Showing titles in Themes & Styles

Known for his romantic and lyrical style of poetry, Yeats’s work was often inspired by Irish myths, spiritualism, love, longing and loss. His later work became more modernist in style, challenging poetic conventions and shifting to a political focus. In this definitive collection, you will find some of Yeats’s most noteworthy poems, written from the late nineteenth century right up until his death in 1939.

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.

In this part-memoir, part-manifesto, an acclaimed poet interprets Black radical literary traditions to reimagine freedom through refusal. “In these fierce yet tender pages, Camonghne Felix reveals how imagination can become a form of governance—an instrument for creating a world rooted in...

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Steve John Shepherd, whose theatre credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, The Good Canary directed by John Malkovich, Bomber's Moon and Piaf. His TV and film credits range from the iconic This Life to Silent Witness...

A new version of The Epic of Gilgamesh by Sebastian Lockwood. This is the story of Gilgamesh, King of Kings, who brought back knowledge from before the flood - who loved and lost his companion Enkidu and had to find out why we die. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written on clay tablets over 4,000 years ago, in what is today Baghdad Iraq - the Biblical Garden of Eden between the Tigris and the Euphrates. Lockwood gives a passionate reading from a text that faithfully follows the original.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Adrian Schiller. In Paradise Lost Milton produced 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...

This anthology provides some of the finest Christian verse written during the second millennium of Christianity. All of the great ones are here: Hildegard of Bingen, Francis of Assisi, Dante and Chaucer from the High Middle Ages; Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and John Donne from the Reformation; English and American Romantics such as Browning and Whittier.

The Iliad is one of the two great epics of Homer, and is typically described as one of the greatest war stories of all time, but to say the Iliad is a war story does not begin to describe the emotional sweep of its action and characters: Achilles, Helen, Hector, and other heroes of Greek myth and history in the tenth and final year of the Greek siege of Troy.

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions, read by the author herself.

Falstaff is both a comic and tragic central protagonist in Shakespeare's three Henry plays. He is companion to Prince Hal (the future Henry V), who loves him, goads him, teases him, indulges his vast appetites, and commits all sorts of mischief with him. Award-winning author and esteemed professor Harold Bloom examines Falstaff with the deepest compassion and sympathy and also with unerring wisdom. He uses the relationship between Falstaff and Hal to explore the devastation of severed bonds and the heartbreak of betrayal.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER From the former Poet Laureate of the United States and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love comes a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joys and mysteries of daily life. “Among the best poems that [Billy] Collins has ever written.”—Maureen...

True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero, and leader. Inward is a collection of poetry, quotes, and prose that explores the movement from self-love to unconditional love, the power of letting go, and the wisdom that comes when we truly try to know ourselves. It serves as a reminder to the listener that healing, transformation, and freedom are possible.

A Choir of Honest Killers, Buddy Wakefield's 2019 release of prose and poetry, is a staggeringly honest account of life alone on the road, the prolonged agony of a failed relationship in the midst of public shame, and frequent specific serendipity.

In the heat of the Trojan War, the Greek army’s greatest warrior, Achilles, withdraws from battle after a bitter dispute with King Agamemnon. As the war spirals into chaos, heroes rise and fall, divine forces meddle in mortal affairs, and honor is tested on every side. But when tragedy strikes, Achilles must confront his rage—and his destiny.

Kahlil Gibran's aphorisms, stories, and poetry on a theme remain among some of those best known to Western readers. His views, however, extend beyond the most-quoted "greeting card" sayings to a wide realm of human emotions and relationships - passion, desire, idealized love, justice, friendship, and the challenges of dealing with strangers, neighbors, and enemies. This little book captures love and life in all of their complexities and nuances.

In this classic epic chronicle of the Greek Hero on his travels home from the Trojan War, Odysseus survives storm and shipwreck, the cave of the Cyclops, and the isle of Circe. He withstands the lure of the Sirens’ song and a trip to the Underworld, only to find his most difficult challenge at...

Winner, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, poetry category Winner, 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize Finalist, 2015 National Book Award, poetry category Finalist, 2015 NAACP Image Awards, poetry category Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes...

Brought to you by Penguin. Composed in the twelfth century in north-eastern Iran, Attar's great mystical poem is among the most significant of all works of Persian literature. A marvellous, allegorical rendering of the Islamic doctrine of Sufism - an esoteric system concerned with the search for...

A vibrant selection of poems by the great Persian mystic with groundbreaking translations by Haleh Liza Gafori, an American poet of Persian descent. Rumi’s poems were meant to induce a sense of ecstatic illumination and liberation in his audience, bringing its members to a condition of serenity, compassion, and oneness with the divine. They remain masterpieces of world literature to which readers in many languages continually return for inspiration and succor, as well as aesthetic delight.

George Herbert, one of the greatest spiritual poets of all time, influenced many of Christianity's most cherished writers including Richard Baxter, Charles Spurgeon, T. S. Eliot, and C. S. Lewis. His works, rich with vivid language, theological insight, and pastoral guidance, expand the listener's capacity to experience and delight in Christ. In this devotional volume, Stephen Witmer presents 40 of George Herbert's most impactful poems, favored for their brevity, accessibility, and relevance to contemporary Christians.