Showing titles in Poetry

Zen monk Santoka Taneda (1882 - 1940) is one of Japan's most beloved modern poets, famous for his "free-verse" haiku, the dominant style today. This book tells the fascinating story of his life, liberally sprinkled with more than 300 of his poems and extracts from his essays and journals - compiled by his best friend and biographer Sumita Oyama and elegantly translated by William Scott Wilson.

In "Appreciating Shakespeare" a master teacher and theatrical dramaturge makes the essentials for deeply appreciating the meaning in Shakespeare's works easily understandable for listeners and playgoers of all ages. Part 1 provides background on Shakespeare's life, language, poetic and dramatic techniques, theatrical context, and historical and cultural background. Part 2 offers short essays on twenty-two plays and one on selected sonnets.

Ex Oblivione is a prose poem by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, written in late 1920 or early 1921 and first published in The United Amateur in March 1921, under the pseudonym Ward Phillips. It is written in first person and tells of the dreams of a presumably dying man. In his dreams, the man is walking through a valley and encounters a vine-covered wall with a locked bronze gate therein. He longs to know what lies beyond the gate.

Originally published in 1923, the book begins with a man named Almustafa living on an island called Orphalese. Locals consider him something of a sage, but he is from elsewhere and has waited twelve years for the right ship to take him home. From a hill above the town, he sees his ship coming into the harbor, and realizes his sadness at leaving the people he has come to know. The elders of the city ask him not to leave. He is asked to tell of his philosophy of life before he goes, to speak his truth to the crowds gathered. What he has to say forms the basis of the book.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event - which lasted eight days and resulted in 38 deaths and almost 500 injuries - through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.

A 2009 Nautilus Gold Award Winner, Pure Water is Coleman Barks’ inspired live performance of the poetry of Jellaludin Rumi (1207-1273) - with Sufi stories and jokes, accompanied with music by Bach, O’Carolan, Friesen and others. The performance captured in this recording recalls the essence of the communal celebrations of poetry, stories, jokes, prayer, and music in which Rumi’s work was first uttered, but presents it in a distinctive contemporary setting. Coleman’s words combine with the cello of Grammy Award-winner Eugene Friesen.

Everyone knows something of Shakespeare's sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like "the darling buds of May", or "remembrance of things past", or "the marriage of true minds". For centuries these wonderfully crafted, intense lyrics have stood for something valued about youth, love, and the emotional complexities belonging to that time of life. This new recording presents all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, using the New Cambridge Shakespeare texts.

A poet like David Whyte turns words into transcendent vehicles for spirit. With What to Remember When Waking, this celebrated writer and teacher reveals how our reality is created through conversation with the universe-and how we can create an identity robust enough to meet life's gifts and demands.

The three books that compose this audiobook are collections of Gibran's aphorisms, parables, and poetic essays. The works include his masterpiece, The Prophet, The Forerunner, and The Madman.

Rainer Maria Rilke was a giant of twentieth-century writing who remains a rare visionary voice for our own time. This audio edition of Dr. Stephanie Dowrick's acclaimed book allows you literally to "hear" how and why Rilke's extraordinary words continue to captivate readers, not least through his profound understanding of the depth and beauty of human existence.

One of the most important and unique voices in American letters, distinguished poet, novelist, artist, teacher, and storyteller N. Scott Momaday was born into the Kiowa tribe and grew up on Indian reservations in the Southwest. The customs and traditions that influenced his upbringing - most notably the Native American oral tradition - are the centerpiece of his work.

Eve is a bold, unprecedented exploration of the creation narrative, true to the original texts and centuries of scholarship - yet with breathtaking discoveries that challenge traditional misconceptions about who we are and how we're made. As The Shack awakened listeners to a personal, nonreligious understanding of God, Eve will free us from faulty interpretations that have compromised human relationships since the Garden of Eden.

Following the success of At Blackwater Pond, this second CD from best-selling poet Mary Oliver contains a selection of 37 previously published poems and four as yet uncollected, read by the poet in her steady, magnetic voice. Oliver recites from the full range of her poetry - from her classic nature writing, to her verses for her mischievous bichon Percy, to her ever-deepening spiritual poems. Many Miles will be a most welcome addition to the collections of her fans.

Return to Harmony is an audio course for accessing our natural state of unshakeable inner tranquility as we navigate the challenges of personal and spiritual transformation. Topics include: the journey of awakening; disidentifying from our thoughts; becoming present; releasing ourselves from psychological attachments; acceptance and stillness; facing fear; spiritual awakening and human evolution; and much more.

The poet Kabir, a selection from whose songs is here for the first time offered to English audiences, is one of the most interesting personalities in the history of Indian mysticism.

Renowned poet Kate Baer returns with a bold and compassionate collection that confronts the march of time in a shifting world. How About Now is a striking declaration of ongoing transformation and self-discovery. From the poet who has captured the heartbeat of the modern woman, this collection reaffirms Kate Baer’s place among the most vital voices of our era.

Kahlil Gibran's Little Book of Secrets is a collection of Gibran's words on life's big questions and the mysteries of the spiritual path. It is an exploration of the riddles and conundrums that are part of the fabric of existence, and it is an attempt to penetrate and explain the mysteries of life.

Welcome to the Wickedest, the longest running house party in the South London shoob scene, always held at an undisclosed inner-city spot. You better hope you have the address: this is for locals only. Sweaty and cinematic, pulsing with rhythm and heat, every moment here—from one-on-one intimacies to the swell of the party’s collective roar—is refracted in Caleb Femi’s writing. Ingeniously blending conversations, text messages, sonnets, vignettes, monologues, photos, and lyrics, The Wickedest is a modern epic, told as a minute-by-minute chronicle of an unforgettable night out.

In Stephen Mitchell's The Iliad, the epic story resounds again across 2,700 years, as if the lifeblood of its heroes Achilles and Patroclus, Hector, and Priam flows in every word. And we are there with them, amid the horror and ecstasy of war, carried along by a poetry that lifts even the most devastating human events into the realm of the beautiful. Mitchell's The Iliad is the first translation based on the work of the preeminent Homeric scholar Martin L. West.

In this stunning collection of new poems, Mary Oliver returns to the imagery that has defined her life’s work, describing with wonder both the everyday and the unaffected beauty of nature. Herons, sparrows, owls, and kingfishers flit around in meditations on love, artistry, and impermanence. Whether considering a bird’s nest, the seeming patience of oak trees, or the artworks of Franz Marc, Oliver reminds us of the transformative power of attention and how much can be contained within the smallest moments.