Abraham Lincoln read it with approval, but Emily Dickinson described its bold language and themes as "disgraceful." Ralph Waldo Emerson found it "the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet produced." Published at the author's expense on July 4, 1855, Leaves of Grass inaugurated a new voice and style into American letters and gave expression to an optimistic, bombastic vision that took the nation as its subject. Unlike many...

The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays about Al-Mustafa who has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese for 12 years is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses many issues of life and the human condition. It is one of the most popular set of poems of all time.

"The author shares her childhood memories and reveals the first sparks that ignited her writing career in free-verse poems about growing up in the North and South"-- "Jacqueline Woodson, one of today's finest writers, tells the moving story of her childhood in mesmerizing verse. Raised in South Carolina and New York, Woodson always felt halfway home in each place. In vivid poems, she shares what it was like to grow up as an African American in the...

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). The tales, some of which are originals and others not, are contained inside a frame tale and told by a collection of pilgrims on a pilgrimage from Southwark to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The Canterbury Tales are written in Middle English. Keywords: Canterbury...

A boy who turns into a TV set and a girl who eats a whale are only two of the characters in a collection of humorous poetry illustrated with the author's own drawings.

"Originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated, this poem is a love letter to black life in the United States. It highlights the unspeakable trauma of slavery, the faith and fire of the civil rights movement, and the grit, passion, and perseverance of some of the world's greatest heroes. The text is also peppered with references to the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others, offering deeper insights into the...

The dead arise from their sleep in the cemetery of a small town to tell their individual stories about an entire community caught in a web of scandal, sin, and vice in the early twentieth century.

Story of the fiercely independent Janie Crawford and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose.

“Chicago Poems” is an early collection of poems by American writer, poet, and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Carl Sandburg. Published in 1916 and his first by a mainstream publisher, this collection was a critical success and began Sandburg's career as a notable writer. Sandburg was a champion of an American form of social realism that celebrated American people, industry, and agriculture. He expressed this sentiment in an easy-to-read and plain-speaking...

A collection of poetry, including King John's Christmas, Sneezles, Us Two, Cradle Song, and other poems from the life and imagination of a small child.