Poetry bestsellers

The Iliad

A New Translation by Caroline Alexander

By: Homer & Caroline Alexander
Narrated by: Dominic Keating
Length: 19 hours 46 minutes

With her virtuoso translation, classicist and bestselling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer’s timeless epic of the Trojan WarComposed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted ten-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion.... Read more

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

Poetry

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

“Kingsolver writes poetry that is both accessible and profound. This is the kind of collection you’ll loan out to a friend or relative and never get back. You should probably go ahead and buy two or three all at once! Read more

An American Sunrise

Poems

By: Joy Harjo
Narrated by: Joy Harjo
Length: 1 hour 40 minutes

A stunning new volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United States, informed by her tribal history and connection to the land.In the early 1800s, the Mvskoke people were forcibly removed from their original lands east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory, which is now part of Oklahoma. Two hundred years later, Joy Harjo... Read more

The Odyssey

Penguin Audio Classics

By: Homer
Narrated by: Ian McKellen
Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

The Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of every man's journey through life. In the myths and legends that are retold here, the energy and poetry of Homer's original is captured in a bold, contemporary idiom, giving us an edition of The Odyssey that is a joy to listen to, worth savoring treasuring for its sheer lyrical mastery. This... Read more

How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems

Seedbank

By: Mikeas Sánchez
Narrated by: Mikeas Sánchez, Wendy Call & Shook
Length: 3 hours 47 minutes

“Translated in English, Spanish, and Sanchez's native language Zoque, the poet creates a powerful, border-crossing work. She weaves tales from her childhood and experiences as an indigenous woman in our modern society into beautiful and striking poetry. An incredible listening experience! Read more

Leaves of Grass

1855 Edition

By: Walt Whitman
Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
Length: 4 hours 19 minutes

In 1855, Walt Whitman published, at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass, a visionary volume of twelve poems. Showing the influence of a uniquely American form of mysticism known as Transcendentalism, the writing is distinguished by an explosively innovative free-verse style and previously unmentionable subject matter. Exalting... Read more

Nikki Giovanni: Love Poems & A Good Cry

What We Learn From Tears and Laughter

By: Nikki Giovanni
Narrated by: Nikki Giovanni
Length: 2 hours 42 minutes

Hear Nikki Giovanni read two extraordinary collections of her own work! A singular listening experience! The poetry of Nikki Giovanni has spurred movements, turned hearts and informed generations. She’s been hailed as a firebrand, a radical, a healer, and a sage; a wise and courageous voice who has touched our national consciousness.Love Poems:... Read more

Couplets

A Love Story

By: Maggie Millner
Narrated by: Maggie Millner
Length: 1 hour 29 minutes

“A beautiful story of self-discovery and new love, told in rhyme. Maggie Millner performs this short audiobook with a spare, confessional, and self-questioning style that gives shape to the transformation of her self-identity. Read more

At Blackwater Pond

Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Mary Oliver
Length: 1 hour

Mary Oliver has published twenty-one volumes of poetry and six books of prose in the span of five decades, but she rarely performs her poetry in live readings. With At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver gives her audience what they've longed to hear: the poet's voice reading her own work. In this audio, she has recorded forty of her favorite poems,... Read more

Earth Keeper

Reflections on the American Land

By: N. Scott Momaday
Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday
Length: 51 minutes

""Dazzling. . . . In glittering prose, Momaday recalls stories passed down through generations, illuminating the earth as a sacrosanct place of wonder and abundance. At once a celebration and a warning, Earth Keeper is an impassioned defense of all that our endangered planet stands to lose."" — EsquireA magnificent testament to the earth, from... Read more

Zilot & Other Important Rhymes

By: Bob Odenkirk
Narrated by: Bob Odenkirk, Emo Philips, Ron Funches, Samuel Robert Epstein & Maria Bamford
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Emmy Award-winning and New York Times bestselling writer, comedian, and actor Bob Odenkirk and his daughter, illustrator Erin Odenkirk, present poetic nonsense for all ages perfect for fans of Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky!

Bob Odenkirk began writing these poems with his children when they were little, compiling the poetry into a homemade... Read more

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

By: Franny Choi
Narrated by: Franny Choi
Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

From acclaimed poet Franny Choi comes a poetry collection for the ends of worlds—past, present, and future. Choi’s third book features poems about historical and impending apocalypses, alongside musings on our responsibilities to each other and visions for our collective survival.Many have called our time dystopian. But The World Keeps Ending,... Read more

The Moon That Turns You Back

Poems

By: Hala Alyan
Narrated by: Hala Alyan
Length: 1 hour 37 minutes

From the author of The Arsonists’ City and The Twenty-Ninth Year, a new collection of poetry that traces the fragmentation of memory, archive, and family–past, present, future–in the face of displacement and war. A diaspora of memories runs through this poetry collection—a multiplicity of voices, bodies, and houses hold archival material for one... Read more

Many Miles

Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Mary Oliver
Length: 41 minutes

Following the success of At Blackwater Pond, this second audio reccording from bestselling poet Mary Oliver contains a selection of thirty-seven previously published poems and four new, read by the poet in her steady, magnetic voice. Oliver recites from the full range of her poetry—from her classic nature writing to her verses for her... Read more

Autobiography of Red

Vintage Contemporaries

By: Anne Carson
Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
Length: 3 hours 55 minutes

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional recreation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile,... Read more

The Conference of the Birds

By: Attar
Narrated by: Fajer Al-Kaisi
Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

"These lofty words are an antidote/ for anyone sickened by extremism's poison."

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... Read more

Paradise Lost

By: John Milton
Narrated by: Thomas A. Copeland
Length: 10 hours 54 minutes

Paradise Lost is an epic poem written by the Puritan English poet John Milton between 1658 and 1663, and published in 1667. This is a period of English history which encompasses the end of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth and the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Perhaps reflecting some of his country's turmoil during Milton's life, Paradise... Read more

Metamorphoses

Penguin Classics

By: Ovid
Narrated by: Martin Jarvis, John Sackville, Maya Saroya & David Raeburn
Length: 18 hours 25 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by award-winning voice actor Martin Jarvis OBE, as well as John Sackville, Maya Saroya and the translator of this edition, David Raeburn. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Denis Feeney.

Ovid's sensuous and witty poetry brings together a dazzling array of... Read more

Slug

The Sunday Times Bestseller

By: Hollie McNish
Narrated by: Gemma Cairney & Hollie McNish
Length: 9 hours 46 minutes

Listen to the audiobook for an exclusive interview with Hollie and her good friend, radio presenter Gemma Cairney
Hollie has also included a special poetry reading in memory of her grandmother, and an exclusive preview of poems from her next book

'One of the best poets we have' MATT HAIG

'She writes with honesty, conviction, humour and love' KAE... Read more

Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems

By: Dionne Brand
Narrated by: Dionne Brand & Christina Sharpe
Length: 13 hours 9 minutes

An immense achievement, comprising a decades-long career—new and collected poetry from one of Canada’s most honoured and significant poets.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, Winner
Toronto Book Award, Shortlist

Spanning almost four decades, Dionne Brand’s poetry has given rise to whole new grammars and vocabularies. With a profound alertness... Read more

The Iliad

Penguin Classics

By: Homer
Narrated by: Steve John Shepherd
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Steve John Shepherd, whose theatre credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, The Good Canary directed by John Malkovich, Bomber's Moon and Piaf. His TV and film credits range from the iconic This Life to Silent Witness and Eastenders. This definitive recording includes an... Read more

As the Sky Begins to Change

By: Kim Stafford
Narrated by: Kim Stafford
Length: 2 hours 35 minutes

In his third poetry collection from Red Hen Press, Kim Stafford gathers poems that sing with empathy, humor, witness, and story. Poems in this book have been set to music, quoted in the New York Times, posted online in the Academy of American Poets poem-a-day series, gathered in a chapbook sold to benefit Ukrainian refugees, posted online in... Read more

Andy Biersack Presents the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

By: Edgar Allan Poe
Narrated by: Andy Biersack
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

Legendary Black Veil Brides' founder and frontman Andy Biersack curated his favorite Edgar Allan Poe tales, presented here in their original language with supplemental materials. Dive back into classics like The Tell-Tale Heart, The Raven, The Oval Portrait, and The Mask of the Red Death with accompanying original artwork and a foreword from... Read more

Water, Water

Poems

By: Billy Collins
Length: TBA

From the former United States Poet Laureate and New York Times bestselling author of Aimless Love, a wondrous new collection of poems focused on the joy and mystery of daily life.

"A poet of plentitude, irony, and Augustan grace."—The New Yorker

"Collins remains the most companionable of poetic companions."—The New York Times

In these sixty new... Read more

The Popol Vuh

Seedbank

By: Michael Bazzett
Narrated by: Michael Bazzett
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST POETRY BOOK OF 2018
A WORLD LITERATURE TODAY NOTABLE TRANSLATIONIn the beginning, the world is spoken into existence with one word: “Earth.” There are no inhabitants, and no sun—only the broad sky, silent sea, and sovereign Framer and Shaper. Then come the twin heroes Hunahpu and Xbalanque. Wielding blowguns, they begin a... Read more

The Hill We Climb

An Inaugural Poem for the Country

By: Amanda Gorman
Narrated by: Amanda Gorman & Oprah Winfrey
Length: 9 minutes

Amanda Gorman’s powerful and historic poem “The Hill We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration

“Stunning.” —CNN 
“Dynamic.” —NPR
“Deeply rousing and uplifting.” —Vogue


On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th... Read more

Tao Te Ching

A New English Version

By: Stephen Mitchell & Lao Tzu
Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
Length: 1 hour 40 minutes

In 81 brief chapters, Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao—the basic principle of the universe. Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been... Read more

Beowulf: A New Translation

By: Maria Dahvana Headley
Narrated by: JD Jackson & Maria Dahvana Headley
Length: 4 hours 8 minutes

“Bro! This is not your English teacher's Beowulf. Maria Dahvana Headley's "radical new translation" takes the familiar story of man versus monster and turns it into something both completely new and also as timeless as the original. What happens when Beowulf is less hero and more party boy? Or when Grendel's mother isn't a monster but just a... Read more

Aster of Ceremonies

Poems

Multiverse

By: JJJJJerome Ellis
Narrated by: JJJJJerome Ellis
Length: 6 hours 18 minutes

A polyphonic new entry in Multiverse—a literary series written and curated by the neurodivergent—JJJJJerome Ellis’s Aster of Ceremonies beautifully extends the vision of his debut book and album, The Clearing, a “lyrical celebration of and inquiry into the intersections of blackness, music, and disabled speech” (Claudia Rankine).Aster of... Read more

Life on Mars

Poems

By: Tracy K. Smith
Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
Length: 1 hour 22 minutes

In these brilliant new poems, Tracy K. Smith envisions a sci-fi future sucked clean of any real dangers, contemplates the dark matter that keeps people both close and distant, and revisits the kitschy concepts like "love" and "illness" now relegated to the Museum of Obsolescence. These poems reveal the realities of life lived here, on the... Read more

Call Us What We Carry

Poems

By: Amanda Gorman
Narrated by: Amanda Gorman
Length: 3 hours 31 minutes

The instant #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller


The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman

Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet... Read more

The Hurting Kind

By: Ada Limón
Narrated by: Ada Limón
Length: 1 hour 41 minutes

An astonishing collection about interconnectedness—between the human and nonhuman, ancestors and ourselves—from National Book Critics Circle Award winner, National Book Award finalist and U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón.“I have always been too sensitive, a weeper / from a long line of weepers,” writes Limón. “I am the hurting kind.” What does it... Read more

The Carrying

Poems

By: Ada Limón
Narrated by: Ada Limón
Length: 1 hour 39 minutes

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDFINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARDFrom U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón comes The Carrying—her most powerful collection yet.
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A... Read more

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound

Poems

By: torrin a. greathouse
Narrated by: torrin a. greathouse
Length: 1 hour 31 minutes

A Minnesota Book Award Finalist in PoetryA CLMP Firecracker Award Finalist in PoetryA Bustle Best Book of 2020A Refinery29 Best New Book of Fall 2020“Some girls are not made,” torrin a. greathouse writes, “but spring from the dirt.” Guided by a devastatingly precise hand, Wound from the Mouth of a Wound—selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as the... Read more

The Tradition

By: Jericho Brown
Narrated by: Jericho Brown
Length: 1 hour 3 minutes

Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Finalist for the 2019 National Book Award

Jericho Brown's daring book The Tradition details the normalization of evil and its history at the intersection of the past and the personal. Brown's poetic concerns are both broad and intimate, and at their very core a distillation of the incredibly human:... Read more

The Unfolding

An Invitation to Come Home to Yourself

By: Arielle Estoria
Narrated by: Arielle Estoria
Length: 3 hours 55 minutes

Arielle Estoria is known for her moving and empowering words that encourage women and all people to be confident in who they are, compassionate about where they’ve been, and loving about who they are becoming. In this stunning collection of essays, poems, and meditations, Estoria tenderly reveals the places in her life where she has been broken... Read more

Dream Drawings

Configurations of a Timeless Kind

By: N. Scott Momaday
Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday
Length: 2 hours

“Momaday must be ranked among the greatest of our contemporary writers.”—American ScholarFrom Pulitzer Prize winner and revered literary master N. Scott Momaday, a beautiful and enchanting new poetry collection, at once a celebration of language, imagination, and the human spirit.“Language and the imagination work hand in hand, and together they... Read more

Collected Poems 1947-1997

By: Allen Ginsberg
Narrated by: Greg D. Barnett
Length: 28 hours 11 minutes

"Taken all together, Ginsberg's poems are X-rays of a considerable part of American society during the last four decades." —the New Yorker

This magnificent volume gathers the published verse of Allen Ginsberg in its entirety, a half-century of brilliant work from one of America's greatest poets.

A chief figure among the Beats, Ginsberg changed... Read more

Time Is a Mother

By: Ocean Vuong
Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

“I was stunned by Vuong’s gorgeous prose and raw revelations. Time is a Mother was an intense experience. The audiobook is less that two hours, but I have spent days thinking about Vuong’s words. I highly recommend this incredible poetry collection. Read more

A Fortune For Your Disaster

Poems

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 1 hour 36 minutes

“Pain. Peace. Power. A startlingly cohesive deep dive into grief and heartbreak and possibility that will sit with you through the hardest days and act at once as a mirror and window. This is one to sit with again and again, and revel in its interconnectedness. Beautifully narrated by the author. Read more

I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times

Poems

By: Taylor Byas
Narrated by: Taylor Byas
Length: 1 hour 51 minutes

“Ease on down the road with this stellar poetry collection that takes you on a journey full of love and a search for a greater truth as it relates to the speaker’s identity and womanhood. Chicago’s south side is well represented as a home that will always welcome you with open arms no matter how far or how lost you may be. Read more

Some Things I Still Can't Tell You

Poems

By: Misha Collins
Narrated by: Misha Collins
Length: 57 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!  From Misha Collins, actor, longtime poet, and activist, whose massive online following calls itself his “Army For Good," comes his debut poetry collection, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You. Trademark wit and subtle vulnerability converge in each poem; this book is both a celebration of and aspiration for a life well... Read more

Black Oak

Odes Celebrating Powerful Black Men

By: Harold Green III
Narrated by: Harold Green III
Length: 1 hour 20 minutes

As he did for Black women in Black Roses, Harold Green III, poet and founder of the music collective Flowers for the Living, now honors the Black men he most admires—groundbreakers including Tyler Perry, Barry Jenkins, Billy Porter, Chance the Rapper, LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, and John Legend—and celebrates their achievements which are... Read more

And Yet

Poems

By: Kate Baer
Narrated by: Kate Baer
Length: 54 minutes

The second full length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman.Kate Baer shot into the literary stratosphere with the publication of her debut poetry collection, What Kind of Woman, which became an instant #1 New York Times bestseller.Kate’s second full-length book of traditional poetry, And Yet,... Read more

Hell, I Love Everybody: The Essential James Tate

Poems

Ecco Essentials

By: James Tate
Narrated by: James Tate & Michael Earl Craig
Length: 2 hours 1 minute

An essential collection of James Tate’s extraordinary poems that will captivate today’s readers, with a foreword by Terrance HayesCelebrating James Tate’s work as it transcends convention, time, and everything that tells us, “No, you can’t do that,” Hell, I Love Everybody gives us the poet at his best, his most intimate, hopeful, inventive, and... Read more

Homie

Poems

By: Danez Smith
Narrated by: Danez Smith
Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

“In their third collection, Danez Smith shakes to life the parts of people that have gone to sleep waiting for this time in the world to be over. Those emotions that raise up too much anger or grief — all of them are alive again and seen and spoken for with utmost care and a tremendously welcome sense of humor. Pick this book up and carry it with... Read more

Dearly

New Poems

By: Margaret Atwood
Narrated by: Margaret Atwood
Length: 1 hour 46 minutes

A new book of poetry from internationally acclaimed, award-winning and bestselling author Margaret AtwoodIn Dearly, Margaret Atwood’s first collection of poetry in over a decade, Atwood addresses themes such as love, loss, the passage of time, the nature of nature and - zombies. Her new poetry is introspective and personal in tone, but... Read more

Sing a Black Girl's Song

The Unpublished Work of Ntozake Shange

By: Ntozake Shange
Narrated by: Alfre Woodard, D. Woods, Regina Taylor, Lynn Whitfield, Okwui Okpokwasili, Ifa Bayeza, Imani Perry, Robin Miles, Tarana Burke & Savannah Shange
Length: 9 hours 8 minutes

The Millions “Most Anticipated” Books of 2023

Never-before-seen unpublished works by award-winning American literary icon Ntozake Shange, featuring essays, plays, and poems from the archives of the seminal Black feminist writer who stands alongside giants like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker, curated by National Book Award winner Imani Perry with... Read more

I Talk Like a River

By: Jordan Scott
Narrated by: Jordan Scott
Length: 18 minutes

When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he'd like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Through this powerful and uplifting story, poet Jordan Scott uses his own experiences to reveal what it’s like to be a child who feels lost, lonely, or unable to fit in.... Read more

Besaydoo

Poems

Jake Adam York Prize

By: Yalie Saweda Kamara
Narrated by: Yalie Saweda Kamara
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

Selected by Amaud Jamaul Johnson for the 2023 Jake Adam York Prize, Yalie Saweda Kamara’s Besaydoo is an elegantly wrought love song to home—as place, as people, as body, and as language.A griot is a historian, a living repository of communal legacies with “a story pulsing in every blood cell.” In Besaydoo, Kamara serves as griot for the... Read more