Poetry Audiobooks | Fiction & Literature

The perfect gift for Valentine's Day, to share with a loved one or cherish as a keepsake, fromNew YorkTimes bestselling poet and peacemaker Mattie J.T.Stepanek. Mattie J.T.Stepanek has won the hearts of millions with his inspiring poems.Now he's ready to spread a little love with Loving Through Heartsongs, a beautiful collection of poems written about innocence and trusting love from a child's perspective. Mattie's struggle with muscular dystrophy has never kept him from feeling deep love for his family, friends, country, and faith-heartfelt emotions that are reflected throughout this program.

Mattie J. T. Stepanek (Author), Mattie J. T. Stepanek (Narrator)

Audiobook

Annabel Lee

Annabel Lee is the last complete poem composed by Edgar Allan Poe. Like many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are jealous. He retains his love for her even after her death. There has been debate over who, if anyone, was the inspiration for "Annabel Lee." Though many women have been suggested, Poe's wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe is one of the more credible candidates. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe's death that same year.

Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Patrick Lawlor (Narrator)

Audiobook

Masque of the Red Death

The Masque of the Red Death, a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague known as the Red Death by hiding in his abbey. He, along with many other wealthy nobles, has a masquerade ball within seven rooms of his abbey, each decorated with a different color. In the midst of their revelry, a mysterious figure enters and makes his way through each of the rooms. When Prospero confronts this stranger, he falls dead. The story follows many traditions of Gothic fiction and is often analyzed as an allegory about the inevitability of death, though some critics advise against an allegorical reading. Many different interpretations have been presented, as well as attempts to identify the true nature of the disease of the "Red Death."

Edgar Allan Poe (Author), Patrick Lawlor (Narrator)

Audiobook

The History of English Poetry

Great poetry can indeed outlast stone and the glory of princes, and the English poetic tradition is perhaps the richest in the world. This audiobook tells the story of that tradition through its towering figures - Spenser and Shakespeare, Milton and Dryden, Wordsworth and Tennyson, Whitman, Dickinson and Eliot - and through scores of other poets. Clear and accessible, blending criticism with imagination and illustrated with scores of quotations, this new history will delight all who care about the past and the future of English poetry.

Peter Whitfield (Author), Derek Jacobi (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Great Poets

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), one of the most popular of poets, is celebrated in 2009. Works such as The Charge of the Light Brigade, Crossing the Bar and Tears, idle tears have made him an internationally famous figure, and the second most quoted writer of all time (after Shakespeare). Tennyson's poetic works encompass a great range of styles, settings and personae, and are known for their emotional resonance and powerful imagery. Naxos AudioBooks's popular 'The Great Poets' series marks the anniversary with a CD bringing together all the key works, read by veteran reader Michael Pennington.

Lord Alfred Tennyson (Author), Michael Pennington (Narrator)

Audiobook

Good Poems: Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor

Good Poems includes poems about lovers, children, failure, everyday life, death, and transcendence. It features the work of classic poets, such as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Robert Frost, as well as the work of contemporary greats such as Howard Nemerov, Charles Bukowski, Donald Hall, Billy Collins, Robert Bly, and Sharon Olds. The poems are read by Keillor and a number of the poets included in the collection. Some are wise, some are funny, some are soothing or heartwarming. All were chosen for their wit, frankness, passion, and, in Keillor's words, their “utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m.” ***Please Contact Member Services for Additional Documents***

Garrison Keillor, Various Artists (Author), Ensemble Cast, Garrison Keillor (Narrator)

Audiobook

3 Dozen Poems: From the Writer's Almanac

Full contents: Ge Mig En Dag (Scandinavian traditional) Abecedary (Thomas Disch) Old Mother Hubbard (traditional) Frankenstein (Edward Field) Names of Horses (Donald Hall) To One Who Asked Me Why I Love J.G. (Ephelia) What I Learned from My Mother (Julie Kasdorf) When Adam Was Created (anonymous) Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? (William Shakespeare) Casey Jones (anonymous) I Think to Live (Emily Dickinson) I Dwell in Possibility (Emily Dickinson) Fallacy of Experience (William Harmon) Crocodile (William Jay Smith) Spring (Mary Oliver) I Go Back to May, 1937 (Sharon Olds) Language of Crows (Louis Jenkins) Horse (May Swenson) I Am Cherry Alive (Delmore Schwartz) Easy (Roland Flint) Variations on the Word Love (Margaret Atwood) Mad Gardener’s Song (Lewis Carroll) Honey (Robert Morgan) A Blessing (James Wright) Vision (May Thielgaard Watts) The Simple Truth (Philip Levine) From the Garden (Anne Sexton) The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (Christopher Marlowe) Mehitabel and Her Kittens (Don Marquis) I Was Born about 10,000 Years Ago (anonymous) Aunt Sarah (Carl Dennis) What Work Is (Philip Levine) The Summer We Didn’t Die (William Stafford) Money (Dana Gioia) Squash (Susan Williams) From Out the Cave (Joyce Sutphen) Wild Geese (Mary Oliver) Closing Music—Slavonic Dance Opus 46 #4 in F Major (Dvorak) performed by Robert Fischer

Writer's Almanac (Author), Garrison Keillor, Various Artists (Narrator)

Audiobook

Things I Have to Tell You: Poems and Writing by Teenage Girls

Teenage girls have a lot to say, and poet Betsy Franco shares some of it in this unique work. In both poetry and prose, the young voices here share their thoughts on topics all teens are familiar with-from self-confidence to body image, from sexuality to loneliness, and everything in between. Fifteen-year-old Laura says, "My parents can't protect me/My friends can't protect me/My wonderful, loving, ignorant community can't protect me/So I protect them." And 16-year-old Mahogany wonders, "Why would anyone use words like/I hate and/I can't and/Goodbye."These and many other potent thoughts swirl throughout Things I Have to Tell You.

Betsy Franco (Author), Ali Ahn (Narrator)

Audiobook

77 Love Sonnets

“When I was 16, Helen Fleischman assigned me to memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnet No. 29, ‘When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state’ for English class, and fifty years later, that poem is still in my head. Algebra got washed away, and geometry and most of biology, but those lines about the redemptive power of love in the face of shame are still here behind my eyeballs, more permanent than my own teeth. The sonnet is a durable good. These 77 of mine include sonnets of praise, some erotic, some lamentations, some street sonnets and a 12-sonnet cycle of months. If anything here offends, I beg your pardon. I come in peace, I depart in gratitude.”—Garrison Keillor Features music by Rich Dworsky. Please note: Content contains adult themes.

Garrison Keillor (Author), Garrison Keillor (Narrator)

Audiobook

Alberto Caeiro X Alberto Guzik

A série de audiolivros Fernando Pessoa 4 X 4 registrou em áudio os poemas de Fernando Pessoa e seus três principais heterônimos com quatro atores diferentes. Para gravar os escritos de Alberto Caeiro, convidamos o ator Alberto Guzik, que fez as gravações em 2009. Depois das gravações feitas e revisadas, em junho de 2010, Guzik faleceu. Passaram-se cinco anos de amadurecimento desta obra. A voz de Guzik está suave no áudio, amalgamada à voz de Caeiro. Guzik conhecia como ninguém a obra de Fernando Pessoa. Trouxe para o estúdio várias edições de diferentes poemas, todas anotadas e, às vezes, corrigidas. Alberto Guzik (1944-2010) começou sua carreira de ator aos cinco anos de idade. Depois cursou a Escola de Arte Dramática (EAD) e passou a atuar como crítico de teatro. Trabalhou como professor de teatro na EAD, na ECA/USP e no Teatro Escola Macunaíma. Foi também escritor, dramaturgo e jornalista. Quando faleceu, em 2010, Guzik integrava a Companhia de Teatro Os Satyros, que tem sede na Praça Roosevelt, São Paulo.

Alberto Caeiro, Fernando Pessoa (Author), Alberto Guzik (Narrator)

Audiobook

Leaves of Grass

One of the great innovative figures in American letters, Walt Whitman created a daring new kind of poetry that became a major force in world literature. His poems have been woven into the very fabric of the American character and have continued to provide inspiration to people and poets for generations. Leaves of Grass is Whitman's masterpiece, written in a pure, uninhibited style and combining sensual and mystical sensibilities. Self-published in 1855, it was repeatedly expanded and revised by Whitman throughout the rest of his life. This recording follows the final edition which appeared in 1892, the year of Whitman's death. "The most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed."-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Whitman (Author), Robin Field (Narrator)

Audiobook

John Keats

One of the most distinctive periods in English poetry was the age of Romanticism, a movement which rebelled against the neoclassical forms and celebrated the imagination as a spiritual force. John Keats was a prominent shaper of this new movement, and as such, he was not without his critics. "I think I shall be among the English poets after my death," he soberly prophesied. Indeed, in 1821 Keats suffered an early tragic death from tuberculosis at the age of 25, but today is recognized as the archetypal Romantic genius who explored the limits of the imagination and celebrated the pleasures of the senses.Unlike Shelley, Keats was not a political poet; his prime passion was for art. His muse was the goddess of beauty and truth, and his worship of her found its finest expression in his immortal odes, which stand unique in literature, unexcelled in perfection.

John Keats (Author), Frederick Davidson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Poetry Audiobooks in Fiction & Literature