Showing titles in Themes & Styles

From the Academy Award-winning actor and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Greenlights comes an inspiring, faith-filled, and often hilarious collection of personal poetry and prayers about navigating the rodeo of life and chasing down the original dream, belief. My prayers are my poems are...

A “beautiful poetry collection” (Electric Lit) that breaks open notions of faith to ask how a daughter, alienated from kin, can find love and a home in the world, from the award-winning author of If They Come for Us and When We Were Sisters “There is, in Daughter of the Mountains, an...

The Pulitzer Prize winner’s final written work: poems of penetrating acceptance and humor, whose soul-sweeping gaze encompasses his own autobiography and the broken world he nonetheless gives thanks for “His hands strip poetry to its nub.” —Los Angeles Times “Reading [Wright] is like...

The Iliad is one of the most enduring creations of Western Civilization and was originally written to be recited or chanted to the accompaniment of various instruments. Properly performed, this work today is just as meaningful, just as powerful, and just as entertaining as it was in the ninth century BC, and it casts its spell upon modern listeners with the same raw intensity as it did upon the people of ancient times.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Lesley Manville (winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress and known for Phantom Thread and Mum), Derek Jacobi (winner of the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor and known for Gladiator and Gosford Park), Michael...

Shriramcharitmanas by Tulsidas is a revered epic that retells the story of Lord Rama’s life and teachings in poetic form. This text is central to the religious and cultural life of Hindus, especially in northern India. Tulsidas’ work offers profound insights into the values of dharma (righteousness) and devotion, providing spiritual guidance through Rama’s virtues and actions.

Brought to you by Penguin. A magnificent new translation of the Odyssey by best-selling author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn Setting aside the streamlining, modernizing approach of many recent translations, Mendelsohn artfully reproduces the epic’s formal qualities – meter, enjambment...

From listening to his grandmother recite epic poems from memory to curling up in bed while his father read funny verses, award-winning actor John Lithgow grew up with poetry. Ever since, John has been an enthusiastic seeker of poetic experience, whether reading, reciting, or listening to great...

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.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Book of Longing written and read 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 2006, when this book was first...

The Ramayanam, an itihasa of the highest order, is considered adi kavya, the first poem to have been composed. Written by Valm ki during Rama's time, and ratified by him, this timeless epic has been treated with utmost care by all acaryas in their famed commentaries. Since the advent of human...

John Milton's Paradise Lost is one of the greatest epic poems in the English language. It tells the story of the Fall of Man, a tale of immense drama and excitement, of rebellion and treachery, of innocence pitted against corruption, in which God and Satan fight a bitter battle for control of mankind's destiny.

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters. Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them...

This book is a treasure trove of over 150 beautiful and timeless romantic ghazals, nazms, and rubaais—all of them translated and transliterated into English. It holds the iconic verses of poets like Ghalib, Firaq, and Faiz, and showcases the poetry of popular contemporary poets. Lose yourself in the captivating melodies of Urdu poetry with Humsafar, and discover the beauty and power of love that transcends all boundaries.

Brought to you by Penguin. A collection of powerful contemporary poetry exploring themes of masculinity, love, grief and connection, from British poet and viral phenomenon Lucas Jones. 'You're here to make All the wonder make sense You're not the life - You're the living itself' How do you...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER An exquisite poetry collection from the creator of The Daily Victorian that celebrates the hidden versions of ourselves, and unveils the healing power of nostalgia, imagination, and hope “This is for anyone who doesn’t see deep feeling as a bad thing but would...

Considered by Rumi to be "the master" of Sufi mystic poetry, Attar is best known for this epic poem, a magnificent allegorical tale about the soul's search for meaning. He recounts the perilous journey of the world's birds to the faraway peaks of Mount Qaf in search of the mysterious Simorgh, their king. Attar's beguiling anecdotes and humor intermingle the sublime with the mundane, the spiritual with the worldly, while his poem models the soul's escape from the mind's rational embrace.

Rainer Maria Rilke has been called the most significant and compelling poet of spiritual experience of the 20th century. His exploration of the struggle between life and art and the supremacy of divine love over personal love has touched the hearts of men and women everywhere. The poems in this reading are from the selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell.

“Probably the most finely accomplished and ... most enduring" translation (Los Angeles Times Book Review) of this essential work of world literature—from a renowned scholar and master teacher of Dante and an accomplished poet. “The Hollanders … act as latter-day Virgils, guiding us...

Achilles has quarrelled with Agamemnon and sulks in his tent while Hector brings his Trojans to the brink of victory; but fate will have the last word. While the heroes fight before the walls of Troy the gods have also drawn up battle lines, and it is their disagreements as much as the heroes' efforts which will decide the conflict. Despite the poem's antiquity, the very real, human qualities of the protagonists and their dilemmas make The Iliad immediately accessible.