Social Poetry

Doing Time: For the prison writers whose work is included in this anthology, it means more than "serving a sentence"; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one's humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers' organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. The contest honors the best short stories, plays, essays, and poems among hundreds submitted annually by men and women nationwide.

I forget things too. It makes me sad. Or it makes me the saddest. The sadness is not really about George W. or our American optimism; the sadness lives in the recognition that a life can not matter. The award-winning poet Claudia Rankine, well known for her experimental multigenre writing, fuses the lyric and the essay in this politically and morally fierce examination of solitude in the rapacious and media-driven assault on selfhood that is contemporary America.

Before Josh and Jordan Bell were streaking up and down the court, their father was learning his own moves. In this prequel to Newbery Medal winner The Crossover, Chuck Bell takes center stage, as listeners get a glimpse of his childhood and how he became the jazz music worshiping basketball star his sons look up to. A novel in verse with all the impact and rhythm listeners have come to expect from Kwame Alexander, Rebound will go back in time to visit the childhood of Chuck "Da Man" Bell during one pivotal summer when young Charlie is sent to stay with his grandparents, where he discovers basketball and learns more about his family's past.

Under the order of King Pelias, Jason embarks on a perilous journey to steal the Golden Fleece from the Land of Colchis. Far from heroic, Jason is the typical everyman. Often compared with Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts is the only surviving poem from the Hellenistic period and was hugely influential on later literature, especially the Roman poetry of Virgil and Ovid.

As we open up to life and love and each other, as we awaken from our dream of separation, we encounter not just the bliss of existence, but its pain, too; not only life's ecstasy, but also its agony. Healing doesn't always feel good or comfortable or even "spiritual", for we are inevitably forced to confront our shadows, fears, and deepest longings - those secret parts of ourselves that we have denied, repressed, or deemed "negative" and unworthy of our love.

Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights is a genre-defying collection of essays that record the small joys that occurred in one year, from birthday to birthday, and that we often overlook in our busy lives. His is a meditation on delight that takes a clear-eyed view of the complexities, even the terrors, in his life, including living in America as a Black man; the ecological and psychic violence of our consumer culture; the loss of those he loves.

In his new verse novel, Joseph Coelho brilliantly blends Greek myth with a 21st century quest. In Ancient Greece Theseus makes a dangerous and courageous journey to find his father, finally meeting the Minotaur in the Labyrinth. While Theo, a modern-day teenage boy, finds himself on a maze-like quest to find his own father. Each story tells of a boy becoming a man and discovering what true manhood really means.

Kahlil Gibran wrote prolifically and passionately in Arabic as well as English. First published in 1965 with nine works of poetry translated by Joseph Sheban, Mirrors of the Soul includes writings by Gibran that are as poignant today as when first written, such as “The New Frontier” and “The Sea.” These poems illuminate the dual nature of Gibran, who lived in the shadows both of New York skyscrapers and the cedars of his childhood Lebanon.

Dumpty: The Age of Trump in Verse is a satirical poetry collection from award-winning actor and best-selling author John Lithgow. Chronicling the last few raucous years in American politics, Lithgow takes listeners verse by verse through the history of Donald Trump's presidency.

The idea of sexual fluidity may seem new, but it is at least as old as the ancient Greeks, who wrote about queer experiences with remarkable frankness, wit, and insight. How to Be Queer is an infatuating collection of these writings about desire, love, and lust between men, between women, and between humans and gods, in lucid and lively new translations.

From award-winning Irish author Meg Grehan comes an accessible and beautifully crafted middle-grade novel-in-verse about Stevie, a young girl reckoning with anxiety about the many things she has yet to understand - including her feelings about her friend Chloe.

For the past decade, Lemn Sissay has composed a short poem as dawn breaks each morning. Life-affirming, witty and full of wonder, these poems chronicle his own battle with the dark and are fuelled by resilience and defiant joy. Let the Light Pour In is a collection of the best of these poems, and a book celebrating this morning practice.

When Crab finds a new shell, he doesn’t want to share it with anyone - especially not a blobby purple anemone and a tickly bristleworm. But life in the rock pool proves tougher than Crab thinks and he soon finds he needs his new housemates. Sharing a Shell is a charming underwater tale of friendship and fun from the stellar picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhythmic verse, charmingly read by Julian Clary, this is a firm favourite with children and parents alike.

The Fable of the Bees—a satirical poem, prose discussion, three essays and six dialogues completed in 1729—exposes human vices but defends them as a necessity within a wealthy society. Mandeville’s bees thrive until they start living by honesty and virtue… then they are impoverished. Mandeville did not play by the rules: he satirized the sins of society but also ridiculed the widespread hypocrisy of deploring these sins whilst reaping their benefits. He and his work were attacked for the rest of the century.

Night Monkey and Day Monkey's worlds are as different as … night and day! What one fears, the other loves, what one understands only confuses the other. But in learning about each other's opposite worlds, they also learn to be the best of friends. Boisterous and rhythmic fun from Julia Donaldson, the creator of The Gruffalo. Read by Imelda Staunton.

Ever since Ellie wore a whale swimsuit and made a big splash at her fifth-birthday party, she's been bullied about her weight. To cope, she tries to live by the Fat Girl Rules - like "no making waves", "avoid eating in public", and "don't move so fast that your body jiggles". And she's found her safe space - her swimming pool - where she feels weightless in a fat-obsessed world. In the water, she can stretch herself out like a starfish and take up all the room she wants. It's also where she can get away from her mom, who thinks criticizing Ellie's weight will motivate her to diet.

The Narrow Road to the Interior and Hojoki are two of the best-loved works of their kind; famous for their beautiful, delicate verse and subtle insight into the human condition. It has been said of The Narrow Road that 'it was as if the very soul of Japan had itself written it'. It takes the form of a travel diary, and traces the poet's journey from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to the northern interior.

Sir John Betjeman, poet, broadcaster, journalist, prose writer and critic, was one of the best-loved figures of the 20th century. Betjeman was a prolific writer and his poems still resonate today. This release celebrates the centenary of Betjeman's birth.

In Poor, Caleb Femi explores the trials, tribulations, dreams and joys of young Black boys in 21st-century Peckham. He contemplates the ways in which they are informed by the built environment of concrete walls and gentrifying neighbourhoods that form their stage, writes a coded, near-mythical history of the personalities and sagas of his South London youth and pays tribute to the rappers and artists who spoke to their lives.

The Chicago Race Riot of 1919, the most intense of the riots comprising the nation's Red Summer, has shaped the last century but is not widely discussed. In 1919, award-winning poet Eve L. Ewing explores the story of this event - which lasted eight days and resulted in 38 deaths and almost 500 injuries - through poems recounting the stories of everyday people trying to survive and thrive in the city. Ewing uses speculative and Afrofuturist lenses to recast history and illuminates the thin line between the past and the present.