Poetry audiobooks

SHOUT

By: Laurie Halse Anderson

Narrated by: Laurie Halse Anderson

Length: 3 hours 48 minutes

Abridged: No

A New York Times bestseller and one of 2019's best-reviewed books, a poetic memoir and call to action from the award-winning author of Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson!

Bestselling author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. Now, inspired by her fans and enraged by... Read more

Bread and Circus

By: Airea D. Matthews

Narrated by: Airea D. Matthews

Length: 1 hour 47 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize

“Discerning and significant.” —Poetry Foundation
“A sharp memoir in verse.” —LitHub

This powerful and timely collection of autobiographical poems from Yale Young Poets Award Winner and Philadelphia’s former Poet Laureate Airea D. Matthews about the economics of class is a brilliant intellectual and... Read more

Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

By: Warsan Shire

Narrated by: Warsan Shire

Length: 1 hour 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Poems of migration, womanhood, trauma, and resilience from the celebrated collaborator on Beyoncé’s Lemonade and Black Is King, award-winning Somali British poet Warsan Shire

“The beautifully crafted poems in this collection are fiercely tender gifts.”—Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

“Shire is the real thing—fresh, cutting, indisputably... Read more

Poetic Remedies for Troubled Times

By: Taisia Kitaiskaia

Narrated by: Zura Johnson

Length: 1 hour 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 minute

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... Read more

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... Read more

Pillow Thoughts

By: Courtney Peppernell

Narrated by: Courtney Peppernell

Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

Abridged: No

Pillow Thoughts is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, love, and raw emotions, read by the author herself. Read more

Fierce Fairytales

By: Nikita Gill

Narrated by: Nikita Gill

Length: 2 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Poet, writer, and Instagram sensation Nikita Gill returns with a collection of fairytales poetically retold for a new generation of women.

Traditional fairytales are rife with cliches and gender stereotypes: beautiful, silent princesses; ugly, jealous, and bitter villainesses; girls who need rescuing; and men who take all the glory.

But in this... Read more

If They Come for Us

By: Fatimah Asghar

Narrated by: Fatimah Asghar

Length: 1 hour 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

Enemies in the Orchard

By: Dana VanderLugt

Narrated by: Andy Ingalls, Elizabeth Klett & Rachel Leblang

Length: 3 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

Set against the backdrop of WWII, this achingly beautiful middle grade novel in verse based on American history presents the dual perspectives of Claire, a Midwestern girl who longs to enter high school and become a nurse even as she worries for her soldier brother, and Karl, a German POW who’s processing the war as he works on Claire’s family... Read more

The How

By: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Narrated by: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Length: 2 hours 56 minutes

Abridged: No

From the acclaimed poet behind bone, an exploration of how we can meet our truest selves, the ones we've always been meant to become

Yrsa Daley-Ward's words have resonated with hundreds of thousands of readers--through her books of poetry and memoir, bone and The Terrible; through her writing for Beyoncé on Black Is King; and through her always... Read more

Postcolonial Love Poem

By: Natalie Diaz

Narrated by: Natalie Diaz

Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry
Finalist for the 2020 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry
Finalist for the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Collection

Postcolonial Love Poem, the brilliant second collection from Natalie Diaz, holds in its pages the urgent appeal for all bodies―bodies of... Read more

Everything Comes Next

By: Naomi Shihab Nye

Narrated by: Naomi Shihab Nye & James Patrick Cronin

Length: 3 hours 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Beloved and acclaimed poet Naomi Shihab Nye is the current Young People’s Poet Laureate, serving until August 2021. This celebratory book collects in one volume her most popular and accessible poems from the past forty years. Featuring new, never-before-published poems, an introduction by bestselling poet and author Edward Hirsch, as well as a... Read more

The Terrible

By: Yrsa Daley-Ward

Narrated by: Yrsa Daley-Ward & Howard Daley-Ward

Length: 3 hours 59 minutes

Abridged: No

Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize • Longlisted for the 2019 PEN Open Book Award

“Devastating and lyrical.” —The New York Times

“Suspenseful and affecting.” —The New Yorker

From the celebrated poet behind bone, a collection of poems that tells a story of coming-of-age, uncovering the cruelty and beauty of the world, going under, and finding... Read more

Home: Where Everyone Is Welcome

By: Deepak Chopra, Kabir Sehgal & Paul Avgerinos

Narrated by: Deepak Chopra

Length: 2 hours 7 minutes

Abridged: No

Written and composed by immigrants and first generation Americans, Home provides a stronger sense of welcome and belonging for everyone.
The United States is composed of and built by immigrants, and it has been a beacon to those in search of a new life for hundreds of years.

Home is a collection of thirty-four poems and twelve songs inspired by... Read more

Good Poems - Abridged

By: Various

Narrated by: Ensemble cast & Garrison Keillor

Length: 4 hours 21 minutes

Abridged: Yes

Every day people tune in to The Writer's Almanac on public radio and hear Garrison Keillor read them a poem. And here, for the first time, is an anthology of poems from the show, chosen by the narrator for their wit, their frankness, their passion, their "utter clarity in the face of everything else a person has to deal with at 7 a.m." Good... Read more

Atop an Underwood

By: Jack Kerouac & Paul Marion

Narrated by: Andrew Eiden & Bronson Pinchot

Length: TBA

Abridged: No

Before Jack Kerouac expressed the spirit of a generation in his 1957 classic On the Road, he spent years figuring out how he wanted to live and, above all, learning how to write.Atop an Underwood brings together more than sixty previously unpublished works that Kerouac wrote before he was twenty-two, ranging from stories and poems to plays and... Read more

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

By: William Blake

Narrated by: various narrators, Bria Sterling, Laura E. Rich...

Length: 50 minutes

Abridged: No

This collection arguably contains some of the most charming lyrics ever written in English. The childlike simplicity and trust of these artless verses are unique.Blake’s poems can be enjoyed, not only for their historical importance in an age which was fiercely proud of its genius and its traditions, but also for their simple and beautiful... Read more

Magic Enuff

By: Tara M. Stringfellow

Narrated by: Tara M. Stringfellow

Length: 1 hour 25 minutes

Abridged: No

Radiant poems that celebrate Black Southern womanhood and the many ways magic lives in the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters, from the bestselling author of Memphis.

“A gorgeous collection exploring the bond and beauty of Black womanhood.”—Warsan Shire, author of Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“God can stay asleep /... Read more

Mother Goose for Grown-Ups

By: Guy Wetmore Carryl

Narrated by: Brendan Moir

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: No

"Mother Goose for Grown-Ups" is a delightful reinvention of classic nursery rhymes tailored for a more mature audience. In this witty and irreverent collection, Carryl puts a humorous spin on beloved childhood favorites such as "Humpty Dumpty," "Jack and Jill," and "Mary Had a Little Lamb," with each rhyme being transformed into a clever and... Read more

Poetry

By: James Joyce

Narrated by: Brendan Moir

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

The father of Ulysses, The Dublineers, and Finnegan's Wake (James Joyce) was also an avidly prolific poet. As of recently, most of his poems entered the public domain, so let us continue with this season's overarching theme of reading early twentieth century Irish Literature, and do a deep dive on the poems of one of Ireland's greatest literary... Read more

Complete Nonsense

By: Edward Lear

Narrated by: Brendan Moir

Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

Abridged: No

The full collection of Nonsense poems by the father of nonsense poetry, Edward Lear. Come with me and experience fantastical vignettes of unscrupulous individuals as only Edward Lear can present them. Come find yourself in indescribable predicaments with equally hilarious resolutions. Edward Lear has taken great pains for this to be fun for the... Read more

Grimm Tales Made Gay

By: Guy Wetmore Carryl

Narrated by: Brendan Moir

Length: 59 minutes

Abridged: No

"Grimm Tales Made Gay" is a hilarious reinterpretation of classic Grimm fairy tales infused with humor and irreverence. In this collection, each Brother's Grimm tale is transformed into a witty and whimsical narrative, featuring absurd situations, clever wordplay, and unexpected plot developments. From Cinderella's sassy stepsisters to Little... Read more

Fables for the Frivolous

By: Guy Wetmore Carryl

Narrated by: Brendan Moir

Length: 37 minutes

Abridged: No

Come and experience this delightfully humorous collection of satirical fables that playfully subvert traditional moral lessons, entitled "Fables for the Frivolous" by Guy Wetmore Carryl. Each fable presents a witty and whimsical tale featuring talking animals, mythical creatures, and foolish humans, all navigating absurd situations with clever... Read more