Other books that might interest you

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  The Onward Song - Poems

  K. J. Paradis

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  The Onward Song is poet K.J. Paradis's stunning debut collection—six dozen exquisitely crafted poems that are at once classical and wonderfully contemporary, poems made remarkable by their effortless musicality and unexpected metaphors. Paradis crafts verse that celebrates old boots, sharp pencils, first kisses, freckled constellations, the complex pleasures of a daughter's dance recital, and much more. A lawyer, entrepreneur, jazz musician, and a devoted student of the classics, Paradis's work also limns the lives and passions of luminaries like Einstein and van Gogh, Gertude Stein and Frank Lloyd Wright, Edward Hopper and Dave Brubeck. Often brief yet always deeply evocative, these are poems that are tender and mysterious, laced with curiosity and feeling, and they can also be a bit irreverent. A major new talent emerges in these pages, and The Onward Song is a collection of gems that often delight, sometimes surprise, and always amaze, poems as expansive as they are precise and delicate.

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  The Brightening Air

  Conor McPherson

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  'You'll remember how much of living is really just forgetting.'
  The family home is more than a building. It's a destination of pilgrimage, an inherited investment, a repository of memory or magic. But, for brother and sister Stephen and Billie, home is all they've got. Mucking along in their decaying farmhouse, they're doing just fine.
  That is, until the arrival of an ex-clergyman uncle with an unscrupulous plan, a sister-in-law seeking a miracle, and a prodigal brother hell-bent on trouble…
  An entrancing tale of fate, family and unseen forces in 1980s Ireland, Conor McPherson's play The Brightening Air was the winner of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. It was first performed at The Old Vic, London, in 2025, directed by the playwright.

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  Kalevala: the Epic Poem of...

  Elias Lönnrot

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  This is the epic of Finland. It is the combined folk tales of the Finnish nation starting with the birth of the world from the egg of a seabird and continuing to the birth of the Kaleva District, the lands of Finland. (Summary by Squid B. Varilekova)

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  A Rare Recording of William...

  William Morris Meredith Jr.

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  William Morris Meredith Jr. (January 9, 1919 - May 30, 2007), born in New York City, was an American poet and educator. He was Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1978 to 1980, and the recipient of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In the following recordings Mederdith reads his poems "The Wreck of the Thresher," "Parents From The Cheer," "The Illiterate," and "Crossing Over."

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  Top 10 Poets – Born in London...

  Christina Rossetti, Charlotte...

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  The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives.  Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives. 
  But finding a starting point can be overwhelming, even off-putting, so in this series we offer up our Top 10 classic poets, who brim with talent and verse, on a range of subjects and themes that we can all enjoy. 
  The great city of London is perhaps unrivalled in its scale and effect on humankind down the centuries.  Its sprawl and its teeming throngs have shaped the world and even how we live today.  Within these 10 Women poets, who called this gloried city home, came poems that sought to define and explain just why that is.

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  The Visionary

  Emily Brontë

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  LibriVox volunteers bring you 18 recordings of "The Visionary" by Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë). This was the weekly poem for January 1, 2012. 
   
  The first 12 lines originally appeared in one of a large group of Gondal poems, the word coming from the name of a fictitious island kingdom in a fantasy created by Emily and her sister Anne. When Emily finally consented to have some of her poems published in 1846, along with those of sisters Charlotte and Anne, she selected parts of the Gondal poems and removed all reference to the fantasy land. However, this poem first appeared in a new, expanded edition of the sisters' poetry (in 1850, after both Emily and Anne had died) and was apparently derived as follows: 
   
  "The Visionary (October 9, 1845)This poem is part of the same Gondal poem from which Emily carved "The Prisoner. A Fragment." Charlotte Brontë took lines 1-12 of Emily's original poem, "Julian M. and A.G Rochelle," and added 8 lines of her own. Thus, the positive ending in which the watcher has a spiritual experience is Charlotte's and the watcher may be seen as Emily rather than a Gondal character. In Charlotte's version, it is hard to explain the guiding light in the window of stanze 2."(Source) 
   
  This account is fully supported by other sources. So the poem, as it was published in 1850, is a combination of work by Emily and Charlotte. Charlotte is accused by critics of using a heavy hand in editing some of Emily's formerly unpublished poems for the 1850 volume. (Introduction by Leonard Wilson)

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