Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

Upon the publication of her posthumous volume of poetry, "Ariel", in the mid-1960s, Sylvia Plath became a household name. Readers may be surprised to learn that the draft of "Ariel" left behind by Sylvia Plath when she died in 1963 is different from the volume of poetry eventually published to worldwide acclaim. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, the selection and arrangement of the poems as... (more)

The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

by Robert Graves

The White Goddess is perhaps the finest of Robert Graves's works on the psychological and mythological sources of poetry. In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar... (more)

Crossing the Water

by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath's suicide was like no other American poet's. Hart Crane's dissolution at the bottom of the Caribbean suited one who was in love with the sea, but the poems themselves, emblematic of a poet who wanted to incarnate the American myth, did not directly point to that end. All of Sylvia Plath's work, we can now see, was a prologue to disaster, to "last words," phrases "born all of a piece. . . poems... (more)

Sweeney Astray

by Seamus Heaney

"Sweeney Astray" is Seamus Heaney's version of the medieval Irish work "Buile Suibhne". Its hero, Mad Sweeney, undergoes a series of purgatorial adventures after he is cursed by a saint and turned into a demented flying creature at the Battle of Moira.

The Life of Emily Dickinson

by Richard Benson Sewall

The life of Emily Dickinson, Richard B. Sewall's monumental biography of the great American poet (1830-1886), wont the National Book Award when it was originally publsihed in two volumes. Now available in the one-volume eidtion, it has been called "by far the best and most complete study of the poet's life yet to be written, the result of nearly twenty years of work" ( The Atlantic ). R.W.B. Lewis has hailed it... (more)

Rapture

by Carol Ann Duffy

The effortless virtuosity, drama, and humanity of Carol Ann Duffy's verse have made her much-admired among contemporary poets. Her seventh collection, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, is a book-length love-poem, and a moving act of personal testimony—but what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subject is Duffy's refusal to simplify the contradictions of love, and read its... (more)

Emily Dickinson : Selected Poems (1349)

by Emily Dickinson

Much madness is divinest sense-- To a discerning Eye-- Much Sense--that starkest Madness --From 'Tis the Majority Emily Dickinson, the Belle of Amherst, stayed close to home, finding inspiration in the small world around her. Often writing more than a poem a day--although few were published during her lifetime--she perfected a highly personal, condensed, and enduring style. Among her most famous poems... (more)

IDYLLS OF THE KING AND A SELECTION OF POEMS

IDYLLS OF THE KING AND A SELECTION OF POEMS

by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson Tennyson

His poems evoke the past and present, the exotic and the familiar, the rich and the poor, making this selection accessible-and applicable-to just about everyone.

The Greek Myths (volume 1 and 2)

by Robert Graves

In a work that has become a classic reference book for both the serious scholar and the casual inquirer, Graves retells the adventures of the important gods and heroes worshipped by the ancient Greeks. Each entry provides a full commentary which examines problems of interpretation in both historical and anthropological terms, and in light of contemporary research.

Collected Poems: 1909-1962

by T. S. Eliot

Published two years before his death, this collection includes all of Eliot’s poetry that he wished to preserve.

Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996

by Seamus Heaney

As selected by the author, Opened Ground includes the essential work from Heaney's twelve previous books of poetry, as well as new sequences drawn from two of his landmark translations, The Cure at Troy and Sweeney Astray , and several previously uncollected poems. Heaney's voice is like no other--"by turns mythological and journalistic, rural and sophisticated, reminiscent and impatient, stern and yielding,... (more)

Keats

by Andrew Motion

The outline of the story of John Keats's life is well known: the archetypal life of the Romantic genius, critically spurned and dying young. This biography aims to enrich the facts with an understanding of how Keats fitted into the intellectual and political life of his time. It includes detailed examination of significant friendships with anti-establishment figures such as Hazlitt and Hunt, and the closeness of... (more)

Among SchoolchildrenSeamus HEANEY

Among Schoolchildren

by Seamus HEANEY

The Lady of Shalott

by Alfred Tennyson

The award winning artist Charles Keeping, breathes new life into Tennyson's romantic poem. Keeping's evocative pictures tell the story of the lovely maiden, imbowered on her silent isle, grieving with love for bold Sir Lanceleot. The paperback is now reissued with a new cover. This book is intended for age 7+

Samson Agonistes (Large Print)

by John Milton, Alan Rudrum

1912. A tragedy by John Milton, it is considered the greatest English drama based on the Greek model and is known as one more suited for reading than performance. The work deals with the final phase of Samson's life and recounts the story as told in the Old Testament Book of Judges. Himself blind when he wrote Samson Agonistes, Milton depicts Samson, the once mighty warrior, as blinded and a prisoner of the... (more)

When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

by Sandra Haldeman-Martz

This enchanting collection of writings and photographs evokes the beauty, humor and courage of women living in their later years and tells of the endearing moments of joy--and passion--to be found in the rich and varied world of midlife and beyond. An award-winning anthology that takes a refreshing look at issues of aging in a society that glorifies youth.

The makings of a music: Reflections on the poetry of Wordsworth and Yeats : delivered on 9 February, 1978 (The Kenneth Allott lectures)Seamus Heaney

The makings of a music: Reflections on the poetry of Wordsworth and Yeats : delivered on 9 February, 1978 (The Kenneth Allott lectures)

by Seamus Heaney

Selected Prose, 1909-1965 (New Directions Paperbook)

Selected Prose, 1909-1965 (New Directions Paperbook)

by Ezra Pound

The Letters and Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth: Starring Jenny Agutter (Classic Journals)

The Letters and Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth: Starring Jenny Agutter (Classic Journals)

by Dorothy Wordsworth

Wordsworth's "exquisite sister", as Coleridge described her, was not only the cherished companion of the two poets, but also a writer who possessed a geniune poetic imagination in her own right. The journals she kept at Alfoxden, in 1798, where her brother and Coleridge were composing the Lyrical Ballads and at Grasmere from 1800 to 1803, when she and Wordsworth were living at Dove Cottage are printed here for the... (more)

Feminine Gospels: Poems

by Carol Ann Duffy

A new collection of poems ranging over the experience of women—historical and imagined, real-life and larger than life—from the award-winning author of The World’s Wife. From the sadness of Elizabeth I, looking back on her long and powerful but lonely life, to the travails of a woman whose work is literally never done as she continues to trawl the seas to feed her billion offspring, to a movingly lyrical... (more)

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: literature and poetry

by Sylvia Plath

by Robert Graves

by Sylvia Plath

by Seamus Heaney

by Richard Benson Sewall

by Carol Ann Duffy

by Emily Dickinson

by Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alfred Tennyson Tennyson

by Robert Graves

by T. S. Eliot

by Seamus Heaney

by Andrew Motion

by Seamus HEANEY

by Alfred Tennyson

by John Milton, Alan Rudrum

by Sandra Haldeman-Martz

by Seamus Heaney

by Ezra Pound

by Dorothy Wordsworth

by Carol Ann Duffy