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The Ars Poetica, by Horace, also known as Epistula ad Pisones, is a treatise on poetry written in the form of a letter, and published around 18 B.C. In it, Horace defines and exemplifies the nature, scope and correct way of writing poetry. This work, inspired by the book of the same name by Aristotle, is one of the most influential in Latin literature, and the source of famous concepts in poetics, such as in medias res and ut pictura poesis. The text itself is a poem in 476 dactilic hexameters.The Carmen Saeculare, or Song of the Ages, is a hymn written by Horace in 17 b.C. for the Ludi saeculares of the same year. It is believed that the poem was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus and sung by a choir of young men and women during the opening ceremony of the Games of the Century, a religious celebration that happened in Rome once every saeculum (century). The saeculum was considered to be the maximum length of a human life, which means the Games happened once every generation. The poem was written is nineteen sapphic stanzas, and in an elevated and religious tone. (Summary by Leni)...

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Poetry

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The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. With more than 74,000 verses, Mahabharata is said to be the longest poem. Mahabharata tells the story of the epic Kurukshetra War and the fates of the cousin brothers Kauravas and the Pandavas. But more than that the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four goals of life or 'purusharthas'. The latter are enumerated as dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation). (Introduction by om123)...

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Poetry

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volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Raleigh. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 14, 2012. The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd, sometimes called 'Her Reply' was written in response to Christopher Marlowe's The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. (Summary by David Lawrence)...

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Poetry, Humor, Nature, Philosophy, Romance

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volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Day-Dream by Sir Thomas Moore. This was the fortnightly poetry project for July 12th, 2009.

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Poetry, Literature, Philosophy, Romance

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volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Impartiality by James Russell Lowell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 16, 2011. James Russell Lowell was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat. He is associated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers who were among the first American poets who rivaled the popularity of British poets. These poets usually used conventional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Poetry, Literature, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 18 recordings of The House by the Side of the Road by Sam Walter Foss. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 15, 2012. Sam Walter Foss was an American librarian and poet whose works included The House by the Side of the Road and The Coming American. Foss used to write a poem a day for the newspapers, and his five volumes of collected poetry are of the frank and homely “common man” variety. Longtime baseball announcer Ernie Harwell alluded to one of Foss's poems whenever he described a batter taking a called third strike: He stood there like the house by the side of the road and watched it go by. ( Summary from Wikipedia )...

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Poetry, Instruction, Nature, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Life by Sir Walter Raleigh. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 25th, 2010.

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Philosophy, Poetry

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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. (Summary by Algy Pug)...

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Poetry, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Old Ireland by Walt Whitman. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for August 1st, 2010.

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Philosophy, Poetry

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volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Be Kind When You Can by Eliza Cook. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 30, 2011. Eliza Cook was an English author, Chartist poet and writer born in London Road, Southwark. She was the daughter of a local tradesman. She attended the local Sunday Schools and was encouraged by the son of the music master to produce her first volume of poetry. From this she took confidence and in 1837 began to offer verse to the radical Weekly Dispatch, then edited by William Johnson Fox. She was a staple of its pages for the next ten years. She also offered material to The Literary Gazette, Metropolitan Magazine and New Monthly. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Literature, Poetry, Advice, Instruction, Philosophy, Romance

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The Tang Dynasty (618 to 907) was a golden age of Chinese culture: religion and philosophy, painting and calligraphy, sculpture, architecture and music all reached peaks of perfection. Poetry was the epitome of the arts: a scholastic requirement, a route to fame, a moulder of character. Nearly 50,000 poems of the Tang have survived. The collection 'Three Hundred Tang Poems' was compiled around 1763. It comprises six volumes, with poems grouped by verse form. Volume 1 covers the 'ancient verse' style in five-character lines (poems 1 to 35), and 'folk song style verse' (36 to 45). The masters Li Bai, Du Fu and Wang Wei are well represented here. Recordings in this volume are in Cantonese, Hokkien, Mandarin and Taiwanese, as indicated in the titles; some are spoken, others are sung. (Summary by David Barnes)...

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Poetry

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This week we’re marking the American Memorial Day with eleven readings of a John Donne poem. Memorial Day was conceived as a time to remember military men and women who had lost their lives in war. Kings and presidents come and go and some of the reasons that wars have come about are now lost from memory or are obscured in our history texts. A consistent aspect of war is that those who fight them are not those who arrange them. The soldiers and sailors who suffer loss of limb, scarred minds or forfeit their lives mostly come from the lower and middle rungs of our societal ladder. They are our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. Once gone, it is the family who notices the empty chair at the family table while society at large knows not their name. Death has captured them and taken them forever from our midst. It has become personal and not a vague philosophical idea. The theme of Donne’s poem is that, though Death is irresistible, it has no cause to be proud. The human spirit and its hope for redemption is indomitable. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of May 27th, 2006. (S...

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Poetry

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volunteers bring you 16 recordings of In Harmony with Nature. by Matthew Arnold. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 8, 2012. Matthew Arnold was a British poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, literary professor, and William Delafield Arnold, novelist and colonial administrator. Matthew Arnold has been characterized as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. Arnold is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

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Poetry, Advice, Instruction, Nature, Philosophy

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of What Is Love? by Ernest Dowson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 15, 2012. Ernest Christopher Dowson, born in Lee, London, was an English poet, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the Decadent movement. Dowson is best remembered for some vivid phrases, such as days of wine and roses from his poem Vitae Summa Brevis....

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Poetry, Nature, Philosophy

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Written in the first century b.C., On the Nature of Things (in Latin, De Rerum Natura ) is a poem in six books that aims at explaining the Epicurean philosophy to the Roman audience. Among digressions about the importance of philosophy in men's life and praises of Epicurus, Lucretius created a solid treatise on the atomic theory, the falseness of religion and many kinds of natural phenomena. With no harm to his philosophical scope, the author composed a didactic poem of epic flavor, of which the imagery and style are highly praised. (Summary by Leni)...

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Poetry, Nature, Science

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volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Hill by Rupert Brooke. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 15, 2011. Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War (especially The Soldier). He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats to describe him as the handsomest young man in England. (summary from Wikipedia)...

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Poetry, Memoirs, Nature, Philosophy, Romance

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Maritime and metaphysical verse by John Masefield, English poet and author, Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1930 until his death. (Summary by Liam Neely)...

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Sea stories, Poetry, Philosophy

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This is a collection of short poems and readings, both religious and secular, on death and bereavement. (Summary by Ruth Golding)

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Poetry, Philosophy, Religion

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volunteers bring you 14 recordings of In the Old Church Tower by Thomas Bailey Aldrich. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 14, 2012. Very lovely poem. - Caprisha Page This seems like a nice nostalgic poem of a small town landmark. - Leonard Wilson...

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Poetry, Memoirs, Philosophy, Religion

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volunteers bring you 5 recordings of To the Man of the High North by Robert Service. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 28, 2010. Robert William Service (January 16, 1874 – September 11, 1958) was a poet and writer, sometimes referred to as the Bard of the Yukon. His writing was so expressive that his readers took him for a hard-bitten old Klondike prospector, not the later-arriving bank clerk he actually was. In addition to his Yukon works, Service also wrote poetry set in locales as diverse as South Africa, Afghanistan, and New Zealand....

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Adventure, Fiction, Instruction, Literature, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry