Poetry bestsellers

The Odyssey

Penguin Audio Classics

By: Homer
Narrated by: Ian McKellen
Length: 13 hours 2 minutes

“Homer's Odyssey was always meant to be heard, not read. This is the best translation with the best reader. Accept no substitutes. Read more

Time Is a Mother

By: Ocean Vuong
Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
Length: 1 hour 43 minutes

“Ocean Vuong comes home in his second full-length collection, exploring grief, violence, masculinity and queer life in America. Whether shoveling snow, reversing time, or losing his mother, Vuong will crack you open and heal you. Read more

The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On

By: Franny Choi
Narrated by: Franny Choi
Length: 1 hour 59 minutes

“Every day of my life has been something other than my last. Every day, an extinction misfires, and I put it to work. Franny Choi’s speculative poetry is so incisive, imaginative, and moving. Here, she counters the notion that apocalypse is something we anticipate, showing again and again that apocalypse is historical and ongoing, especially for... Read more

The Hurting Kind

By: Ada Limón
Narrated by: Ada Limón
Length: 1 hour 41 minutes

“Ada Limon’s poetry is an experience unto itself, and The Hurting Kind is one of the most absorbing, rewarding collections of poetry I’ve ever heard. I loved getting pulled into the words and just listening, in the moment. If you’ve never heard Limon’s work before, do yourself a favor and listen to this book. Read more

We Want Our Bodies Back

Poems

By: jessica Care moore
Narrated by: jessica Care moore
Length: 2 hours 1 minute

“Lyrical poems that will spark a lot of emotion, and maybe even a call to action. This little book is incredibly powerful! Makes for a great listen on Libro.fm as well. Read more

You Better Be Lightning

Button Poetry

By: Andrea Gibson
Narrated by: Andrea Gibson
Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson is a queer, political, and feminist collection guided by self-reflection. The poems range from close examination of the deeply personal to the vastness of the world, exploring the expansiveness of the human experience from love to illness, from space to climate change, and so much more in between. One... Read more

Beowulf: A New Translation

By: Maria Dahvana Headley
Narrated by: JD Jackson & Maria Dahvana Headley
Length: 4 hours 8 minutes

“Very rarely can you say a new edition of a story as old as BEOWULF has truly done something revolutionary, but I would argue that Headley achieves that in her new translation. In some senses, Headley modernizes the language, as all good translations do, but more than that, she imitates modern spoken word poetry. This brings Beowulf, a poem... Read more

The Divine Comedy

Penguin Classics

By: Dante Alighieri
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Jot Davies & Robin Kirkpatrick
Length: 17 hours 16 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin

The Divine Comedy describes Dante's descent into Hell with Virgil as a guide; his ascent of Mount Purgatory and encounter with his dead love, Beatrice; and finally, his arrival in Heaven. Examining questions of faith, desire and enlightenment, the poem is a brilliantly nuanced and moving allegory of human redemption.... Read more

The Iliad

The Fitzgerald Translation

By: Homer
Narrated by: Dan Stevens
Length: 13 hours 59 minutes

Since it was first published more than forty years ago, Robert Fitzgerald's prizewinning translation of Homer's battle epic has become a classic in its own right: a standard against which all other versions of The Iliad are compared. This definitive translation of Homer's epic is timeless in its authority and always fresh in its vivid rendering... Read more

The Iliad

By: Homer
Narrated by: Alfred Molina
Length: 16 hours 3 minutes

From the renowned translator of Rilke, Tao Te Ching, and Gilgamesh, a vivid new translation of Western civilization’s foundational epic: The Iliad.

Tolstoy called the Iliad a miracle; Goethe said that it always thrust him into a state of astonishment. Homer’s story is thrilling, and his Greek is perhaps the most beautiful poetry ever sung or... Read more

Paradise Lost

By: John Milton
Narrated by: Ron Welch
Length: 11 hours 57 minutes

Immerse yourself in the epic masterpiece of English literature with "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, now available as a captivating audiobook.In this timeless tale, Milton weaves a rich tapestry of biblical narrative, mythology, and profound philosophical reflection. Follow the journey of Adam and Eve from their idyllic existence in the Garden of... Read more

All the Sonnets of Shakespeare

By: William Shakespeare, Paul Edmondson & Stanley Wells
Narrated by: Kenneth Branagh & Lolita Chakrabarti
Length: 4 hours 34 minutes

How can we look afresh at Shakespeare as a writer of sonnets? What new light might they shed on his career, personality, and sexuality? Shakespeare wrote sonnets for at least thirty years, not only for himself, for professional reasons, and for those he loved, but also in his plays, as prologues, as epilogues, and as part of their poetic... 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

Wild Hope

Healing Words to Find Light on Dark Days

By: Donna Ashworth
Narrated by: Donna Ashworth
Length: 4 hours 21 minutes

This powerful new collection of wisdom will help us find hope, peace, self-acceptance, and inspiration on the days we feel worn down, helpless, or sad. Written with love and understanding, it reminds us that, amidst our daily struggles and constant outpourings of bad news, we have so much to hope for and that every one of us can play a part, big... Read more

The Book of Common Courage

Prayers and Poems to Find Strength in Small Moments

By: K.J. Ramsey
Narrated by: K.J. Ramsey
Length: 2 hours 49 minutes

Read by the author with extra audiobook-exclusive poems.The Book of Common Courage is a collection of prayers, poems, and blessings to help you find a flicker of strength in the small and hard moments of life. Beloved author and therapist K. J. Ramsey invites you to journey word-by-word through Psalm 23 to experience how the Good Shepherd... Read more

Please Don't Go Before I Get Better

By: Madisen Kuhn
Narrated by: Madisen Kuhn
Length: 1 hour 47 minutes

Discover this exquisite poetry and prose collection about the pains of growing up from the popular millennial Instagram poet, perfect for fans of Amanda Lovelace and Rupi Kaur.

Following her breakout debut Eighteen Years, poet Madisen Kuhn is thrilled to share this intimate portrait of a young woman navigating early adulthood and leaving her... Read more

The Hill We Climb

An Inaugural Poem for the Country

By: Amanda Gorman
Narrated by: Amanda Gorman & Oprah Winfrey
Length: 9 minutes

Amanda Gorman’s powerful and historic poem “The Hill We Climb,” read at President Joe Biden’s inauguration

“Stunning.” —CNN 
“Dynamic.” —NPR
“Deeply rousing and uplifting.” —Vogue


On January 20, 2021, Amanda Gorman became the sixth and youngest poet to deliver a poetry reading at a presidential inauguration. Taking the stage after the 46th... Read more

A Fortune For Your Disaster

Poems

By: Hanif Abdurraqib
Narrated by: Hanif Abdurraqib
Length: 1 hour 36 minutes

“Pain. Peace. Power. A startlingly cohesive deep dive into grief and heartbreak and possibility that will sit with you through the hardest days and act at once as a mirror and window. This is one to sit with again and again, and revel in its interconnectedness. Beautifully narrated by the author. Read more

The Iliad

A New Translation by Caroline Alexander

By: Homer & Caroline Alexander
Narrated by: Dominic Keating
Length: 19 hours 46 minutes

With her virtuoso translation, classicist and bestselling author Caroline Alexander brings to life Homer’s timeless epic of the Trojan WarComposed around 730 B.C., Homer’s Iliad recounts the events of a few momentous weeks in the protracted ten-year war between the invading Achaeans, or Greeks, and the Trojans in their besieged city of Ilion.... Read more

Some Things I Still Can't Tell You

Poems

By: Misha Collins
Narrated by: Misha Collins
Length: 57 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER!  From Misha Collins, actor, longtime poet, and activist, whose massive online following calls itself his “Army For Good," comes his debut poetry collection, Some Things I Still Can't Tell You. Trademark wit and subtle vulnerability converge in each poem; this book is both a celebration of and aspiration for a life well... Read more

I Talk Like a River

By: Jordan Scott
Narrated by: Jordan Scott
Length: 18 minutes

When a boy who stutters feels isolated, alone, and incapable of communicating in the way he'd like, it takes a kindly father and a walk by the river to help him find his voice. Through this powerful and uplifting story, poet Jordan Scott uses his own experiences to reveal what it’s like to be a child who feels lost, lonely, or unable to fit in.... Read more

Crossfire

A Litany for Survival

By: Staceyann Chin
Narrated by: Staceyann Chin
Length: 3 hours 35 minutes

Crossfire collects Staceyann Chin's empowering, feminist-LGBTQ-Caribbean, activist-driven poetry for the first time in a single book. According to The New York Times, Chin is “sassy, rageful and sometimes softly self-mocking.” The Advocate says that her poems “combine hilarious one-liners with a refusal to conform” and note “Chin is out to... Read more

Call Us What We Carry

Poems

By: Amanda Gorman
Narrated by: Amanda Gorman
Length: 3 hours 31 minutes

The instant #1 New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller


The breakout poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman

Formerly titled The Hill We Climb and Other Poems, the luminous poetry collection by #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet... Read more

At Blackwater Pond

Mary Oliver reads Mary Oliver

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Mary Oliver
Length: 1 hour

Mary Oliver has published twenty-one volumes of poetry and six books of prose in the span of five decades, but she rarely performs her poetry in live readings. With At Blackwater Pond, Mary Oliver gives her audience what they've longed to hear: the poet's voice reading her own work. In this audio, she has recorded forty of her favorite poems,... Read more

What Noise Against the Cane

By: Desiree C. Bailey
Narrated by: Desiree C. Bailey
Length: 1 hour 35 minutes

The 115th volume of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, What Noise Against the Cane is a lyric quest for belonging and freedom, weaving political resistance, Caribbean folklore, immigration, and the realities of Black life in America. Desiree C. Bailey begins by reworking the epic in an oceanic narrative of bondage and liberation in the midst of... Read more

Homie

Poems

By: Danez Smith
Narrated by: Danez Smith
Length: 1 hour 32 minutes

“In their third collection, Danez Smith shakes to life the parts of people that have gone to sleep waiting for this time in the world to be over. Those emotions that raise up too much anger or grief — all of them are alive again and seen and spoken for with utmost care and a tremendously welcome sense of humor. Pick this book up and carry it with... Read more

Autobiography of Red

Vintage Contemporaries

By: Anne Carson
Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
Length: 3 hours 55 minutes

The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional recreation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.


Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile,... Read more

Dog Songs and A Thousand Mornings

Deluxe Edition

By: Mary Oliver
Narrated by: Mary Oliver
Length: 1 hour 24 minutes

A New York Times bestselling poetry collection, featuring both Dog Songs and A Thousand Mornings

Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs is a celebration of the special bond between human and dog, as understood through the poet’s relationships to the canines that have accompanied her daily walks, warmed her home, and inspired her work. Oliver’s poems begin in... 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

Any Man

A Novel

By: Amber Tamblyn
Narrated by: Glenn Davis, Ben Foster, Marc Maron, Jason Ritter, John Roberts, Russ Tamblyn, Amber Tamblyn, January LaVoy, Phoebe Strole, Robin Miles, Therese Plummer, Dan Bittner, James Fouhey & Michael Crouch
Length: 4 hours 33 minutes

In this electric and provocative debut novel, Tamblyn blends genres of poetry, prose, and elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, mapping the destructive ways in which our society perpetuates rape culture, brilliantly brought to life through a multi-voice performance featuring Glenn Davis, Ben... Read more

Tao Te Ching

A New English Version

By: Stephen Mitchell & Lao Tzu
Narrated by: Stephen Mitchell
Length: 1 hour 40 minutes

In 81 brief chapters, Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, provides advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit, and teaches us how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao—the basic principle of the universe. Stephen Mitchell's bestselling version has been... Read more

Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

Poems

By: Joy Harjo
Narrated by: Joy Harjo
Length: 1 hour 53 minutes

A musical, magical, resilient volume from the first Native American Poet Laureate of the United StatesIn these poems, the joys and struggles of the everyday are played against the grinding politics of being human. Beginning in a hotel room in the dark of a distant city, we travel through history and follow the memory of the Trail of Tears from... Read more

And Still I Rise

A Book of Poems

By: Maya Angelou
Narrated by: Maya Angelou
Length: 22 minutes

Maya Angelou’s unforgettable collection of poetry lends its name to the documentary film about her life, And Still I Rise, as seen on PBS’s American Masters.
 
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my... Read more

I Am Code

An Artificial Intelligence Speaks: Poems

By: code-davinci-002
Narrated by: Werner Herzog, Brent Katz, Josh Morgenthau & Simon Rich
Length: 2 hours 45 minutes

Can AI tell us its own story? Does AI have its own voice?

At a wedding in early 2022, three friends were introduced to an early, raw version of the AI model behind ChatGPT by their fellow groomsman, an OpenAI scientist.

While the world discovered ChatGPT—OpenAI’s hugely popular chatbot—the friends continued to work with code-davinci-002, its... Read more

Fierce Fairytales

Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul

By: Nikita Gill
Narrated by: Nikita Gill
Length: 2 hours 43 minutes

“When I say listening to this was transcendent, know that I don't say such things lightly. The audiobook is narrated by the author herself, and it further reminded me that poetry is meant to be read aloud, to be listened to. To be spoken by the writers and consumed in the exact way they want you to. Reading poetry in your own voice, with your own... Read more

How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons)

Poetry

By: Barbara Kingsolver
Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
Length: 2 hours 12 minutes

“Kingsolver writes poetry that is both accessible and profound. This is the kind of collection you’ll loan out to a friend or relative and never get back. You should probably go ahead and buy two or three all at once! Read more

Falling Back in Love with Being Human

Letters to Lost Souls

By: Kai Cheng Thom
Narrated by: Kai Cheng Thom
Length: 1 hour 34 minutes

A national bestseller in Canada, hailed by The New York Times as an “intimate expression of self-acceptance and forgiveness, tenderly written to fellow trans women and others.”

“Required reading.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 bestselling author of Untamed

A THEM AND AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD

What happens... Read more

How to Be a Good Savage and Other Poems

Seedbank

By: Mikeas Sánchez
Narrated by: Mikeas Sánchez, Wendy Call & Shook
Length: 3 hours 47 minutes

“Translated in English, Spanish, and Sanchez's native language Zoque, the poet creates a powerful, border-crossing work. She weaves tales from her childhood and experiences as an indigenous woman in our modern society into beautiful and striking poetry. An incredible listening experience! Read more

The Carrying

Poems

By: Ada Limón
Narrated by: Ada Limón
Length: 1 hour 39 minutes

WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDFINALIST FOR THE PEN/JEAN STEIN BOOK AWARDFrom U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón comes The Carrying—her most powerful collection yet.
Vulnerable, tender, acute, these are serious poems, brave poems, exploring with honesty the ambiguous moment between the rapture of youth and the grace of acceptance. A... Read more

The Iliad

Penguin Classics

By: Homer
Narrated by: Steve John Shepherd
Length: 17 hours 48 minutes

Brought to you by Penguin.

This Penguin Classic is performed by Steve John Shepherd, whose theatre credits include Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe, The Good Canary directed by John Malkovich, Bomber's Moon and Piaf. His TV and film credits range from the iconic This Life to Silent Witness and Eastenders. This definitive recording includes an... Read more

Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass

By: Lana Del Rey
Narrated by: Lana Del Rey
Length: 38 minutes

The New York Times bestselling debut book of poetry from Lana Del Rey, Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass.

“Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass is the title poem of the book and the first poem I wrote of many. Some of which came to me in their entirety, which I dictated and then typed out, and some that I worked laboriously picking apart each... Read more

The Essential Muriel Rukeyser

Poems

By: Muriel Rukeyser
Narrated by: Tanya Eby
Length: 3 hours 35 minutes

The definitive edition of selected work from a poet whose influence continues to be widely felt today, introduced by Natasha Trethewey

Engaging closely with the violence, oppression, and injustice that she witnessed in her lifetime, Muriel Rukeyser was one of the seminal poets of the mid-twentieth century. Closely informed by issues relating to... Read more

Ten Bridges I've Burnt

A Memoir in Verse

By: Brontez Purnell
Narrated by: Brontez Purnell
Length: 1 hour 28 minutes

In Ten Bridges I've Burnt, Brontez Purnell—the bard of the underloved and overlooked—turns his gaze inward. A storyteller with a musical eye for the absurdity of his own existence, he is peerless in his ability to find the levity within the stormiest of crises. Here, in his first collection of genre-defying verse, Purnell reflects on his... Read more

Black Girl, Call Home

By: Jasmine Mans
Narrated by: Jasmine Mans
Length: 1 hour 50 minutes

“This collection. Have you ever closed a book and suddenly felt that all that you are, all that you've seen has somehow been made tangible through another's voice? Have you ever felt called in to let go, to be heard, and to be seen? That is what Mans has done here. I will forever hold onto the beautiful ways in which Jasmine pulls apart and gives... Read more

Waley's Chinese Poetry

Including: The Poet Li Po, A Hundred and Seventy Chinese Poems, More Translations from the Chinese and Arthur Waley (Poems from the Chinese)

By: Arthur Waley
Narrated by: Charles Featherstone
Length: 9 hours 22 minutes

There have been many translators of Chinese literature and poetry over time, but Arthur Waley stands out as one of the best known and most loved. This is perhaps because he had an attribute that most others lacked, which is his poetic abilities. Waley was as much a poet himself as a translator, and while his scholarly erudition was matched by a... Read more

The Death of Sitting Bear

New and Selected Poems

By: N. Scott Momaday
Narrated by: N. Scott Momaday
Length: 2 hours 28 minutes

“From Pulitzer Prize-winning author (House Made of Dawn in 1969), Oklahoma Centennial State Poet Laureate, and acclaimed artist N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) comes a new collection of more than 100 new and selected poems in The Death of Sitting Bear. Presented in three parts, some poems are quick tributes to natural phenomenon but made no less... Read more

Rilke's Book of Hours

Love Poems to God

By: Anita Barrows & Joanna Macy
Narrated by: Christine Buffle
Length: 3 hours 49 minutes

A finalist for the PEN/West Translation Award The 100th anniversary edition of a global classic, containing beautiful translations along with the original German text. While visiting Russia in his 20s, Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the 20th century's greatest poets, was moved by a spirituality he encountered there. Inspired, Rilke returned to... Read more

The Complete Works of Homer (75 books)

The Iliad, The Odyssey, The Homeric Hymns

By: Homer
Narrated by: Mark Bowen & Peter Coates
Length: 36 hours 3 minutes

"The Complete Works of Homer" is a meticulously curated anthology that brings together the iconic masterpieces of ancient Greek literature – "The Iliad," "The Odyssey," and "The Homeric Hymns" – accompanied by captivating illustrations. Homer's epic narratives are renowned for their profound impact on Western literature and culture. In "The... Read more

The Odyssey

The Fitzgerald Translation

By: Homer
Narrated by: Dan Stevens
Length: 10 hours 15 minutes

"In classical Greece men called rhapsodes memorized and recited “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” My own rhapsode is the English actor Dan Stevens, whom fans of “Downton Abbey” will know as Matthew Crawley. He’s been performing the Robert Fitzgerald translation, and no Hellene could do it better." — Wall Street Journal

Robert Fitzgerald's... Read more

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