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Sirens Three — Queen Summer

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Chapter: 2 | Listen: 1

Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) was a renowned artist and the illustrator of numerous books, among them “The Happy Prince and Other Stories” by Oscar Wilde and Edmund Spenser’s “Faerie Queene” as well as many collections of Fairy Stories. He is considered as one of the most influential and indeed prolific illustrators and creators of children’s books. This is a recording of two short books containing one poem each written and beautifully illustrated by Crane, “The Sirens Three” from 1886 (black and white illustrations in the second section of the book) and “Queen Summer” from 1891 (with coloured illustrations). (Summary by Noel Badrian) [chương_files]

Mice & Other Poems

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Chapter: 19 | Listen: 1

Gerald William Bullett was a British man of letters. He was known as a novelist, essayist, short story writer, critic and poet. He wrote both supernatural fiction and some children’s literature. “Mice & Other Poems” is one of a series of small volumes of poetry published after WWI mostly by graduates of the University of Cambridge. The doyen of “Cambridge English”, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, had this to say about the series: “That since the War, young men in extraordinary numbers have taken to expressing themselves in verse is a plain fact, not to be denied: that they choose, as often as not, to express themselves in ‘numbers’ extraordinary to us can as hardly be contested. But the point is, they have a crowding impulse to say something; and to say it with the emotional seriousness proper to Poetry. For my part, I love the discipline of verse: but I love the impulse better. Time will soften—I hope not too soon, lest it sugar down and sentimentalise—a certain bitterness of resentment observable in this booklet and its next followers: but, as nothing in verse is nobler than true tradition, anything is more hopeful than convention.” – Summary by John Burlinson [chương_files]

Collected Public Domain Poems of Wallace Stevens, Volume 2

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Chapter: 43 | Listen:

A collection of Wallace Stevens poems written before 1923. These poems originally appeared in a variety of magazines (Others, Rogue, The Soil, The Modern School, Broom, Contact, The New Republic, The Measure, The Little Review, The Dial, and particularly in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.) Nearly 70 of the 101 published poems were later collected in Stevens’ first published collection of poems, Harmonium. (Summary by Alan Davis Drake & Ruth Golding) Proof-listening by Winston Tharp, Hanna1990 and Ruth Golding. Volume 1 of this collection may be found at https://librivox.org/the-complete-public-domain-poems-of-wallace-stevens-volume-1-of-2/. [chương_files]

Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1

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Chapter: 22 | Listen:

The first of two volumes of collected poetry by this revered and highly influential English restoration poet and playwright. The poems, many quite long and elaborate, reflect the poet’s role in contemporary society, as political and religious commentator (religion, politics and royalty being closely associated at the period). The works include panegyrics to prominent and regal personages, extended allegories (as in “The Hind and the Panther”), and a few biting satires including a lampooning of a fellow playwright in “Mac Flecknoe”. “Annus Mirabilis” is a sort of historical roundup. ( Peter Tucker) [chương_files]

Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems

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Chapter: 30 | Listen:

This is a collection of poems on various topics by Vachel Lindsay. Please note that the Booker T. Washington trilogy had to be omitted from this collection. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Undying One and Other Poems

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Chapter: 43 | Listen:

“The Byron of our modern poetesses,” was the verdict of Henry Nelson Coleridge, the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing in an 1840 issue of The Quarterly Review about the poet Caroline Norton. Born Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan in 1808, she was the granddaughter of the famous Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On their introduction to London Society, Caroline and her two sisters were dubbed The Three Graces for their beauty and accomplishments. Her disastrous marriage to George Norton in 1827 ultimately led to her campaigning successfully to change those Laws of England relating to Divorce, child custody and women’s property rights. Caroline and her tragic experiences and life were the inspiration for many works by Victorian writers including Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens and George Meredith. She died in 1877. “The Undying One and Other Poems” published in 1830 was her second book. The title poem is an epic based on the legend of the Wandering Jew, the sinner who is doomed to roam the earth until Judgment Day. (Summary by Noel Badrian) [chương_files]

Psalms of David

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Chapter: 140 | Listen: 1

Isaac Watts was a poet, hymn-writer and musician. He wrote many of what we regard as “classical hymns” such as “Joy to the World” and “When I survey the wondrous cross”. His translations of the Psalms are therefore poetical and musical, as they were designed to be sung. He captures in elegant English the feel of the original Psalms as they would have been heard by the Israelites thousands of years ago. – Summary by Beth Thomas [chương_files]

Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume One

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Chapter: 121 | Listen: 1

Sit back and listen to these light-hearted witty rhymes and see the world Jonathan Swift saw — and maybe recognize your own. Think there is such a thing as corrupt rich guys who pretend they’re God’s gift to the world? So did Swift. Think some of these types strut around as if calls of nature don’t apply to them? So did Swift. In one hilarious poem, he even describes gold diggers fighting over the loaded gentleman’s gaseous offerings! His poem On Poetry, A Rhapsody, censored for treasonous mocking of the royal family, is in its rare uncensored form here. As free as he himself is with his sharp tongue against the blackened rich and corrupt , he knows others might have to kiss up to eat. So he includes many verses of advice on how to go about lying for a living, for example, “Your interest lies to learn the knack Of whitening what before was black.” Despite the decay and hypocrisy he sees all around him he stays upbeat throughout — even making fun out of his own tragic onset of deafness. You already know this giant of English literature for the great feast of prose he left us. Think of these delicious poems here as your sinful dessert. – Summary by Arthur Krolman [chương_files]

Burning Wheel

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Chapter: 31 | Listen:

Though Aldous Huxley is best known for his later novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. The Burning Wheel is his first work, a collection of thirty poems that pay homage in style to poets who wrote in the Romantic or the French symbolist styles. Many of the poems deal with themes of light, darkness, sight, music, art, war, and idealism vs. realism. Though the optimism in his early works waned as he became older, his characteristically optimistic and determined point of view shines through. – Summary by Mary Kay The last poem was read collaboratively by ezwa, AlgyPug and Larry Wilson. [chương_files]

War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon

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Chapter: 64 | Listen: 1

Siegfried Sassoon was one of the first to write poetry about the brutal reality of war, based on his real-life experiences in the trenches. He served in World War I on the Western Front and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire. However, he later became a convicted pacifist, threw his Military Cross into the Mersey river, and continued to write and publish poems and political statements against the war. His poems capture the despair he felt towards the war overall, and he paints vivid word pictures that make the reader “pray you’ll never know, the hell where youth and laughter go”. (Summary by Elizabby) Note: This work is in the public domain in the USA and Canada. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws. [chương_files]