Showing titles in Themes & Styles

The witch: supernaturally powerful, inscrutably independent, and now - indestructible. These moving, relatable poems encourage resilience and embolden women to take control of their own stories. Enemies try to judge, oppress, and marginalize her, but the witch doesn't burn in this one.

Mahabharata and the Ramayana are literary classics, the longest epic poems in world literature, as significant as the Bible, the Qu'ran and the works of Shakespeare. Estimated to have been composed over a period of time around the 3rd and 4th centuries BC, they encompass some of the greatest stories ever told - tales of the deeds of god and men, and the eternal battle between good and evil. Included here are full-cast BBC Radio adaptations of both, directed by award-winning producer Claire Grove and with original music by acclaimed composer Niraj Chag.

Whilst the notion of the Mystic East and Oriental wisdom was greatly romanticised by the Victorians and others, the shadow of Colonialism has smudged the view. These great cultures are some of humanity’s earliest, their works, their art some of its most daring and most accomplished. In these 50 poems across 50 poets we hope, at least in part, to rebalance our view of this subject. We begin in the 6th century BC and travel with a poet’s words and eyes across India, China, Persia and many other places in between.

Part of the #TwentyIn2020 collection for Black British writing, In Her Voice is an anthology that celebrates five poetry collections. This includes Locating Strongwoman by Tolu Agbelusi, Where the Memory Was by Hibaq Osman, Jamakespeare by Brenda Garrick, The First Collection by Sarah Lipton-Sidibeh and On Reflection by Adjoa Wiredu.

Paradise Lost is a well-known part of the English literary canon. Told as an epic poem in blank verse, Paradise Lost is John Milton’s retelling of the biblical story of Satan’s fall from grace and the beginning of humanity. In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Satan has been banished to Hell and is working to organize the angels who fell with him and create his new kingdom. While a constant angelic war rages, Satan begins to wield his influence on the first humans created on Earth, and soon tempts them into defying God by using wit and logic to tempt Eve.

Despite Eliot's comparative youth at the time (he was in his early thirties) each poem brilliantly captures different aspects of the profound effect of the aging process on human aspiration.

Kae Tempest is one of the most exciting and innovative performers to have emerged in spoken-word poetry in many years; her dramatic poem "Brand New Ancients" won the prestigious Ted Hughes Prize for innovation in poetry. Tempest's wholly unique blend of street poetry, rap, and storytelling - combined with the spellbinding delivery of an open-air revivalist - has won her legions of followers all over the UK. Her remarkable stage presence is wholly audible in this poem, a spoken story written to be told with live music.

Spoon River Anthology is a collection of poems that describe life - and death - in a small town. Each poem is a monologue delivered by a resident of Spoon River, describing events in their lives, and the circumstances that led to their occasionally untimely end. Edgar Lee Masters wrote this theatrical masterpiece to highlight the typical small town. The fascinating characters and realistic imagery make it easy to see why this is an American classic.

A poetry collection about the beautiful and disorienting period of new motherhood, exploring an experience both otherworldly and very, very human.

Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up casual shifts in the fish processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records with infinite precision the nature of work on the production line: the noise, the weariness, the dreams stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he recalls Apollinaire.

From navigating the oft competing worlds of religion and desire, to balancing society’s expectations with the raw experience of being a woman in the world; from detailing the experiences of growing up as a first generation black British woman, to working through situations of dependence and abuse; from finding solace in the echoing caverns of depression and loss, to exploring the vulnerability and redemption in falling in love, each of the raw and immediate poems in Daley-Ward’s bone resonates to the core of what it means to be human.

When you’re struck with a difficult emotion, like loneliness, anxiety, or heartbreak, sometimes the best remedy isn’t a pill or herbal potion, but poetry.

All three volumes of Amanda Lovelace’s poetry in one audio collection - read by the author and guest contributors! Goodreads Choice Award-winning poet and USA Today best-selling author Amanda Lovelace’s 'women are some kind of magic' series is now available in one amazing audio collection! Includes: the princess saves herself in this one; the witch doesn't burn in this one; and the mermaid's voice returns in this one.

This collection of 36 short poems was published in 1907. The title is alleged to be an ironic pun referring cryptically to the sound of urine striking the sides of a chamber pot. However, the poems have no touch of vulgarity or bawdiness.

Consider this glowing debut from Paige Lewis a menagerie of near-extinction. Space Struck explores the wonders and cruelties occurring within the realms of nature, science, and religion, with the acuity of a sage, the deftness of a hunter, and a hilarious sensibility for the absurd. The universe is seen as an endless arrow “...and it asks only one question: How dare you?” The poems are physically and psychologically tied to the animal world.

In Customs, Solmaz Sharif examines what it means to exist in the nowhere of the arrivals terminal, a continual series of checkpoints, officers, searches, and questionings that become a relentless experience of America. With resignation and austerity, these poems trace a pointed indoctrination to the customs of the nation-state and the English language, and the realities they impose upon the imagination, the paces they put us through.

Debut full-length book of poetry from PEN Emerging Voices Fellow, this interdisciplinary, daring project combines poetry, art exhibition, & educational instillation, akin to Claudia Rankine's "Citizen," to manifest a future and a universe where Black, queer, nonbinary, feminine, and all marginalized people live in peace & joy.

Swimming Lessons explores the euphoric beginnings of young love, battling anxiety and depression in the face of fame, and the inevitable heartbreak that stems from passion. Relatable yet deeply intimate, provocative yet comforting, bite-sized yet profound, Lili's poems reflect her trademark honesty and unique perspective. Swimming Lessons reveals the depths of female experience, and is the work of a storyteller who is coming into her own.

mother is a work rooted in an intimate fracture: an Indigenous child is adopted out of her tribe and raised by a non-Indian family. As an adult finding her way back to her origins, our unnamed narrator begins to put the pieces of her birth family's history together through the stories told to her by her mother, father, sister, and brother, all of whom remained on the reservation where she was born. Through oral histories, family lore, and imagined pasts and futures, a collage of their community emerges, raising profound questions about adoption, inheritance, and Indigenous identity in America.

Kyle Tran Myhre’s Not a Lot of Reasons to Sing, But Enough is a sci-fi-flavored exploration of the role that art and artists play in resisting authoritarianism. Featuring new poems, theater elements, and Casper Pham‘s stunning visual art, the book follows two wandering poets as they make their way from village to village, across a prison colony moon full of exiled rebels, robots, and storytellers. Part post-apocalyptic road journal, part alternate universe ode to hip-hop, and part toolkit, it’s also a one-of-a-kind take on poetry, power, and possibility.