Cranston Public Library

One of the most striking and original achievements in American poetry is now available in a remarkable edition that comprehends the poet and his book in an entirely new way. This edition of Spoon River Anthology probes the social background of the smalltown world that Edgar Lee Masters loved and hated--and finally transmuted into powerful literary art. Extensive annotations identify the people whose lives inspired the 243 poetic accounts of frustration,...

Composed toward the end of the first millennium of our era, Beowulf is the elegiac narrative of the adventures of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero who saves the Danes from the seemingly invincible monster Grendel and, later, from Grendel's mother. He then returns to his own country and dies in old age in a vivid fight against a dragon. The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then having to live on in the exhausted aftermath. In...

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. Come in - for where the sidewalk ends, Shel Silverstein's world begins. The Unicorn and the Bloath live there, and so does Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who will not take the garbage out. It is a place where you wash your shadow and plant diamond gardens, a place where shoes fly, sisters...

A collection of poems evoking the world and feelings of childhood, including "The land of Counterpane," "My Shadow," "The Swing," "The Moon," and "Looking Forward," complemented by digitally restored, retro-style illustrations by two Caldecott Medalists.

"The presidential inaugural poet--and unforgettable new voice in American poetry--presents a collection of poems that includes the stirring poem read at the inauguration of the 46th President of the United States." -- Gorman explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Harnessing the collective grief of a global pandemic, her poems shine a light on a moment of reckoning and reveal that Gorman has...

Pilgrims on their way to worship at the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket in Canterbury stop at the Tabard Inn. They represent a cross-section of medieval English society. To amuse themselves on their journey, they agree that each will tall a tale that really tells much about each individual. This is often called the first book of peotry written in English.

"A smash up of art and text that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now"--

Verses for children. Blackstone Audiobooks presents, from the unabridged collection "A.A. Milne's Pooh Classics," the forty-four poems and verses from "When we were very young" and the thirty-five poems and verses from "Now we are six", both performed by Peter Dennis. This is the only reading of these delightful verses authorized by A.A. Milne's son, Christopher Robin.

"Irene Latham, who is white, and Charles Waters, who is black, present paired poems about topics including family dinners, sports, recess, and much more. This relatable collection explores different experiences of race in America." --

"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 1960s and 1970s, living with the remnants of Jim Crow and her growing awareness of the Civil Rights movement. Touching and powerful, each poem is both accessible and...