Poetry audiobooks

Now We Are Six

By: A. A. Milne

Narrated by: Joel Froomkin

Length: 1 hour

Abridged: No

This second collection of poems from A. A. Milne includes works such as Furry Bear, Sneezles, and Buttercup Days as well as an appearance by the beloved children's character Winnie-the-Pooh. With gentle humor and whimsical lines, Now We Are Six is perfect for anyone—whether you're six or sixty-six. Read more

The Totally Not Boring Book of Feelings

By: Jolie Taylor & Brandon Dorman

Narrated by: Jolie Taylor

Length: 50 minutes

Abridged: No

40 fun poems that explore big feelings and emotions. This whimsical journey through verse and illustrations can help children recognize and understand their big emotions. From the imaginative minds of Brandon Dorman, renowned illustrator of Goosebumps, Land of Stories, and Fablehaven, and Booktok creator Jolie Taylor comes a whimsical... Read more

The Odyssey

By: Homer

Narrated by: Ian McKellen

Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

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

Beowulf: A New Translation

By: Maria Dahvana Headley

Narrated by: JD Jackson & Maria Dahvana Headley

Length: 4 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

"Narrator JD Jackson addresses his listener as "bro" in this decidedly contemporary retelling of the classic saga...His brilliant performance captures all the artistry, wit, and immediacy of this fresh translation, and breathes new life into what for most has been a literary fossil." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner

A new,... Read more

Paradise Lost

By: John Milton

Narrated by: Adrian Schiller

Length: 12 hours 39 minutes

Abridged: No

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Adrian Schiller.

In Paradise Lost Milton produced poem of epic scale, conjuring up a vast, awe-inspiring cosmos and ranging across huge tracts of space and time. And yet, in putting a charismatic Satan and naked Adam and Eve at the centre of this story, he also created an intensely... Read more

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

By: Franny Choi

Narrated by: Franny Choi

Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

Abridged: No

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 Aeneid

By: Vergil

Narrated by: Susanna Braund

Length: 10 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

A powerful and poignant translation of Vergil’s epic poem, newly equipped with introduction and notes
"Ruden set the bar for Aeneid translations in 2008, and has raised it now with this revision. I am confident it will be a long time before a translator exceeds the standard that she has set."—A.M. Juster, Athenaeum Review
This is a substantial... Read more

The Poems of T.S. Eliot Read by Jeremy Irons

By: T. S. Eliot

Narrated by: Jeremy Irons

Length: 3 hours 40 minutes

Abridged: No

Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons's perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock', through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of... Read more

Sing a Black Girl's Song

By: Ntozake Shange

Narrated by: Alfre Woodard, D. Woods, Regina Taylor, Lynn Wh...

Length: 9 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

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

Eat the World

By: Marina Diamandis

Narrated by: Marina Diamandis

Length: 49 minutes

Abridged: No

“Like her music, Marina's written work is laced with brilliant and bold wordplay throughout.” —Cosmopolitan

For the first time, platinum-certified singer-songwriter Marina shares her singular observations of the human heart through poetry; this collection is essential

Marina’s talent for powerful, evocative song lyrics finds a new outlet in her... Read more

Blues in Stereo

By: Langston Hughes

Narrated by: Danez Smith

Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Publishers Weekly’s Top Ten Fall 2024 Poetry Books

From Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, a stunning collection of early works written from 1921-1927 and curated by award winning poet and National Book Award finalist, Danez Smith. Before Langston Hughes and his literary prowess became synonymous with American poetry, he was a... Read more

The Canterbury Tales

By: Geoffrey Chaucer

Narrated by: Martin Jarvis & a full cast

Length: 20 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

At the Tabard Inn, thirty travelers of widely varying classes and occupations are gathering to make the annual pilgrimage to Becket’s shrine at Canterbury. It is agreed that each traveler will tell four tales to help pass the time and that the host of the inn will judge the tales and reward the best storyteller with a free supper upon their... Read more

Deep Wheel Orcadia

By: Harry Josephine Giles

Narrated by: Harry Josephine Giles

Length: 4 hours 38 minutes

Abridged: No

Please note, this audio edition alternates between sections written and performed in the Orkney dialect, and their English translations.

Astrid is returning home from art school on Mars, looking for inspiration. Darling is fleeing a life that never fit, searching for somewhere to hide. They meet on Deep Wheel Orcadia, a distant space station... Read more

Helen of Troy, 1993

By: Maria Zoccola

Narrated by: Maria Zoccola

Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

Abridged: No

*Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by Debutiful*

“By turns hilarious and provocative, it’s an affecting character study and modern mythic retelling.” —Publishers Weekly, Books That Should Be on Your Radar in 2025

Part myth retelling, part character study, this sharp, visceral debut poetry collection reimagines Helen of Troy from Homer’s... Read more

Time Is a Mother

By: Ocean Vuong

Narrated by: Ocean Vuong

Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

Abridged: No

"Take your time with these poems, and return to them often.” —The Washington Post

The New York Times-bestselling collection of poems from the award-winning writer Ocean Vuong

How else do we return to ourselves but to fold
The page so it points to the good part
 
In this deeply intimate second poetry collection, Ocean Vuong searches for life among... Read more

How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems

By: Mikeas Sánchez

Narrated by: Mikeas Sánchez, Wendy Call & Shook

Length: 3 hours 47 minutes

Abridged: No

The latest in the Seedbank series, the debut in English of a groundbreaking Indigenous poet of the Americas.In a fiercely personal yet authoritative voice, prolific contemporary poet Mikeas Sánchez explores the worldview of the Zoque people of southern Mexico. Her paced, steely lyrics fuse cosmology, lineage, feminism, and environmental activism... Read more

A Fortune For Your Disaster

By: Hanif Abdurraqib

Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib

Length: 1 hour 36 minutes

Abridged: No

In his much-anticipated follow-up to The Crown Ain't Worth Much, poet, essayist, biographer, and music critic Hanif Abdurraqib has written a book of poems about how one rebuilds oneself after a heartbreak, the kind that renders them a different version of themselves than the one they knew. It's a book about a mother's death, and admitting that... Read more

The Hurting Kind

By: Ada Limón

Narrated by: Ada Limón

Length: 1 hour 41 minutes

Abridged: No

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

Make Me Rain

By: Nikki Giovanni

Narrated by: Nikki Giovanni

Length: 2 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

An extraordinary listening experience! Hear Nikki Giovanni read from her newest collection of poems!One of America’s most celebrated poets challenges us with this powerful and deeply personal collection of verse that speaks to the injustices of society while illuminating the depths of her own heart.For more than fifty years, Nikki Giovanni’s... Read more

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

By: Barbara Kingsolver

Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver

Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

Abridged: No

""A gorgeous collection. . . . These poems unplug from TV and social media and the outrage of the moment and turn our attention to the immediate and the everlasting, human intimacy and the power and mystery of nature."" —Tampa Bay TimesIn this intimate collection, Barbara Kingsolver, beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and the Pulitzer... Read more

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

By: Ross Gay

Narrated by: Ross Gay

Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner, 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award, poetry category
Winner, 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize
Finalist, 2015 National Book Award, poetry category
Finalist, 2015 NAACP Image Awards, poetry category

Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away—loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it—that... Read more

The Death of Sitting Bear

By: N. Scott Momaday

Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday

Length: 2 hours 28 minutes

Abridged: No

Pulitzer Prize winner and celebrated American master N. Scott Momaday returns with a radiant collection of more than 200 new and selected poems rooted in Native American tradition. 

“The poems in this book reflect my deep respect for and appreciation of words. . . . I believe that poetry is the highest form of verbal expression. Although I have... Read more

Small Cures

By: Della Hicks-Wilson

Narrated by: Della Hicks-Wilson

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

From the British viral poet Della Hicks-Wilson comes an empowering and lyrical collection of short, interconnected poems about the heart, letting go, and a healing love, that readers can carry and quote for a lifetime.
Small Cures is at once a compelling reminder to anyone struggling with heartbreak, mental health, or trauma, that they are not... Read more

The Hill We Climb

By: Amanda Gorman

Narrated by: Amanda Gorman & Oprah Winfrey

Length: 9 minutes

Abridged: No

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