English Poetry Literature

"...The just Creator condescends to write, In beams of inextinguishable light, His names of wisdom, goodness, power, and love, On all that blooms below, or shines above; To catch the wandering notice of mankind, And teach the world, if not perversely blind...."

It's 1969, and the Apollo 11 mission is getting ready to go to the moon. But for half-black, half-Japanese Mimi, moving to a predominantly white Vermont town is enough to make her feel alien. Suddenly, Mimi's appearance is all anyone notices. She struggles to fit in with her classmates, even as she fights for her right to stand out. This historical middle-grade novel is told in poems from Mimi's perspective over the course of one year in her new town, and shows listeners that positive change can start with just one person speaking up.

"Cousins has given us a compelling biography of Keats' short and tragic life." MENSA Bulletin It is difficult; To get the news from poems; Yet men die miserably every day; For lack; Of what is found there. William Carlos Williams John Keats composed the most glorious jewels in the crown of English poetry. His are the most perfect poems in English. His letters are also considered a great literary achievement where he developed his ideas and concepts on art and life. The ability to transcend self by emotionally merging with nature's beauty became an essential credo for John Keats. His ...

A book like no other, I Am Maria weaves Shriver’s hard-earned wisdom with her own deeply personal poetry. I Am Maria reminds listeners there is strength and love on the other side of all of our hardest days.

Bound by destiny, Melisto and Rhaskos - Amber and Clay - never meet in the flesh. By the time they do, one of them is a ghost. But the thin line between life and death is just one boundary their unlikely friendship crosses. It takes an army of snarky gods and fearsome goddesses, slaves and masters, mothers and philosophers to help shape their story into a gorgeously distilled, symphonic tour de force.

Grasshoppers, waterstriders, and fireflies light up the pages of this rib-tickling book of poetry for two voices. Written as spirited duets, the poems ring with the love songs of book lice, the serenades of moths, and a choir of cicadas. Each one is a treat, filled with busy insect life. In addition to the voices of these frisky critters, there are also fascinating tidbits about their lives and habits.

A gorgeously told novel in verse written with intimacy and power, Audacity is inspired by the real-life story of Clara Lemlich, a spirited young woman who emigrated from Russia to New York at the turn of the 20th century and fought tenaciously for equal rights. Bucking the norms of both her traditional Jewish family and societal conventions, Clara refuses to accept substandard working conditions in the factories on Manhattan's Lower East Side. For years, Clara devotes herself to the labor fight, speaking up for those who suffer in silence.

With lively writing and illuminating examples, David Caplan argues that two characteristics mark the vast, contentious literature. On the one hand, several of America's major poets and critics claim that America needs a poetry equal to the country's distinctiveness. They advocate for novelty and for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign.

Go 'Grrrr' with the Gruffalo, sing along with the Smartest Giant, help Monkey search for his mum and see if the little old lady can make some room in her house! The Gruffalo and Other Stories is brilliantly performed by well-known actors Imelda Staunton, Jim Carter and Steven Pacey, as well as by the author herself, Julia Donaldson. Each story also has a song and sound effects.

Volume one of the definitive collection of Seamus Heaney reading his own work, recorded in 2009 by RTE. Volume one contains four collections published between 1966 and 1975: Death of a Naturalist, Door into the Dark, Wintering Out and North.

In this staggering work of documentary and poetry, Mai Der Vang reopens a wrongdoing that deserves a new reckoning. As the US abandoned them at the end of the Vietnam War, many Hmong refugees recounted stories of a mysterious substance that fell from planes during their escape from Laos in the mid-1970s. This substance, known as "yellow rain," caused severe illnesses and thousands of deaths. These reports prompted an investigation into allegations that a chemical biological weapon had been used against the Hmong in breach of international treaties.

The Complete Brontë Sisters and Jane Austen Collection brings together four of the most influential female authors of the 19th century. The collection includes Austen's 7 novels, selected short fiction, and a selection of her letters; alongside all 7 of the Brontë sisters' completed novels, as-well as a selection of the poetry which all three sisters published.

Poetry and science, as Popova writes in her introduction, "are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply." In 15 short essays on subjects ranging from the mystery of dark matter and the infinity of pi to the resilience of trees and the intelligence of octopuses, Popova tells the stories of scientific searching and discovery. These stories are interwoven with details from the very real and human lives of scientists—many of them women, many underrecognized—and poets inspired by the same questions and the beauty they reveal.

A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker is a celebratory selection from 100 years of influential, entertaining, and taste-making verse in The New Yorker. Seamus Heaney, Dorothy Parker, Louise Bogan, Louise Glück, Randall Jarrell, Langston Hughes, Derek Walcott, Sylvia Plath, W. S. Merwin, Czeslaw Milosz, Tracy K. Smith, Mark Strand, E. E. Cummings, Sharon Olds, Franz Wright, John Ashbery, Sandra Cisneros, Amanda Gorman, Maggie Smith, Kaveh Akbar: these stellar names make up just a fraction of the wonderfulness that is present in this essential anthology.

Beloved by her fans, special to the poet’s own heart, Mary Oliver’s dog poems offer a special window into her world. Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs is a celebration of the special bond between human and dog, as understood through the poet’s relationships to the canines that have accompanied her daily walks, warmed her home, and inspired her work. In A Thousand Mornings, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has come to define her life’s work, transporting us to the marshland and coastline of her beloved home, Provincetown, Massachusetts.

From award-winning Irish author Meg Grehan comes an accessible and beautifully crafted middle-grade novel-in-verse about Stevie, a young girl reckoning with anxiety about the many things she has yet to understand - including her feelings about her friend Chloe.

Duende, that dark and elusive force described by Federico Garcia Lorca, is the creative and ecstatic power an artist seeks to channel from within. It can lead the artist toward revelation, but it must also, Lorca says, accept and even serenade the possibility of death. Tracy K. Smith's bold second poetry collection explores history and the intersections of folk traditions, political resistance, and personal survival. Duende gives passionate testament to suppressed cultures, and allows them to sing.

Commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature, Beowulf is an epic poem that traces the exploits of the titular hero. After coming to the aid of the king of the Danes, whose mead hall is under constant attack by the monster Grendel, Beowulf slays Grendel's mother and goes on to become the king of the Geats.

What I Learned from the Trees delves into the intricate relationship between humans and nature, and how these often overlooked, everyday interactions affect us as individuals, families, and communities. With a backbone rooted in primordial imagery and allegory, and a focus on how the growing disconnect with our own wants, needs, and fears creates deeper divides in our relationships, this collection is notably relevant to today’s society and the struggles we face with the ever-expanding detachment between humans and the natural world.

The poems of the Poetic Edda have waited a long time for a modern English translation that would do them justice. Here it is at last (Odin be praised!) and well worth the wait. These amazing texts from a 13th-century Icelandic manuscript are of huge historical, mythological, and literary importance, containing the lion's share of information that survives today about the gods and heroes of pre-Christian Scandinavians, their unique vision of the beginning and end of the world, etc.