Poetry Audiobooks | Fiction & Literature

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Spike Milligan (Author), Spike Milligan (Narrator)

Audiobook

Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a collection of narratives written between 1387 and 1400, tells of a group of thirty people from all layers of society who pass the time along their pilgrimage to Canterbury by telling stories to one another, their interaction mediated (at times) by the affable host - Chaucer himself. Naxos AudioBooks' third volume presents the tales of six people, here in an unabridged modern verse translation (by Frank Ernest Hill, (1935)). This is an ideal way to appreciate the genuinely funny and droll talent of England's early master storyteller. Seven leading British actors bring the medieval world into the twenty-first century, and at least in terms of character, not much seems to have changed!

Geoffrey Chaucer (Author), Nicholas Boulton, Stephen Thompkinson (Narrator)

Audiobook

Beowulf

Finest heroic poem in Old English celebrates character and exploits of Beowulf, a young nobleman of the Geats, a people of southern Sweden. Narrative combines mythical elements, Christian and pagan sensibilities, actual historical figures and events to create a striking work of great power and beauty.

Unknown (Author), Robertson Dean (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Inferno of Dante: Translated by Robert Pinsky

Dramatic, intense, and gripping, The Inferno of Dante is an astonishing masterpiece that no listener can afford to miss. Robert Pinsky, the distinguished American poet, preserves the burning clarity and universal relevance of this 13th century literary masterpiece in a triumphant new translation for our times. Line by line, canto by canto, Robert Pinksy affirms The Inferno as a powerful living classic for today's listeners.

Dante Aligheri, Dante Alighieri (Author), George Guidall (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Voice of the Poet: Richard Wilbur

A remarkable series of audiobooks, featuring distinguished twentieth-century American poets reading from their own work. A first in audiobook publishing–a series that uses the written word to enhance the listening experience–poetry to be read as well as heard. Each audiobook includes rare archival recordings and a book with the text of the poetry, a bibliograohy, and commentary by J. D. McClatchy, the poet and critic, who is the editor of The Yale Review. "To hear a poem spoken in the voice of the person who wrote it is not only to witness the rising of words off the page and into the air, but to experience an aural reenactment of exactly what the poet must have heard, if only internally, during the act of composition. THE VOICE OF THE POET recordings deliver these pleasures as they broadcast the pitch and timbre of many of the major voices in twentieth-century poetry."–Billy Collins, U.S,. Poet Lauerate.

Richard Wilbur (Author), Richard Wilbur (Narrator)

Audiobook

In Flanders Fields & Other Poems About War

1. Diary Entries 4. In Flanders Fields 5. Preface: Poems by Wilfred Owen 6. Strange Meeting 7. Greater Love 8. Apologia pro Poemate Meo The Show 9. Mental Cases 10. Parable of the Old Men and the Young 11. Arms and the Boy 12. Anthem for Doomed Youth 13. The Send-off 14. Insensibility 15. Dulce et Decorum est 16. The Sentry 17. The Dead-Beat 18. Exposure 19. Spring Offensive 20. The Chances 21. S.I.W. 22. Futility 23. Smile, Smile, Smile 24. Conscious 25. A Terre 26. Qild with all Regrets 27. Disabled 28. The End

John Mccrae, Wilfred Owen (Author), Ralph Cosham (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Aeneid

Virgil's Aeneid, one of the greatest Classical poems, tells the story of Aeneas, son of Priam, after the fall of Troy. His quest is to find the site 'in the west' where he will found a new town prophesied to be the seat of a world empire - Rome. This great poem, in a modern translation by Cecil Day Lewis, is superbly read by the great classical actor Paul Scofield, with Jill Balcon.

Virgil (Author), Various Narrators (Narrator)

Audiobook

Classic Hundred All-Time Favorite Poems

Imagine if Billboard compiled a list of the top 100 poems, chosen not by critics or professors but by the people themselves. That's the concept behind The Classic Hundred, and it works brilliantly. William Harmon found the 100 most anthologized poems in English, based on the ninth edition of The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry -- the most objective measurement of greatness available -- representing consensus among the editors of some 400 anthologies. Then he put them in order and prefaced each one with concise, erudite, often humorous commentary. The range of poets, subjects, and forms -- from Shakespeare to Frost, from love and death to crime and punishment, from sonnets to odes -- makes this an entertaining, enlightening, and indispensable aural guide to the finest verse in the English language.

Various, Various Authors (Author), Ensemble Cast, Various Readers (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Classic Fifty Poems

William Harmon found the 100 most anthologized poems in English, based on the ninth edition of The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry, the most objective measurement of greatness available, representing consensus among the editors of some 400 anthologies. Then he put them in order and prefaced each one with concise, erudite, often humorous commentary. The range of poets, subjects and forms, from Shakespeare to Frost, from love and death to crime and punishment, from sonnets to odes, makes this an entertaining, enlightening, and indispensable aural guide to the finest verse in the English language.

Various, Various Authors, William Harmon (Author), Ensemble Cast (Narrator)

Audiobook

Hope Through Heartsongs

The award-winning bestselling poetry of 11-year-old Mattie Stepanek has touched the lives of hundreds and thousands of people. From Heartsongs, to Vietnam War Memorial, to Prayer for a Journey, Mattie has written movingly and courageously about life and death, love and loss, faith and hope, innocence and joy. His struggle with a rare form of muscular dystrophy has given him wisdom and insight, and his life, work, and message have been recognized by Oprah, National Public Radio, The Washington Post, ABC TV's Good Morning America, People, NBC TV's the Today show, and C- PAN's BookTV.

Mattie J. T. Stepanek (Author), Mattie J. T. Stepanek (Narrator)

Audiobook

Spoon River Anthology

Deemed "essential" in the canon of American literature, this audiobook masterpiece performed in its entirety by a full cast of fifty makes the classic accessible to everyone. From a cemetery in a fictional mid-American town, the dead speak the truths about their lives. Some speak of hardships and sordid affairs, while others speak of their simple, honest, happy lives. Some are elderly and others are youthful or children, but mortality has claimed them all. Their voices reach us deeply-alternately plaintive, anguished, enigmatic, angry, contemptuous, and comedic, evoking themes of love, hope, disappointment, despair, and abiding faith. As the Spoon River residents examine their lives, they invite us to do the same. "The stories are well told and often harsh, as the dead of Spoon River carry their anger and grievances to their graves...The cast of fifty, headed by Patrick Fraley and Edward Asner, is well matched to the many characters in this excellent production."--AudioFile

Edgar Lee Masters (Author), Various, Various Narrators (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Canterbury Tales II

Four more delightful tales from one of the most entertaining storytellers of all time. Though writing in the thirteenth century, Chaucer's wit and observation comes down undiminished through the ages, especially in this accessible modern verse translation. The stories vary considerably from the uproarious Wife of Bath's Tale, promoting the power of women to the sober account of patient Griselda in the Clerk's Tale.

Geoffrey Chaucer (Author), John Rowe, Various, Various Readers (Narrator)

Audiobook

Poetry Audiobooks in Fiction & Literature