Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Vinegar Hill explores the liminal space between private experiences and public events as Tóibín examines a wide range of subjects—politics, queer love, reflections on literary and artistic greats, living through COVID, memory and a fading past, and facing mortality. The poems reflect a life well-travelled and well-lived; from growing up in the town of Enniscorthy, wandering the streets of Dublin and Barcelona, and crossing the bridges of Venice to visiting the White House, listeners will travel through familiar locations and new destinations through Tóibín's unique lens.

In her electric fourth collection, Melissa Broder penetrates the itch of existence and explores numberless deaths: the annihilation of self, the bereavement of love, the destruction of fantasy, the transmutation, even, of our ideas of dying. What emerges is an infinite series of false endings - each a trap door containing the possibility for alchemy, rebirth, and renewal. Last Sext confronts both eternal longing and the mystery of mortality, with language hot, primal, and dark.

Based on historical characters of the seventh-century Iranian court and written 850 years ago, the narrative poem about Khosrow and Shirin shares a shelf with the most intensely romantic classic stories readers love, from Tristan and Isolde to Layla and Majnun to Romeo and Juliet to Gatsby and Daisy.

Indulge in Rumi's passion with this collection of 13th century love poetry. Become lost in the words of The Love Poems of Rumi. Included in this audiobook is a collection of Jalal al-Din Rumi's passionate love poems, translated by Nader Khalili. Beautifully read by Neil Shah, you'll become spiritually inspired by the words in this audiobook. Perfect for lovers, dreamers, and poets, the poems from this 13th century theologist will leave you wistfully peaceful.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years ? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers, — And that cannot stop their tears.

This collection of words from Havva Ramadan has its origins during lockdown and her work continues to resonate to this day, finding an even wider audience through her rapidly growing online presence. Now, in her first book, A Voice: Turning Pain into Power, her words take a different form, collected to give us a very personal journey that we can all relate to, reflecting the pain of grief, the struggle of mental health and the journey we need to take to help us collect our pieces and find a way to rebuild ourselves once again.

Hafiz's Little Book of Life is a lush collection of more than 250 selections from his lifework (his divan). Alongside a Quran, a copy of his divan can be found in average homes in Iran—where stars can be heard singing his poetry on the radio, and lines from his poems are quoted on the street. His poetry is sure to strike a chord in the hearts of readers everywhere. This vital collection of mystical poetry focuses on the issues we encounter in everyday life. Each brief poem may be savored as an oasis of clarity in the hurried literacy of our time, or the entire book enjoyed in one sitting.

In this heart-expanding collection of poetry and short prose, Scott Stabile delivers liberating truths rooted in the premise that each of us is beautiful, whole, and enough—just as we are. With the same wise, humorous, and unembellished voice that has garnered him hundreds of thousands of followers online, Scott assures us that our worth is inherent, our authenticity bridges the path to freedom, and with willingness and commitment, deep self-love is possible for each of us.

The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 100 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history, and it has never been out of print. The prophet, Al Mustafa, has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition.

Conjuring vivid imagery and drawing from the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, Prince Neptune presents poems and prose on themes of life, love, fame, escapism, environmentalism, with an overarching narrative of nature as a nod to the author's passion for the earth and the environment. Simpson’s poetry combines themes of freedom and the ocean with the wisdom of an old soul.

This volume brings together for the first time all of the poems that appeared in Anthony Hecht’s seven trade collections, from A Summoning of Stones of 1954 through to The Darkness and the Light of 2001; it adds the remarkable work contained in his posthumously issued Interior Skies: Late Poems from Liguria of 2011; and it rounds this out with the best of the many poems which were left uncollected at the time of his death in 2004, the earliest dating from 1950 and the latest from 2001.

Experience the stunning Greek poetry of Homer in this collection of his two major works: The Iliad and The Odyssey. These epic poems are beloved for their presentation of Greek history and belief systems, their strong theming and lessons on Greek virtues, and their continued influence on the literary canon.

Through Coleman Barks’s translations, Rumi is the world’s most popular poet. The newest addition to HarperSanFrancisco’s “A Year With” series, A Year with Rumi brings together 365 of Coleman’s mystical, elegant, and beautiful translations of Rumi’s poetry, for listening, reflection, and embarking upon your own journey inward.

In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has ben banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve. The actions get Adam and Eve banished from paradise, and in the aftermath of their sin they get to glimpse the future of humanity based on their actions.

If language is music, it is apt that a playlist is a poem. It makes even more sense in The Epic of Cader Idris, coming from Samatar Elmi, a poet whose concerns with the origins of things and the landscape of the margins are expressed in language so lyrical that you could almost miss its politics in its own music: "almost invisible, like the stencil of words / whispered at the front on a frosty morning," as he writes in [Etymologies].

In The New Carthaginians, time – and with it the world – is out of joint. A hijacked plane lands at Entebbe International Airport in 1976, triggering the crisis that will lead to Idi Amin’s Uganda becoming a pariah state and, within a few years, to the young Nick Makoha’s flight from the country. A mysterious writer daubs poetic slogans on the walls of late-’70s New York City, signing them SAMO©. Concerned throughout with flight and falling, the sample and the loop, The New Carthaginians is a poetry collection of staggering originality.

This groundbreaking 2025 edition presents the most complete and seamless version of The Epic of Gilgamesh ever published in English. Meticulously reconstructed and translated from the Standard Babylonian tablets—along with integrated Sumerian and Old Babylonian variants—it delivers the full poetic journey of Gilgamesh and Enkidu with clarity, emotional power, and mythic resonance.

Dispute over land and kingdom may lie at the heart of this story of war between cousins - the Pandavas and the Kouravas - but the Mahabharata is about conflicts of dharma. These conflicts are immense and various, singular and commonplace. Throughout the epic, characters face them with no clear indications of what is right and what is wrong; there are no absolute answers. Thus every possible human emotion features in the Mahabharata, the reason the epic continues to hold sway over our imagination.

A long poem in Kerouac’s freewheeling and spontaneous improvisational style, Mexico City Blues is a unique epic of sound, rhythm, and religion. Called superb sensory meditations, the poetry takes in life, death, and spirituality but roams widely across continents and cultures. Memories, fantasies, dreams, and surrealistic free association are all lyrically combined in the loose format inspired by jazz and the blues.

A poetic portrait of faith, futility, and the joy of this mortal life. In this astoundingly unique audiobook, best-selling author N. D. Wilson reminds each of us that to truly live, we must recognize that we are dying. Every second we create more of our past. Then, we must see the future. We stand in the now. God says create. Live. Choose. Shape the past. Etch your life in stone, and what you make will be forever.