volunteers bring you 17 recordings of In A Lady's Album by Marcus Clarke. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 7, 2020. ------ Opinion is divided as to whether this poem by a notorious bohemian was sincere or whether he was trying to burnish his credentials as a lady’s man. How you find it might well determine how you read it... - Summary by SonOfTheExiles

volunteers bring you 17 recordings of The Mind's Eye by Marcus Clarke. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for June 28, 2020. ------ This Fortnightly Poem is taken from The Australian Edition of the Selected Works of Marcus Clarke

Margaret Steele Anderson was born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1867 and was educated in the public school of Louisville, with special courses at Wellesley College. From 1901 Miss Anderson was Literary Editor of the `Evening Post' of Louisville, and was known as one of the most discriminating critics of the South. She published only one volume of verse, "The Flame in the Wind", 1914. (David Lawrence

Margaret Steele Anderson's tribute to the men left on board the doomed ship, some of whom followed the "Women and children first" tradition of the sea. - Summary by David Lawrence

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Michael Angelo's "Dawn" by Margaret Steele Anderson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 10, 2019. ------ Dawn is a sculpture by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo, executed for the Medici Chapel in the area of the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, Italy. It is part of a second pair , which followed Day and Night in his work on the Chapel. - Summary by Wikipedia

Maria W. Stewart was America's first black woman political writer. Between 1831 and 1833, she gave four speeches on the topics of slavery and women's rights. Meditations From The Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart—published in 1879 shortly before her death—is a collection of those speeches as well as her memoir, some meditations and prayers. They are political, poetical and sermon all at the same time; but in the mileu in which she lectured, they were a critically important part of the abolitionist movement years before the contributions of others such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth...

This is a volume of collected poetry by American poet Marian Longfellow. The poems lack a uniform theme, but, as the author puts it, "Among these "Contrasted Songs" I trust that the reader will find something to which the heart may respond." - Summary by Carolin

In 1921, American poet H.D. collected and published a selection of previously published poems by Marianne Moore. Although this angered Moore, as it was entirely unauthorized, she later accepted the edition as well made and used it as the basis for her own 1924 publication of Obersvations. Moore’s unique poetry matches the experimentation underway during the American Modernist movement. Much of it incorporates seemingly out-of-place quotations into complex free verse that often uses Nature as a subject matter...

This is a collection of poems by Marietta Holley, better known as Josiah Allen's Wife.

A delightful collection of humorous childrens' verse, describing the life and feelings of a little boy. - Summary by Caro Davy

Mark Lemon had a natural talent for journalism and the stage, and, at twenty-six, retired from less congenial business to devote himself to the writing of plays. More than sixty of his melodramas, operettas and comedies were produced in London, whilst at the same time he was contributing to a wide variety of magazines and newspapers, and was founding editor of both Punch and The Field.

This is a small volume of poems by Canadian women's rights activist and educator Mary Adams.

Mary Hannay Foott was an Australian poet and editor who is best remembered for the poem Where the pelican builds.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of He'd Nothing but His Violin by Mary Kyle Dallas. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 10, 2013.According to an article in the New York Times, Mary Kyle Dallas was born in Philadelphia, PA and married Jacob A. Dallis when she was twenty. She wrote for the New York Ledger for over fifteen years.A few comments from our readers."What a lovely delicate little piece." (AlanW)"Here is my version of this sweet melodious poem. This one definitely rings a bell with me, as my wife and I were entertainers also (and even still do it occasionally) but not quite under such meager circumstances as this couple." (LenXZ1)

Mary Mollineux (born Mary Southworth) was probably the daughter of Catholic parents who converted to Quakerism, differed from many of her Quaker contemporaries because of an early education in Latin, Greek, science, and arithmetic.

A poetic version of the Psalms by Sir Philip Sidney and his sister, Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke . "It is possible that the original Autograph manuscript of Sir Philip Sidney may still exist in the library at Wilton. It would have been desirable to have ascertained this, as it might prove which were versified by him, and which by his sister. This I have not been able to accomplish." Some of the Psalms may have been written by a third party. The Christian Remembrancer magazine for June, 1821 contains a paper by Dr...

“Balder Dead” is a beautiful epic poem by Matthew Arnold. It draws from Norse mythology to retell the story of the the death of Odin’s son, Balder, instigated by the treacherous jealousy of Loki.

Tristram & Iseult is a narrative poem containing strong romantic and tragic themes: and was first published in 1852 by Matthew Arnold. This poem draws upon the Tristram and Iseult legends: which were popular with contemporary readers.The poem opens with Tristram upon his deathbed. The monologue of the dying man is shot through with sharp pangs of regret: centering upon his induced passion for Iseult of Ireland - inflamed by his unwittingly imbibing an irresistible love-potion.Before his decease, Tristram's lawful wife - Iseult of Ireland - arrives in time to share his deathbed...

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. This week's poem is the first part of Arnold's Lyric Poem 'Switzerland'.

Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues.

This is a collection of Maurice Baring's poetry. This collection contains a number of Baring's earlier poetry, written before the war mostly about his travels in Russia. The other part of the collection is made up of poetry concerning World War I, with some particulalry evocative sonnets and other poems. - Summary by Carolin

LibriVox readers bring you 16 recordings of "To a Faded Rose" by Maurice Switzer. This was the Weekly Poetry selection for June 16, 2013.

Subtitled 'A Book of Poetic Short Stories and Poems', this collection reads years ahead of its time. Set mainly in Jazz Age New York City, the poems and tales are a series of profiles of people in seedier parts of town, along with bizarre love songs and even a trip to Mars. Not for the easily offended.

Michael Earls, S.J. was a Jesuit priest, as well as a writer, poet, teacher, and administrator. - Summary by Wikipedia

Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katharine Harris Bradley (27 October 1846 – 26 September 1914) and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper (12 January 1862 – 13 December 1913). As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days. Their intention was to keep the pen-name secret, but it became public knowledge, not long after they had confided in their friend Robert Browning.

Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katharine Harris Bradley (27 October 1846 – 26 September 1914) and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper (12 January 1862 – 13 December 1913). As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days. Their intention was to keep the pen-name secret, but it became public knowledge, not long after they had confided in their friend Robert Browning.

This is a collection of poems by Michael Field, the pseudonym of Katharine Harris Bradley and Edith Emma Cooper. Those poems are of interest not only because they are beautiful examples of aesthetic poetry, but also because many of them contain homosexuality as a theme. The joint authors lived openly as a lesbian couple for forty years around the turn of the 20th century. - Summary by Carolin

This Fortnightly Poem is taken from Underneath the Bough, A Book of Verses by Michael Field. - Summary by David Lawrence

Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katharine Harris Bradley and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper . As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days. Their intention was to keep the pen-name secret, but it became public knowledge, not long after they had confided in their friend Robert Browning. They wrote a number of passionate love poems to each other, and their name Michael Field was their way of declaring their inseparable oneness...

A number of what we might call epigrams concerning one's will, determination, spirituality, and other foci of interest. - Summary by KevinS

This is a book of poetry by Myrtle Reed. Ms. Reed is most famous for her love stories such as A Spinner in the Sun and Old Rose and Silver, and these sonnets are an exploration of the same theme through a different medium. - Summary by Carolin

A series of six volumes of Wheels anthologies was produced by members of the Sitwell family, the first in 1916. Apart from Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, the poets represented in the series include Nancy Cunard, whose family founded the Cunard shipping line, Aldous Huxley and Wilferd Owen, as well as a number of more obscure writers. - Summary by Algy Pug

Known for her whimsical verse and rhythmic, lilting poems Nathalia Crane was a child prodigy who published her first volume of poetry at the age of 10. There was nothing in her poems that indicated her age. Her delightful verse, and her maturity and insightfulness in poems such as The History of Honey, The Army Laundress, The Reading Boy, The Three Cornered Lot, and The Commonplace, won her recognition among poets. - Summary by AnnaLisa Bodtker

Nathaniel Parker Willis is also known as N. P. Willis. He was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs.

This is a volume of 25 sonnets by American poet Nixon Waterman. The sonnets are written from the perspective of a school boy, and are very humorous, supported by some excellent illustrations by John A. Williams. - Summary by Carolin

“Hymns to the Night” is the last published work of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801), the German philosopher and early Romantic poet whose pen name was simply “Novalis”. The work alternates poetry and prose, exploring a personal mythology of darkness and light, but it is also a free-associative chronicle of a young man rationalizing the untimely death of his fiancé. This version (1897) was translated by influential fantasy author and novelist George MacDonald, who cited it as a great – and early – inspiration.

The Kitten's Garden of Verses is a book of short poetry, modeled after Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Of course, the poems in this book are intended for kittens rather than children!

This is a small collection of whimsical poems by the American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. "The Deacon's Masterpiece" describes the "logical" outcome of building an object (in this case, a two-wheeled carriage called a shay) that has no weak points. The economic term "one hoss shay," referring to a certain model of depreciation, derives its name from this poem. "How the Old Horse Won the Bet" is a lighthearted look at a horse race. Finally, "The Broomstick Train" is a wonderfully Halloween-y explanation of how an electric tram really works.

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Chambered Nautilus by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for July 3, 2022. ------ The poet discovers an abandoned nautilus shell on the beach, and examining it, muses metaphorically about the beauty and precision of nature, the benefits of struggle, and the motive power of passion which propelled this creature through its life to build this magnificent edifice. It is through the example of the tiny nautilus, growing bigger...

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (Persian: رباعیات عمر خیام) is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A Persian ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistechs) per line, hence the word "Rubáiyát" (derived from the Arabic root word for "four"), meaning "quatrains". (Introduction by Wikipedia) The three translations by women comprise this collection of recordings of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Richard le Gallienne was an English poet and critic, who, although unfamiliar with the Persian language, had a profound interest in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. In 1897 he published a collection of 211 quatrains, which was based on earlier English translations, in particular the prose version by Justin Huntly McCarthy. A expanded edition, containing fifty additional quatrains was published in 1901, and this has been used for the present recording.

The translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald has remained the most celebrated rendering in English of the Persian poet's work. While several other scholars produced their own translations of the Rubaiyat, yet others contented themselves by just paraphrasing the work of Fitzgerald. This recording features three reworkings of previously published translations. Arthur Guiterman and Ruel William Whitney based their renderings on the Fifth Edition of Fitzgerald's translation and Richard Le Gallienne, a distinguished poet in his own right, compiled his version from a variety of sources, in particular the prose translation by Justin Huntly McCarthy...

In 1906, Eben Francis Thompson,scholar and poet, published a limited edition of his translation of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam. This edition contains 878 quatrains, and represents the most extensive translation of Omar's rubai in any language.In the Introduction, Nathan Haskell Dole writes: Mr Thompson has put into English verse this whole body of Persian poetry. It is a marvel of close translation, accurate and satisfactory. He has succeeded in doing exactly what he set out to do - to add nothing and to take nothing away, but to put into the typical quatrain, as determined by Fitzgerald and others, exactly what Omar and his unknown imitators said.

One of the earliest versions of Omar Khayyám's quatrains by an American translator is John Leslie Garner's collection, published in 1888. It contains 152 quatrains, which the translator calls "Strophes." The collection is divided into eleven books, introduced by quotations from Bourne's "Anacreon," Leconte de Lisle, Giordano Bruno, Goethe, Alfred de Musset, Paul Bourget, Marcus Antoninus, St. James, Sully-Prudhomme, Edmund Waller, and Escriva.In his preface Garner says : "The collection might have been made much larger, but it was deemed inadvisable, as Omar's themes are not many, and the ever-recurring Wine, Rose, and Nightingale are somewhat cloying to Occidental senses...

In 1867 Jean Baptiste Nicolas , scholar and career diplomat, published the first major French translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This version is in prose and the collection contains 464 verses.In Nicolas’ view, Omar was no Epicurean reveler but rather a relentless spiritual seeker – his frequent allusions to wine and lovers are metaphors, expressive of a divine discontent that can only be resolved by union with a mystical beloved. However, most other translators and commentators regard Omar as a man who sampled and enjoyed both earthly and philosophical delights...

While the translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald has become the best known English language version of this classic poem, it is neither the most complete or accurate rendering of Omar's oeuvre. Among others, E.A.Johnson spent nearly thirty years translating all 762 verses of the Lucknow Edition of the Rubaiyat. Apart from this singular publication, the life and activities of the translator remain hidden in obscurity. - Summary by Algy Pug

The quatrains of Omar Kheyyam of Nishapour. Now first completely done into English verse from the Persian, in accordance with the original forms, with a biographical and critical introduction by John Payne. London, "Printed for the Villon Society by private subscription and for private circulation only", 1898. - Summary by Algy Pug

”The Fisherman and his Soul” is a fairy tale first published in November of 1891 in Wilde’s “A House of Pomegranates”. It tells of a fisherman who nets and falls in love with a mermaid. But to be with her he must shed his soul, which goes off to have adventures of its own. Will forbidden love endure?

While at Trinity Collage, Wilde obtained a reputation for clever repartee and keen wit. He affected a superior air in his manners which irritated his fellow undergraduates, so that he once became the object of their practical joking. While at Oxford Wilde made his first essay in public as a writer by contributing several poems to Dublin magazines. - Temple Scott from the Introduction to Poems by Oscar Wilde

volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Dawn’s Awake! by Otto Leland Bohanan. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 9, 2020. ------ Otto Leland Bohanan was born around 1895 In Washington, D.C. He graduated from Howard University and taught English at the Catholic University. He also worked as a music instructor at DeWitt Clinton High School and died in 1932. This poem taken from James Weldon Johnson, ed. . The Book of American Negro Poetry. 1922. - Summary by David Lawrence

Brownies, like fairies and goblins, are imaginary little sprites, who are supposed to delight in harmless pranks and helpful deeds. They work and sport while weary households sleep, and never allow themselves to be seen by mortal eyes. Summary by Palmer Cox

What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They had felt, as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in music, in oratory, in several of the other arts, here was the first instance of an American negro who had evinced innate distinction in literature.

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of The Voice Of The Banjo by Paul Laurence Dunbar. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 3, 2019. ------ What struck me in reading Mr. Dunbar's poetry was what had already struck his friends in Ohio and Indiana, in Kentucky and Illinois. They had felt, as I felt, that however gifted his race had proven itself in music, in oratory, in several of the other arts, here was the first instance of an American negro who had evinced innate distinction in literature...

Poetry about African American Southern life - Summary by Denise Ray

The English Romantic Period in literature featured a towering group of excellent poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. If we add in forerunners Burns and Blake, we have perhaps an unmatchable collection of writers for any era. Of these, Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the brightest and best, coupling a giant intellect with a highly emotional and impetuous nature. He was always a champion of liberty, but was largely ignored when he tried to promote political and social reform. He...

The Masque of Anarchy was Shelley's response to the Peterloo massacre at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, where 18 died and hundreds were injured, after Hussars charged into a rally for parliamentary reform. Written in Italy in 1819, the poem was not published until 1832, ten years after Shelley's death. This reading is from the first published edition with the addition of three words that were inserted in full only in later additions ('Eldon' in Stanza IV and 'Bible' and 'Sidmouth' in Stanza VI). The poem is preceded by Leigh Hunt's preface to the 1932 edition and followed by Harry Buxton Forman's 1887 lecture on the poem to the Shelley Society.

LibriVox volunteers bring you eight recordings of "To A Skylark." This is the Fortnightly Poetry for August 8, 2014.To A Skylark was completed by Shelley in late June 1820. It was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with his wife Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon.

Philip Max Raskin was a Jewish poet about whose life not much can be found today. His poetry, however, lives on, and some poems are still well-known today. This volume contains a series of love-poems, sometimes conveying hope and happiness, sometimes longing and disappointment. - Summary by Carolin

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American to publish a book of poetry in 1773. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at age seven, and bought by a wealthy Massachusetts family who taught her to read and write. Her extraordinary literary gifts led to the publication of her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," and to her eventual emancipation by her owners. Although some of the poems demonstrate an apparent acceptance of the racist values of the white slave-owning classes (which viewed Africans as savage), Wheatley's considerable talents simultaneously contradicted these stereotypes.