Poetry audiobooks

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 »

Nikki Giovanni: Love Poems & A Good Cry

By: Nikki Giovanni
Narrated by: Nikki Giovanni
Length: 2 hours 42 minutes
Abridged: No

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 spoken out on the sensitive issues, including race and gender, that touch our national consciousness.

Love Poems: Nikki reads a stunning collection of...

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 »

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,...

Goldenrod

By: Maggie Smith
Narrated by: Maggie Smith
Length: 1 hours 5 minutes
Abridged: No

“To read Maggie Smith is to embrace the achingly precious beauty of the present moment.” —Time

From the award-winning poet and bestselling author of Keep Moving and Good Bones, a stunning poetry collection that celebrates the beauty and messiness of life.

With her breakout bestseller Keep Moving, Maggie Smith captured the nation with her... Read more »

Tao Te Ching

By: Lao Tzu
Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
Length: 1 hours 40 minutes
Abridged: No

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...

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass

By: Lana Del Rey
Narrated by: Lana Del Rey
Length: 38 minutes
Abridged: No

The New York Times bestselling debut book of poetry from Lana Del Rey, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.

“Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each... Read more »

Black Girl, Call Home

By: Jasmine Mans
Narrated by: Jasmine Mans
Length: 1 hours 50 minutes
Abridged: No

A Most Anticipated Book of 2021 by Oprah Magazine • Vulture • Essence • Elle • Cosmopolitan • Real Simple • Refinery 29 • She Reads • The Everygirl • Career Contessa

“You are carrying in your hands a Black woman’s heart.”—Jericho Brown, author of Pulitzer Prize winner The Tradition

“[Mans’] lucid and lyrical lines are as undeniable as those of a... Read more »

Homie

By: Danez Smith
Narrated by: Danez Smith
Length: 1 hours 32 minutes
Abridged: No

Danez Smith is our president

Homie is Danez Smith's magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship. Rooted in the loss of one of Smith's close friends, this book comes out of the search for joy and intimacy within a nation where both can seem scarce and getting scarcer. In poems of rare power and generosity, Smith acknowledges that in... Read more »

At Blackwater Pond

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Mary Oliver
Length: 1 hours
Abridged: No

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 »

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...

The Iliad

By: Homer & Caroline Alexander
Narrated by: Dominic Keating
Length: 19 hours 46 minutes
Abridged: No

With her virtuoso translation, classicist and bestselling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer’s timeless epic of the Trojan War

Composed 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....

Beowulf

By: Stephen Mitchell
Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
Length: 4 hours 8 minutes
Abridged: No

Stephen Mitchell's marvelously clear and vivid rendering recreates the robust masculine music of the original. It both hews closely to the Old English and captures its wild energy and vitality, not just as a deep "work of literature" but also as a rousing entertainment that can still stir our feelings and rivet our attention today, after more... Read more »

The Iliad

By: Homer
Narrated by: Dan Stevens
Length: 13 hours 59 minutes
Abridged: No

Since it was first published more than forty years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. This definitive translation of Homer's epic is timeless in its authority and always fresh in its vivid rendering...

Dear Girl

By: Aija Mayrock
Narrated by: Aija Mayrock
Length: 44 minutes
Abridged: No

From a poet and celebrated spoken-word performer comes a debut poetry collection that takes readers on an empowering, lyrical journey exploring truth, silence, wounds, healing, and the resilience we all share.
Dear Girl is a journey from girlhood to womanhood through poetry
It is the search for truth in silence
The freeing of the tongue
It is deep... Read more »

A Fortune For Your Disaster

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 1 hours 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 »

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 »

Make Me Rain

By: Nikki Giovanni
Narrated by: Nikki Giovanni
Length: 1 hours 40 minutes
Abridged: No

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 poetry has dazzled and inspired readers. As sharp and outspoken as ever, she returns with this profound...

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes
Abridged: No

In this intimate collection, the beloved author of The Poisonwood Bible and more than a dozen other New York Times bestsellers, winner or finalist for the Pulitzer and countless other prizes, now trains her eye on the everyday and the metaphysical in poems that are smartly crafted, emotionally rich, and luminous. 

In her second poetry collection,...

Space Struck

By: Paige Lewis
Narrated by: Xe Sands
Length: 50 minutes
Abridged: No

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...

Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times

By: Taisia Kitaiskaia
Narrated by: Zura Johnson
Length: 1 hours 51 minutes
Abridged: No

Baba Yaga offers more off-kilter remedies for the modern dilemmas of an unstable age using her uncanny style, poetic simplicity, and surprising candor.
In this follow-up to Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles, award-winning writer Taisia Kitaiskaia once again embodies the legendary witch of Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga, to... Read more »

We Want Our Bodies Back

By: jessica Care moore
Narrated by: jessica Care moore
Length: 2 hours 1 minutes
Abridged: No

A dazzling full-length collection of verse from one of the leading poets of our time.

Over the past two decades, jessica Care moore has become a cultural force as a poet, performer, publisher, activist, and critic. Reflecting her transcendent electric voice, this searing poetry collection is filled with moving, original stanzas that speak to both...

Milk and Honey

By: Rupi Kaur
Narrated by: Rupi Kaur
Length: 1 hours 6 minutes
Abridged: No

Now on audio! Rupi Kaur reads milk and honey, her New York Times bestselling collection of poetry and prose about survival, the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity.

The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. milk and honey... Read more »

If They Come for Us

By: Fatimah Asghar
Narrated by: Fatimah Asghar
Length: 1 hours 22 minutes
Abridged: No

“A debut poetry collection showcasing both a fierce and tender new voice.”—Booklist
“Elegant and playful . . . The poet invents new forms and updates classic ones.”—Elle
“[Fatimah] Asghar interrogates divisions along lines of nationality, age, and gender, illuminating the forces by which identity is fixed or flexible.”—The New Yorker

NAMED ONE OF... Read more »