National Poetry Month

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

The Essential Edgar Allan Poe

With a biography by Roy McMillan

The Essential

By: Edgar Allan Poe
Narrated by: Kerry Shale
Length: 7 hours 29 minutes

Released to coincide with the two-hundredth anniversary of the author’s birth in January 1809, this selection of well-loved chilling tales from the master of the supernatural is a perfect Christmas gift. The short stories include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Masque of the Red Death, and The... 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

Wild and Precious

A Celebration of Mary Oliver

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Sophia Bush
Length: 4 hours 11 minutes

A celebration of the beloved, award-winning poet Mary Oliver, narrated by actress and activist Sophia Bush featuring selections from the late poet’s work, in her own voice, plus a tapestry of complementary voices reflecting on Oliver’s legacy. Wild and Precious: A Celebration of Mary Oliver is a first of its kind audio commemoration of one of... Read more

The Great Poets – Rudyard Kipling

The Great Poets –

By: Rudyard Kipling
Narrated by: Robert Glenister
Length: 1 hour 12 minutes

This anthology contains many of Kipling’s most famous poems, If, Mandalay, Gunga Din. Though sometimes still regarded as a product of the colonial era, Kipling touches a very popular nerve in Britain’s literary tradition, and is regarded more generously now as a master of popular verse. It is often forgotten that he won the Nobel Prize for... 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The Unpublished Work of Ntozake Shange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

Why Fathers Cry at Night

A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances

By: Kwame Alexander
Narrated by: Kwame Alexander
Length: 3 hours 39 minutes

This powerful memoir from a #1 New York Times bestselling author and Newbery Medalist features poetry, letters, recipes, and other personal artifacts that provide an intimate look into his life and the loved ones he shares it with. In a powerfully intimate and non-traditional (or "new-fashioned") memoir, Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man... Read more

Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

By: Warsan Shire
Narrated by: Warsan Shire
Length: 30 minutes

What elevates teaching my mother how to give birth, what gives the poems their disturbing brilliance, is Warsan Shire's ability to give simple, beautiful eloquence to the veiled world where sensuality lives in the dominant narrative of Islam; reclaiming the more nuanced truths of earlier times - as in Tayeb Salih's work - and translating to the... Read more

Promises of Gold

By: José Olivarez
Narrated by: José Olivarez
Length: 5 hours 42 minutes

"Listeners are privy to Olivarez framing each poem with rays of insight, to interspersed live recordings and selections recorded only for the audio....Olivarez gifts listeners gems of healing in this poetic affirmation of community and love." - Booklist

"A portion of the audiobook is performed in front of a live audience, which is such a smart... Read more

I Would Leave Me If I Could.

A Collection of Poetry

By: Halsey
Narrated by: Halsey
Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Grammy Award–nominated, platinum-selling musician Halsey is heralded as one of the most compelling voices of her generation. In I Would Leave Me If I Could, she reveals never-before-heard poetry of longing, love, and the nuances of bipolar disorder.

In this intimate audio performance of her debut collection, Halsey bares... Read more

We Are All So Good at Smiling

By: Amber McBride
Narrated by: Amber McBride
Length: 3 hours 45 minutes

"McBride brings a special gift to this production by narrating her own material." - AudioFile Magazine


This audiobook features music and special effects. Listen along and enjoy the fun that is We Are All So Good at Smiling.

This program is read by the author.

They Both Die at the End meets The Bell Jar in this haunting, beautiful young adult... Read more

dayliGht

Poems

By: Roya Marsh
Narrated by: Roya Marsh
Length: 1 hour 20 minutes

This program is read by the author

dayliGht is a dazzling collection of poems from a necessary new voice, at once a clarion call for stories of Black women and a rebuke of broken notions of sexuality and race.

Growing up, Roya Marsh was considered “tomboy passing." With an affinity for baggy clothes, cornrows, and bandanas, she came of age in an... 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

Postcolonial Love Poem

Poems

By: Natalie Diaz
Narrated by: Natalie Diaz
Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

“Pulitzer Prize-winning Postcolonial Love Poem will make you want Natalie Diaz to write a love poem about you. Here, she writes sensual lesbian poems and warm platonic ones, poems about water and basketball and things lost in translation. Her elegant poetry begs to be studied—add this stunner from a Mexican Mojave poet to your shelf, and eat it... Read more

Chaotic Good

By: Sabrina Benaim
Narrated by: Sabrina Benaim
Length: 1 hour

From the author of Depression and Other Magic Tricks and I Love You, Call Me Back, a special new collection of poems and stories--available only as an audio exclusive. For fans of Rupi Kaur and Hanif Abdurraqib.
 
From acclaimed spoken word poet Sabrina Benaim comes a dazzling audio-exclusive collection of poems and stories that capture the... Read more

all of it is you.

poetry

By: Nico Tortorella
Narrated by: Nico Tortorella
Length: 3 hours 16 minutes

A debut poetry collection from actor Nico Tortorella exploring “all of it,” from the smallest cells in our bodies to the outer limits of our universe. 
 
Nico Tortorella's debut poetry collection presents a singular voice honed through years as an actor, podcaster, and advocate, one colored with love, wonder, and endless curiosity. But it is also... Read more

The Language of Life

A Festival of Poets

By: Bill Moyers
Narrated by: Bill Moyers
Length: 7 hours 6 minutes

"Poets live the lives all of us live," says Bill Moyers, "with one big difference. They have the power--the power of the word--to create a world of thoughts and emotions other can share. We only have to learn to listen."



In a series of fascinating conversations with thirty-four American poets, The Language Of Life celebrates language in its "most... Read more

Life of the Party

Poems

By: Olivia Gatwood
Narrated by: Olivia Gatwood
Length: 2 hours 33 minutes

A dazzling debut collection of raw and explosive poems about growing up in a sexist, sensationalized world, from a thrilling new feminist voice.

i’m a good girl, bad girl, dream girl, sad girl
girl next door sunbathing in the driveway
i wanna be them all at once, i wanna be
all the girls I’ve ever loved
—from “Girl”

Lauded for the power of her... Read more

Finna

Poems

By: Nate Marshall
Narrated by: Nate Marshall
Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

Sharp, lyrical poems celebrating the Black vernacular—its influence on pop culture, its necessity for familial survival, its rite in storytelling and in creating the safety found only within its intimacy

“Terrific . . . illuminates life in this country in a strikingly original way.”—Ron Charles, The Washington Post

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF... Read more

Feel Your Way Through

A Book of Poetry

By: Kelsea Ballerini
Narrated by: Kelsea Ballerini
Length: 1 hour 10 minutes

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The personal and poignant debut poetry collection from the award-winning singer, songwriter, and producer revolves around the emotions, struggles, and experiences of finding your voice and confidence as a woman.
 
“I’ve realized that some feelings can’t be turned into a song . . . so I’ve started writing poems. Just like my... Read more