Showing titles in Themes & Styles

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide, his ascent of Mount Purgatory and his encounter with his dead love Beatrice, and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption. This major translation is published here for the first time in a single volume.

Resonant, raw, and vibrant, Home is a lyrical map to navigating heartbreak. Tracing the stages of healing - from the despair that comes with the end of a relationship to the eventual light and liberation that comes with time - the poems in Home provide comfort and solace, while revitalizing your soul - and helping you make peace with your bees.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian subcontinent and is a major text of Hinduism. Its discussion of human goals (artha or 'purpose', kama or 'pleasure', dharma or 'duty' and moksha or 'liberation') takes place in a long-standing tradition, attempting to explain the relationship of the individual to society and the world (the nature of the 'self') and the workings of karma.

My poetry is about catching a glimpse of a doorway to another world, there is a sense of a spiritual yearning to know that place and to connect with it. It lies beneath or throughout our world and pulling it into concrete form is not an easy task but it is a gift to me when it happens. It creates something I love. I touch this world in landscape and in nature and sometimes in a particular place like in the Rock of Dunamase. If you have travelled in Ireland, you will know some of these landscapes and their temperaments well.

This book is a poet's pilgrimage for anyone interested in embarking on life's most remarkable journey—finding God. God's known will is clear in His Word; we need to spend time with Him to discover His unknown will. God Calling in Poetry shows you how He speaks to us, one day at a time! Can you set aside a quiet time with Him to meditate and converse? It's an invitation to join Him in an extraordinary adventure!

With Professor Esolen you will enter the terrible gates of Hell and progress level by infernal level to its diabolical depths. Professor Esolen places a special emphasis on the drama of the poem, leading you through each canto in succession. Professor Esolen will more than satisfy your curiosity about Hell and the fate of the damned. He will reveal in all its starkness the horror of sin and awaken in your heart a longing for divine love.

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".

Through poetry, prose, and the compassionate encouragement you would expect from someone who knows exactly what you're working through, Sparacino is here with the words you need. The Strength in Our Scars tackles the gut-wrenching but relatable experiences of moving on, self-love, and ultimately learning to heal. In this book you will find peace, you will find a rock, you will find understanding, and you will find hope.

Upon becoming a mother, Jessica Urlichs was reminded that the everyday ordinary is extraordinary. As sacred and tender as early motherhood is, it also comes with its struggles. Beautiful Chaos is a collection that chronicles it all - the highs, the lows, the confusion, the loss of identity, the becoming, and the brutal but beautiful ways our children hold mirrors up to us. This collection inspires vulnerability and will be a cathartic, healing read for anyone who needs it.

In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among the aftershocks of his mother's death, embodying the paradox of sitting within grief while being determined to survive beyond it. Shifting through memory, and in concert with the themes of his novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Vuong contends with personal loss, the meaning of family and the cost of being the product of an American war in America. At once vivid, brave and propulsive, Vuong's poems circle fragmented lives to find both restoration as well as the epicentre of the break.

In Paradise Lost, Milton produced a poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely human tragedy on the fall of man....

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Book of Longing by Leonard Cohen. Book of Longing is Leonard Cohen's first book of new poetry since Book of Mercy was published two decades ago. It collects Cohen's poetry written between the 1980s and the present. Book of Longing demonstrates the range and depth of Cohen's work, revealing an extraordinary gift of language that speaks with rare clarity, passion and timelessness.

The Odyssey by Homer in the Samuel Butler translation, narrated by Michael Bronks. Follow Odysseus through treacherous seas, encounters with gods like Athena and Poseidon, and mythical creatures such as the Cyclops and Sirens. Experience the epic journey of Greek mythology, heroism, and adventure that defines The Odyssey in its full, timeless form.

Flames That Light the Heart brings listeners into the company of author and teacher Mark Nepo for a rich conversation on the life of transformation and the heartwork that is required to be a spirit in the world. The intention: to help you live with meaning, truth, and kindness in your own personal way. Ten sessions explore how we are changed by what we go through - and how to access the skills and inner resources we need for learning, growing, and healing.

Dick Davis—“our pre-eminent translator from the Persian” (The Washington Post)—has revised and expanded his acclaimed translation of Ferdowsi’s masterpiece, adding more than 100 pages of newly translated text. Davis’s elegant combination of prose and verse allows the poetry of the Shahnameh to sing its own tales directly, interspersed sparingly with clearly marked explanations to ease along modern audiences.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘novel in verse’ is an epic poem that voices with enchanting beauty and literary courage the perspective of Victorian women. Aurora Leigh forges her own path to become a poet, successfully proving her worth, defying the ideals of her era, and rescuing her spirit from the suppression of a routine domestic life. Infusing the work with her own experience and passion, Browning produced a true masterpiece.

This story of Lord Rama — the 7th incarnation of Lord Vishnu— i s a wondrous tale of cosmic adventure that immerses the listener in a world of heroes, gods, and demons.

Who was Rumi, and how does he continue to speak to us today? On Song of the Sun, Andrew Harvey, the Oxford-trained authority on Rumi and author of several modern spiritual classics, takes us inside the extraordinary life and teachings of this prophet and poet. Harvey sifts through the many legends and tales associated with Rumi's life to reveal a rich and inspiring portrait of what a human being in love with and empowered by God can become. He mines the thousands of odes and quatrains composed by Rumi, and shares the most sumptuous and ecstatic works, all with clear relevance to our spiritual lives today. At a time when we are hungry for a divine vision of our world as it can be - and should be - Song of the Sun is an invitation to Rumi's most sacred and glorious feast.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

In this collection of all new poems, Whitney Hanson explores the progression of a life through the lens of music. We each begin with a simple note, but as life progresses, we're led to the next note, and the next - all of which combine to form the melody of a song and the cadence of a life. As life becomes more complicated and complex, we find that loss, grief, and heartache can muffle our music, making the world go silent. But as Whitney's poems show, all of these rests and pauses in the music are part of the magnificent composition of life.