National Poetry Month Reading List
April is National Poetry Month. Since 1996 the Academy of American Poets helps to celebrate poets, poetry, and the integral role in our culture that poetry plays. It also helps to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry. If you are a poet novice, try listening to some talking books for inspiration, attend a poetry reading in your area, or put pen to paper and see what happens!
Selected Poetry
A selection of the work of the English Romantic poet arranged chronologically from 1787-1834. The preface to the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads," dated 1800, is also included.
Book Length:
Digital Book Number: DB025601
The Decameron
Unexpurgated edition of the fourteenth-century Italian classic set against the background of the Black Death. These lusty, ribald tales are peopled by nobles, knights, abbots, nuns, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, artists, and, most of all, lovers. Some explicit descriptions of sex.
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Digital Book Number: DB008557
The Epic of Gilgamesh
English version of the adventures of the great King of Uruk in the third millenium B.C., including his fruitless search for immortality and his friendship with Enkidu, the wild man from the hills. Also alludes to the legend of the Flood, agreeing in many details with the Biblical story of Noah.
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Digital Book Number: DB019137
The Aeneid
Epic Latin poem composed by Virgil during the last ten years of his life, 29 to 19 B.C.E. Beginning with the legend of Aeneas, a Trojan hero who founded a settlement in Italy, celebrates the Roman Empire's expansion and the achievements of Emperor Augustus. Verse translation by Robert Fagles. 2006.
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Digital Book Number: DB064204
The Odyssey
A Greek epic poem attributed to Homer recounts the adventures of Odysseus during his ten-year journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. This translation by Robert Fitzgerald won the 1961 Bollingen Award for the best translation of a poem into English.
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Digital Book Number: DB043541
The Iliad
New translation by Robert Fitzgerald of the Greek epic poem written during the 8th century B.C. and attributed to the Ionian poet, Homer. Relates the events of the few days of battle near the end of the Trojan War and focuses on the withdrawal of Achilles from the fight and its disastrous effects on the Greek campaign.
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Digital Book Number: DB009489
The Portable Walt Whitman
Anthology of prose and poetry by the nineteenth-century American poet. Includes selections from 'Leaves of Grass,' 'Specimen Days', 'Democratic Vistas,' and much of 'A Backward Glance o'er Traveled Roads,' with an introduction by editor Mark Van Doren.
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Digital Book Number: DB019996
The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs
An epic poem drawn from Norse mythology that tells the tragic story of Norse hero Sigmund, his son Sigurd, and Sigurd's wife Gudrun. 1876.
Book Length: 14 hours, 47 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB104031
P is for Palmetto: A South Carolina Alphabet
P is for Palmetto is a collection of evocative pages of watercolor that covers this beautiful southeastern state from A to Z. Carol Crane captures the diverse features of South Carolina with her flowing verse and solid expository text, while, within the images of Mary Whyte, you can almost envision yourself standing in the vast cotton fields and walking along the sandy shores of its stunning coastline. South Carolinians, young and old, will treasure P is for Palmetto and educators will find its two-tiered teaching format extremely useful in their classrooms. For grades 2-6. Unrated.
Book Length: 25 minutes
Digital Book Number: DBC16488
Synthesizing Gravity Selected Prose
Pulitzer Prize-winner and former United States Poet Laureate presents a collection of thirty-two previously published works of prose. In "I Go to the AWP," she recounts going to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference after spending her entire career to that point avoiding it. 2020.
Book Length: 6 hours, 25 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB100002
Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
Includes much of Poe's poetry, a selection of his critical writing on poets and poetry, and a literary-biographical introduction to Poe. For junior and senior high and adult readers.
Book Length: 5 hours, 10 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB016005
Sprints and Distances: Sports in Poetry and the Poetry in Sport
A collection ranging from lighthearted newspaper verse to works by such poets as Wordsworth and Yeats. For grades 5-8 and older sports fans.
Book Length: 2 hours, 52 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB016561
We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices
Poems, letters, personal essays, songs, and other works from children's authors such as Jacqueline Woodson, Jason Reynolds, Kwame Alexander, Andrea Pippins, Sharon Draper, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Ellen Oh. Anthology empowers youth to listen, learn, and build a better tomorrow. Commercial audiobook. For grades 3-6 and up. 2018.
Book Length: 1 hour, 44 minutes
Digital Book Number: DB093035