Poetry

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton (1608-1674). The first version, published in 1667, consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse. A second edition followed in 1674, arranged into twelve books (in the manner of Virgil's Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. It is considered by critics to be Milton's major work, and it helped solidify his reputation as one of the greatest English poets of his time.

v. 1. Pastoral poetry, and An essay on criticism.--v. 2. The rape of the lock, and other poems.--v. 3. i. An essay of man. ii. Epistles to several persons (Moral essays)--v. 4. Imitations of Horace, with An epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot and Epilogue to the satires.--v. 5. The dunciad.--v. 6. Minor poems.--v. 7-8. Translations of Homer: The Iliad.--v. 9-10. Translations of Homer: The Odyssey.--v. 11. Index.

Contains the complete works of the first African-American to publish a book of poetry. Includes reprint of poems on various subjects, religions and morals.

At the dawn of the 19th century, Blake created this imaginative series of 116 watercolors to illustrate 13 poems by Thomas Gray. Including such popular poems as "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" and "Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat," these rarely exhibited treasures remained exclusively in the hands of collectors for close to 175 years. This is the first inexpensive, full-color reproduction, with the complete text of the poems.

A small format gift book which is a reproduction of the popular book ‘Songs Robert Burns’ originally published by Collins in 1947. Selected by G.F. Maine and written by burns between 1759 and 1796. One of the most influential books of Robert Burns songs, compiled and introduced by G.F.Maine. These songs were a collection of the most significant and burns ballies still popular today.

The Classics Reimagined series is a library of stunning collector's editions of unabridged classic novels illustrated by contemporary artists from around the world. Each artist offers his or her own unique, visual interpretation of the most well-loved, widely read, and avidly collected literature from renowned authors. From Grimm's Fairy Tales to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and from Edgar Allen Poe to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, art lovers and book collectors alike will not be able to resist owning the whole collection.Renowned artist David Plunkert takes readers on a dark journey into the gothic stories of Edgar Allan Poe, through his luscious imagery. These stories take on a whole new meaning when accompanied by Plunkert's mystical, and sometimes spooky interpretations. With this edition of the Classics Reimagined series, you'll think classics boring, nevermore!

A Spicing of Birds is a unique and beautifully illustrated anthology, pairing poems from one of America's most revered poets with evocative classic ornithological art. Emily Dickinson had a great love of birds―in her collected poems, birds are mentioned 222 times, sometimes as the core inspiration of the poem. However, in existing anthologies of Dickinson's work, little acknowledgment is made of her close connection to birds. This book contains thirty-seven of Dickinson's poems featuring birds common to New England. Many lesser-known poems are brought to light, renewing our appreciation for Dickinson's work. The editors' introduction draws extensively from Dickinson's letters, providing fascinating insights into her relationship with birds. The illustrations, by late 18th century to early 20th century artists/ornithologists, are often so apt as to seem to have been created with the poems in mind. Included are beautiful watercolors by Mark Catesby, engravings of John James Audubon's paintings, illustrations by Alexander Wilson, chromo-lithographs by Robert Ridgway (curator of birds at the National Museum for some fifty years), paintings by Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and some of the earliest bird photographs by Cordelia Stanwood. The editors also discuss the development and growth of birding in the nineteenth century as well as the evolution of field guides and early conservation efforts. Brief biographies of the artists are included in an appendix. This book is an eloquent tribute to the special place held by birds in our lives and imaginations, and will make an ideal gift for both birders and poetry readers.

In 1855 a small volume appeared, self-published by a failed Brooklyn journalist and carpenter: twelve untitled poems and a preface announcing the author’s aims. A commercial failure, this book was the first stage of a massive, lifelong enterprise. Six editions and thirty-seven years later, Leaves of Grass had been recognized as one of the central masterpieces of world poetry.

Sonnets from the Portuguese was written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning between 1845 and 1846 and was published in 1850. It is a collection of forty-four love sonnets written for her, then, future husband Robert Browning. The content and tone of the sonnets change as her relationship with Browning relationship progressed. In the earlier sonnets she expresses her doubt and fear about beginning a relationship with Browning. As the relationship progressed Barrett Browning was able to overcome her anxieties, and eventually, they took a more accepting and passionate tone. Originally, she did not plan to publish the collection due to their extremely personal content, but changed her mind after Robert Browning insisted, saying they were perhaps the best sequence of English-written sonnets since Shakespeare’s time. In order to maintain some privacy, Browning disguised the title in hopes people would believe they were translations from foreign sonnets. According to Wikipedia, the collection was originally called Sonnets from the Bosnian, but was changed to Portuguese after Robert’s suggestion, perhaps stemming from his nick-name for Elizabeth: “my little Portuguese.” The sonnets are some of the some of the most famous love poems of the Victorian Age, or any other. The opening line of “Sonnet 43” has become so deeply embedded in our culture that even people who have never read the poem know it. However, Barret Browning’s sonnets are so much more than just this one line. They are a work of passion, doubt, fear, and most importantly, love.

William Carlos Williams' poems are like pictures, full of visual images that youngsters will quickly grasp and enjoy. Thirty-two of his finest verses, accompanied by gorgeous paintings that capture Williams' evocative references to nature and everyday life, grace this new title in the much-celebrated Poetry for Young People series. Renowned scholar and professor Christopher MacGowan, who has edited several volumes of Williams' work, provides a fascinating biography of this poet-doctor as well as invaluable annotations that explain unfamiliar vocabulary. Exquisite paintings, by the distinguished artist Robert Crockett, make every page a treat to look at and truly illuminate the poems. Among the poems included here are "Dawn," with its lovely evocation of bird song and flight; "Primrose," a celebration of summer's joys; "10/30," a witty verse that imitates the sounds of freight trains passing by the station near his home; and an excerpt from his famed book-length poem, "Paterson."

Part of a remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing--a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience--poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliography, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review.

Contents: The waste land -- Gerontion -- Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a cigar -- Sweeney erect -- A cooking egg -- Le directeur -- Mélange adultère de tout -- Lune de miel -- The hippopotamus -- Dans le restaurant -- Whispers of immortality -- Mr. Eliot's Sunday morning service -- The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock -- Portrait of a lady -- Preludes -- Rhapsody on a windy night -- Morning at the window -- The Boston evening transcript -- Aunt Helen -- Cousin Nancy -- Mr. Apollinax -- Hysteria -- Conversation galante -- La figlia che piange.

He was a son of Africa who became father to a nation and, for billions of people around the world, a beacon of hope, courage, and perseverance in the face of opposition. Now, acclaimed poet Maya Angelou honors the life and remarkable soul of Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and Nobel laureate. In His Day is Done, Angelou delivers an authentically heartfelt and elegant tribute to Mandela, who stood as David to the mighty Goliath of Apartheid and who, after twenty-seven years of unjust imprisonment on the notorious Robben Island, emerged with “His stupendous heart intact / His gargantuan will / Hale and hearty” to lead his people into a new era. This poignant work of gratitude and remembrance offers condolences to the resilient people of South Africa on the loss of their beloved “Madiba” and celebrates a man like no other, whose life and work changed the world.

The first new Ginsberg collection in over fifteen years, Wait Till I’m Dead is a landmark publication, edited by renowned Ginsberg scholar Bill Morgan and introduced by award-winning poet and Ginsberg enthusiast Rachel Zucker. Ginsberg wrote incessantly for more than fifty years, often composing poetry on demand, and many of the poems collected in this volume were scribbled in letters or sent off to obscure publications and unjustly forgotten. Wait Till I’m Dead, which spans the whole of Ginsberg’s long writing career, from the 1940s to the 1990s, is a testament to Ginsberg’s astonishing writing and singular aesthetics. Following the chronology of his life, Wait Till I’m Dead reproduces the poems together with extensive notes. Containing 104 previously uncollected poems and accompanied by original photographs, Wait Till I’m Dead is the final major contribution to Ginsberg’s sprawling oeuvre, a must-read for Ginsberg neophytes and longtime fans alike.

Postmodern American Poetry provides a deep and wide selection-411 poems by 103 poets-of the major poets and movements of the late twentieth century. Included are the leading Beat and New York School poets, the Projectivists, and "Deep Image" poets. Included, too, is the rich array of poetry written since 1975-language and performance poetry, the work of African American, Hispanic, Asian American, gay and lesbian, and women experimentalists. In addition, a final section of poetics-with writings by Frank O’Hara, Denise Levertov, Jerome Rothenberg, Amiri Baraka, and Charles Bernstein, among others-provides valuable contexts for reading the poems.

Aster of Ceremonies asks what rites we need now and how poetry, astir in the asters, can help them along. What is the relationship between fleeing and feeling? How can the voices of those who came before—and the stutters that leaven those voices—carry into our present moment, mingling with our own? When Ellis writes, “Bring me the stolen will / Bring me the stolen well,” his voice is a conduit, his “me” is many. Through the grateful invocations of ancestors—Hannah, Mariah, Kit, Jan, and others—and their songs, he rewrites history, creating a world that blooms backward, reimagining what it means for Black and disabled people to have taken, and to continue to take, their freedom. By weaving a chorus of voices past and present, Ellis counters the attack of “all masters of all vessels” and replaces it with a family of flowers. He models how—as with his brilliant transduction of escaped slave advertisements—we might proclaim lost ownership over literature and history. “Bring me to the well,” he chants, implores, channels. “Bring me to me.” In this bringing, in this singing, he proclaims our collective belonging to shared worlds where we can gather and heal.

Award-winning poet Heather Christle has just lost a dear friend to suicide and must reckon with her own struggles with depression and the birth of her first child. How she faces her joy, grief, anxiety, impending motherhood, and conflicted truce with the world results in a moving meditation on the nature, rapture, and perils of crying--from the history of tear-catching gadgets (including the woman who designed a gun that shoots tears) to the science behind animal tears (including moths who drink them) to the fraught role of white women's tears in racist violence.

Ocean Vuong's second collection of poetry looks inward, on the aftershocks of his mother's death, and the struggle - and rewards - of staying present in the world. Time Is a Mother moves outward and onward, in concert with the themes of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, as Vuong continues, through his work, his profound exploration of personal trauma, of what it means to be the product of an American war in America, and how to circle these fragmented tragedies to find not a restoration, but the epicenter of the break.

Ledger's pages hold the most important and masterly work yet by Jane Hirshfield, one of our most celebrated contemporary poets. From the already much-quoted opening lines of despair and defiance ("Let them not say: we did not see it. / We saw"), Hirshfield's poems inscribe a registry, both personal and communal, of our present-day predicaments. They call us to deepened dimensions of thought, feeling, and action. They summon our responsibility to sustain one another and the earth while pondering, acutely and tenderly, the crises of refugees, justice, and climate. They consider "the minimum mass for a whale, for a language, an ice cap," recognize the intimacies of connection, and meditate upon doubt and contentment, a library book with previously dog-eared corners, the hunger for surprise, and the debt we owe this world's continuing beauty. Hirshfield's signature alloy of fact and imagination, clarity and mystery, inquiry, observation, and embodied emotion has created a book of indispensable poems, tuned toward issues of consequence to all who share this world's current and future fate.

Rings on every finger. Hood and educated AF. You've met her. Wearing all her feelings and responding with a side-eye or a tongue-pop. You've seen her. At the grocery store. In restaurants. On the subway. At the bus stop. In a car you pulled up next to blaring whatever matches her mood. Hair in some natural or protective style for the Gods. Ebony Stewart. An around the way girl. One part human, all parts womxn. You know these poems because they be familiar. They be your grandmama, mama, auntie, and sis stories. Welcome to Home.Girl.Hood.

Gathering highlights from all of Sonia Sanchez’s poetry, this compilation is sure to inspire love and community engagement among her legions of fans. Beginning with her earliest work, including poems from her first volume, Homecoming (1969), through to 2019, the poet has collected her favorite work in all forms of verse, from Haiku to excerpts from book-length narratives. Her lifelong dedication to the causes of Black liberation, social equality, and women’s rights is evident throughout, as is her special attention to youth in poems addressed to children and young adults.