Showing titles in Poetry

Pam Ayres, one of Britain's best-loved entertainers, personally presents this audiobook which brings together two of her solo stage shows with live audiences. Pam introduces each recording and then, as a bonus, reads a collection of new and previously unrecorded poems from her two most recent books, You Made Me Late Again and Up In The Attic. With poems such as 'My Mother Was Right About You', 'Geriatric Juliet', 'Poor Old Father Christmas', and 'The Hat From Hell', this hilariously funny collection is a must-have for seasoned fans and first time listeners alike.

Led by his guide, Beatrice, Dante leaves the Earth behind and soars through the heavenly spheres of Paradise. In this third and final part of The Divine Comedy, he encounters the just rulers and holy saints of the Church. The horrors of Inferno and the trials of Purgatory are left far behind. Ultimately, in Paradise, Dante is granted a vision of God’s Heavenly court: the angels, the Blessed Virgin, and God Himself.

Random House presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Ode Less Travelled, written and read 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...

One of the great innovators in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daringly new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. Leaves of Grass is his masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style, combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Its bold, joyous voice, its expansive optimism, and its transcendental vision made it uniquely American.

Published at the author’s own expense in 1896, after rejection from publishers, this collection contains a cycle of 63 poems. Despite exploring themes of lost love, obsession, pessimism, and death, the poems touched English readers and the book became a best seller during the Second Boer War and World War I. The collection, set in a half-imagined pastoral Shropshire, includes the well-known poems "When I Was One-and-Twenty", "To an Athlete Dying Young", and "Loveliest of Trees, the Cherry Now".

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of the most beloved poets in English. Yet after his death a largely negative image of the man himself took hold; he has been portrayed as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Now Larkin scholar James Booth, for seventeen years a colleague of the poet's at the University of Hull, offers a very different portrait. Drawn from years of research and a wide variety of Larkin's friends and correspondents, this is the most comprehensive portrait of the poet yet published.

From the author of The Vegetarian and Human Acts comes an audiobook like no other. The White Book is a meditation on colour, beginning with a list of white things. It is an audiobook about mourning, rebirth and the tenacity of the human spirit. It is a stunning investigation of the fragility, beauty and strangeness of life.

The Kalevala provides a compelling insight into the myths and folklore of Finland. Compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the 19th century, this impressive volume follows a tradition of oral storytelling that goes back some 2000 years, and it is often compared to such epic poems as Homer's Odyssey. However, The Kalevala has little in common with the culture of its Nordic neighbors: It is primarily poetic, it is mythical rather than historic, and its heroes solve their problems with magic more often than violence.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Shaheen Khan. This definitive recording includes an introduction by J. D. Smith, read by Sagar Arya. The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. It is of immense importance to the culture of the Indian...

Follow Michael’s depiction of the tragic events leading up to his conviction and incarceration for his wife’s death and the next eight years of his imprisonment for her alleged murder. Upon his release, Peterson shares in his memoir, Behind the Staircase, his perspective on what happened to his loving wife, the misleading evidence of the trial, and the years that he spent behind bars with criminals, murderers, and rapists.

Joy Chose You is a beautiful collection of Donna's most-loved poems to bring more joy into our imperfect lives. When we allow joy to wrap her quiet warmth around us we find ourselves opening up to more life, love and light. With poems such as 'Joy Comes Back', 'Happy' and 'Unstoppable', as well as 20 new poems, including 'This Little Moment', 'Love Wins' and 'A Little Weird', Donna's wise words help us find hope in the dark, calm amid worry and greater joy in the beauty of living.

From the celebrated author of Inward comes a new collection of poetry and short prose that illuminates how past wounds impact our present relationships. In Clarity and Connection, Yung Pueblo explores how intense emotions accumulate in our subconscious and condition us to act and react the ways...

Lily Cole stars as Helen of Troy, ‘the face that launched a thousand ships’, in Simon Armitage’s vivid, visceral adaptation of Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid. For 10 years, the Greeks have been laying siege to Troy to win back their abducted queen, Helen. But as the war drags on, and the battlefields run scarlet with blood, the opposing forces are entrenched in a bitter stalemate. As gods and mortals squabble amongst themselves for the spoils of war, the exhausted warriors go to extreme lengths in a desperate grab for victory....

Odysseus has been away from Ithaca, the Greek city-state under his rule, for ten years while fighting in the Trojan War. After the fall of Troy, Odysseus begins the long journey home to his wife and son; however, his journey is plagued by misfortune as the gods feud over his fate, leaving the Ithacans to believe that he has died. In the myths and legends that are retold here, Fagles has captured the energy and poetry of Homer's original in a bold, contemporary idiom, and given us an Odyssey to read aloud, to savor, and to treasure for its sheer lyrical mastery.

Sir John Betjeman’s unique relationship with the BBC left a lasting legacy of poetry, readings and performances. A First Class Collection features a selection of some of his most memorable and best-loved poetry. Betjeman was one of the best-known and loved Poet Laureates and over a hundred...

Brought to you by Penguin. A delightful, thoughtful and original new way to understand England's history This is the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the...

A masterly new recording by Ralph Fiennes. Four Quartets is the culminating achievement of T. S. Eliot's career as a poet. While containing some of the most musical and unforgettable passages in 20th-century poetry, its four parts, 'Burnt Norton', 'East Coker', 'The Dry Salvages' and 'Little Gidding', present a rigorous meditation on the spiritual, philosophical and personal themes which preoccupied the author.

Brought to you by Penguin. Driven mad by three years of endless telegrams, phonecalls, mail, reporters and snoopers in the wake of his hugely successful novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac, 'King of the Beats', needs peace, quiet and sobriety: surrounded and outnumbered he has to 'get away to...

The definitive collection of works on a subject that inspired and haunted Charles Bukowski for his entire life: alcohol. Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed...

'For myself/ I knew as soon as I could read and write/ That I must be a poet. Even today,/ When all the way from Cambridge comes a wind/ To blow the lamps out every time they're lit/ I know that I must light mine up again.' From his earliest boyhood memories of Highgate and Archibald, his old...