cello of Grammy Award-winner Eugene Friesen.

Return to Harmony is an audio course for accessing our natural state of unshakeable inner tranquility as we navigate the challenges of personal and spiritual transformation. Topics include: the journey of awakening; disidentifying from our thoughts; becoming present; releasing ourselves from psychological attachments; acceptance and stillness; facing fear; spiritual awakening and human evolution; and much more.

In this follow-up to "Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead" these poems guide the listener ever deeper into union with the inner Divine Beloved. Dedicated to the One who patiently awaits our attention, devotion....and longing.