The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems [by Aldous Huxley]

Though later known for his essays and novels, Aldous Huxley started his writing career as a poet. Published in 1918, The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems is his third compilation of poetry. 

The volume begins with "The Defeat of Youth", a sequence of twenty-two sonnets that explores irreconcilability of the ideal and the disappointing reality. Jerome Meckier called it “the century’s most successful sonnet sequence, better than Auden’s or Edna St. Vincent Millay’s.” In the rest of the volume, Huxley continues to explore themes started in The Burning Wheel, his first volume of poetry, including vision, blindness, and other contrasts. 

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The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems [by Aldous Huxley]

The Wind Among the Reeds [by William Butler Yeats]

William Butler Yeats was an Irish poet and one of the foremost figures of 20th century literature. He studied poetry in his youth and from an early age was fascinated by both Irish legends and the occult. One of his works, 'The wind among the reeds', published in 1899, by critics' opinion is the main achievement of his early works. Imagery of Yeats' poetry at this time is filled with characters of Celtic mythology and folklore.

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The Wind Among the Reeds [by William Butler Yeats]

Bars and Shadows The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin [by Ralph Chaplin]

Ralph Chaplin and many other prominent members of the Industrial Workers of the World were imprisoned under the Espionage Act of 1917 as the United States entered World War I. As with Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, these activists were accused of undermining recruiting efforts and the draft - even of encouraging soldiers to desert. Though they never gained the universal popularity of his anthem "Solidarity Forever," the poems and songs in this volume - composed during his four years in prison - represent the defiant attitude of a true rebel in the face of persecution. 

Read by Ben Adams.

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Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin [by Ralph Chaplin]

The Raven And Other Poems [by Edgar Allan Poe] [read by Phil Chenevert] [Audiobook]

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849] was an American author, poet, editor, and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story, and is generally considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre.






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The Raven And Other Poems [by Edgar Allan Poe] [read by Phil Chenevert] [Audiobook]

The Triumph of the Egg: A Book of Impressions from American Life In Tales and Poems [by Sherwood Anderson]

“The Triumph of the Egg” is a collection of stories and poems by Sherwood Anderson. Abandoning the interconnected quality of his more famous “Winesburg, Ohio,” the author adopts a variety of perspectives and settings while exploring similar themes: personal growth, disillusionment, loneliness, and urban-rural contrast. In the North American Review, critic Lawrence Gilman wrote, “Mr. Anderson has achieved a beauty that irradiates his page.” Though largely overshadowed by that celebrated, earlier book, “The Triumph of the Egg” remains a foundational work for Modernist literature, proven by its winning the first annual Dial Award from the influential journal The Dial.

Read by Ben Adams.

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The Triumph of the Egg: A Book of Impressions from American Life In Tales and Poems [by Sherwood Anderson]

The Burning Wheel [by Aldous Huxley] [Audiobook]

Though Aldous Huxley is best known for his later novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. The Burning Wheel is his first work, a collection of thirty poems that pay homage in style to poets who wrote in the Romantic or the French symbolist styles. Many of the poems deal with themes of light, darkness, sight, music, art, war, and idealism vs. realism. Though the optimism in his early works waned as he became older, his characteristically optimistic and determined point of view shines through

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The Burning Wheel [by Aldous Huxley]

Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War [by Herman Melville]

Published in 1866, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War is a collection of poems about the Civil War by Herman Melville. Many of the poems are inspired by second- and third-hand accounts from print news sources (especially the Rebellion Record) and from family and friends. A handful of trips Melville took before, during, and after the war provide additional angles of vision into the battles, the personalities, and the moods of war. In an opening note, Melville describes his project not so much as a systematic chronicle (though many of the individual poems refer to specific events) but as a kind of memory piece of national experience. The “aspects” to which he refers in the title are as diverse as “the moods of involuntary meditation—moods variable, and at times widely at variance.” Much of the verse is stylistically conventional (more so than modern readers perhaps expect from the author of Moby-Dick), but the shifting subjectivities and unresolved traumas that unfold in the collection merit repeated contemplation. Melville’s Battle-Pieces do not offer a neatly versified narrative of the Civil War but rather kaleidescopic glimpses of shifting emotions and ambivalent reflections of post-war America.

Read in English by Clark University.

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Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War [by Herman Melville]

Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics [by C.S. Lewis]

Spirits in Bondage is C.S. Lewis's first book and the first of his works to be available in the public domain. It was released in 1919 under the pseudonym of Clive Hamilton and was written in a period of darker thought for C.S. Lewis than was later evidenced in his Christian apologist writings.

The darkness of the verse is most evident in Part One (The Prison House), begins to change in the short transitional Part Two (Hesitation) and attains a more hopeful tone in the final Part Three (Escape). Yet a dreamy effect, influenced by Celtic and Druid mythology, persists throughout.

Spirits in Bondage consists of forty poems that provide an intriguing insight into the youthful heart of C.S. Lewis and occasionally provides interesting lyrical foreshadowing of some of the landscapes portrayed in his famous Chronicles of Narnia series.

Read by Robert Garrison

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Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics [by C.S. Lewis]

Twenty One Poems [by Katharine Tynan] [1907]

Katharine Tynan first met W. B. Yeats  in 1885 and formed a lifelong friendship,and Yeats himself selected the poems for this particular anthology. Tynan besides poetry also wrote more than 100 novels, 12 collections of short stories, 3 plays, and anthologies, as well as innumerable articles on social questions such as poor children and women’s working conditions.

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Twenty One Poems [by Katharine Tynan] [1907]

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The four winds of Eirinn [by Ethna Carbery] (1902)

Ethna Carbery (born Anna Johnston) was an Irish journalist, writer and poet. She is best known for the ballad Roddy McCorley.  In 1901 she married poet and folklorist Séamus MacManus and moved with him to Revlin House in County Donegal. It was then that she began writing under the pen name of Ethna Carbery because once she took the last name of MacManus she didn't want to be confused with her husband (also a writer). She died in Revlin House of gastritis the following year, aged 35. Her husband, who was three years her junior, outlived her by 58 years Although MacManus and Johnston were only married for one year her impact on his life ran deep. Her poetry was published by her husband after her death in the The Four Winds of Erin, which was phenomenally successful over the next few years.

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The four winds of Eirinn [by Ethna Carbery] (1902)

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Poems from the Divan of Hafiz [by Hafiz] (Translated by Gertrude Bell)

Hafiz was a Persian poet. His collected works (Divan) are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature. While influenced by Islam, his mystical works are highly regarded by Hindus, Christians and others, and his influence extends to several well-known writers such as Thoreau, Goethe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This modest collection of 43 poems is translated by Gertrude Bell.


Read by Kevin W. Davidson

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Poems from the Divan of Hafiz [by Hafiz] (Translated by Gertrude Bell)

Christ's company and other poems [Richard Watson Dixon] (1861)

Richard Watson Dixons first published volume of poems, was called ‘Christ's Company,’. These early poems of Dixon were distinguished by not a little of the colour and imagination, and also by something of the eccentricity, that marked the early efforts of the Pre-Raphaelite school. The poems of the first volume, though largely upon religious subjects, are not strictly religious poetry; they are works of picturesque imagination rather than of devotional feeling.

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Christ's company and other poems [Richard Watson Dixon] (1861)

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The Poems of R.H. Stoddard [by Richard Henry Stoddard] (1880)

Richard Henry Stoddards 1857 poem "Roses and Thorns", in a Russian translation by Aleksey Pleshcheyev, was set for voice and piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as "Legend", No. 5 from "Sixteen Songs for Children", Op. 54. The song, in turn, was the basis of Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, for string orchestra. Roses and Thorns and all of Stoddards best work are contained in this volume.

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The poems of R.H. Stoddard [by Richard Henry Stoddard] (1880)

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Poems of Passion [by Ella Wheeler Wilcox]

Poems of Passion, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  A collection of love poems. 

Read by Joy Chan.

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Poems of Passion [by Ella Wheeler Wilcox]

A story of Carn Brea, essays, and poems [by John Harris] (1863)

John Harris at age twelve, was sent to work at Dolcoath mine where he combined a life of painful labour with the production of poetry celebrating his native landscape around Carn Brea and the scenic splendours of Land's End and the Lizard. He could not afford pen and paper, so he improvised and used blackberry juice for ink and grocery bags for paper. During this period he produced his most important work, the loco-descriptive poem A Story of Carn Brea (1863).

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A story of Carn Brea, essays, and poems [by John Harris] (1863)

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Kensington rhymes [by Compton Mackenzie] (1912)

Compton Mackenzie was a prolific writer of fiction, biography, histories and memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the Scottish National Party along with Hugh MacDiarmid, RB Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick. He only produced one book of poetry, which was aimed at children and was delightfully illustrated by J.R Monsell.

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Kensington rhymes [by Compton Mackenzie] (1912)

Eidola [by Frederic Manning] [1917]

Frederic Manning (1882-1935), novelist and poet, was born on 22 July 1882 in Sydney Australia. After the onset of WWI Manning enlisted as a private in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1915 and served in France on the Somme. On 30 May 1917 he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, but ill health prevented further active service. That year he published his third volume of poetry, Eidola, which includes several war poems.

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Eidola [by Frederic Manning] [1917]

Songs of two peoples [by James Riley] (1898)

Irish American poet James Riley devotes his collection Songs of two peoples (1898) to the peoples and places of both New England and Ireland with a third section titled miscellaneous..

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Songs of two peoples [by James Riley] (1898)

Songs of the Rockies [by Charles Edwin Hewes] (1922)

Charles Edwin Hewes (1870-1947), who is remembered not only for his poetry but as the builder/operator of the historic Hewes-Kirkwood Inn, site of today's Rocky Ridge Music Center. When not managing the Inn, Hewes devoted his time to writing novels and poetry, including "The America," a 690-page epic poem that he worked on for 17 years. While his poetry revered the lands that would become Rocky Mountain National Park, he in fact opposed the Park's creation, fearing it would lead to excessive commercial development.

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Songs of the Rockies [by Charles Edwin Hewes] (1922)

Barrack-room ballads & other poems [by Rudyard Kipling] (1963)

The Barrack-Room Ballads is the collective name given to a series of songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling, dealing with the late-Victorian British Army and mostly written in a vernacular dialect. The series contains some of Kipling's most well-known work, including the poems "Gunga Din", "Tommy" and "Danny Deever", and helped consolidate his early fame as a poet.

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Barrack-room ballads & other poems [by Rudyard Kipling] (1963)

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