Poetry

40 Poems from the Desert celebrates the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates with selected verses from the pen of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Featuring twenty-three previously published poems and thirteen new ones, these poems reveal the sensitive soul of our beloved ruler. In this special edition, the poems are illustrated with specially commissioned paintings by young emerging Emirati artists. They provide an enriching literary and visual experience for readers across all cultures.

*May this book find the person it needs to. May they find every word they were looking for.* **I know you don't want to talk sometimes. Sometimes because it hurts and sometimes because you're just not supposed to talk about what you want to talk about. Sometimes it can be hard to say, this is beautiful, when no one else can see what you see. Or, Here, this is where the pain is. But some part of you knows, the truth about the words you cannot say is that they only hurt until you say them. They only hurt until the person who needs to hear them, hears them. Because we are human, and the closest we've ever come to showing each other who we really are, and how we love, is with words. So I'm going to try to say to you here, what I wish you'd say to me too. Please. Listen. We can change things.

#1 New York Times bestseller Milk and Honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. About the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. The book is divided into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose. Deals with a different pain. Heals a different heartache. Milk and Honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Poetry has been a lifelong passion for Sheikh Mohammed. Al Mutanabi, Al Buhtori and Abu Tammam are his favourite classical poets voices that have enriched Arabic poetry. These influences, combined with the Gulf tradition of Nabati poetry, a form dear to him, due to its social and literary significance and with its roots based in this region, have given a particular quality to the poems published in this book. Sheikh Mohammed has been able to express a mature sensitivity through this medium and a love of thought and language. His poems help us to understand better the soul of a man and the heritage of the nation.

The final book from the world's favourite medium, who died in 2002, contains 101 original poems about life and commentaries on each one. Betty Shine died in March 2002 of heart failure, a bitter irony for a woman who spoke from the heart and devoted much of her life to healing others. Having spent the last decade of her life committing her thoughts and tales of her incredible experiences to paper in 11 popular and often best-selling books, Betty began experimenting with a new outlet for her unique philosophy of life -- poetry. Though she had written heartfelt poems for many years, it was only in her last year that it was finally recognized as being really special, when she began getting interest from professional record producers about setting some to music and turning a number of the verses into lyrics. It seemed that the musical instincts Betty had honed as a professional opera singer were showing themselves quite unwittingly in the way she wrote her poetry. This final book from Betty Shine collects together 101 of her poems, and is introduced by her daughter, Janet, who worked closely with Betty and has inherited many of her amazing psychic gifts. Janet provides a short introduction to each poem, allowing a unique intimacy into the background to each one. The collection is at once thought-provoking and inspiring, presenting an honest summary of so many of the thoughts and sentiments that made Betty's books so popular and stimulating. The wisdom enshrined in these pieces, will provide support and solace to her many devoted fans, as well as being the perfect introduction for those who have yet to be touched by the magic of Betty Shine.

Poet, artist and mystic Kahlil Gibran was born in 1883 to a poor Christian family in Lebanon and emigrated to the United States as an adolescent. His masterpiece, The Prophet, a book of poetic essays written in his youth, has sold over eight million copies in more than twenty languages since its first publication in 1923. But all Gibran's works - essays, stories, parables, prose poems - are imbued with equally powerful simplicity and wisdom, whether meditating upon love, marriage, friendship, work, pleasure, time or grief. Perhaps no other twentieth-century writer has touched the hearts and minds of so remarkably varied and widespread a readership.Included in this volume are The Madman, The Forerunner, The Prophet, Sand and Foam, Jesus the Son of Man, Earth Gods, The Wanderer, The Garden of the Prophet, Prose Poems, Spirits Rebellious, Nymphs of the Valley and A Tear and a Smile.

Read this stunning translation of Homer's great war epic, the legendary tale of honour, love, loss and revenge during the fall of the city of Troy. High on Olympus, Zeus and the assembled deities look down on the world of men, to the city of Troy where a bitter and bloody war has dragged into its tenth year, and a quarrel rages between a legendary warrior and his commander. Greek ships decay, men languish, exhausted, and behind the walls of Troy a desperate people await the next turn of fate. This is the Iliad: an ancient story of enduring power; magnetic characters defined by stirring and momentous speeches; a panorama of human lives locked in a heroic struggle beneath a mischievous or indifferent heaven. Above all, this is a tale of the devastation, waste and pity of war. Caroline Alexander's virtuoso translation captures the rhythms and energy of Homer's original Greek while making the text as accessible as possible to a modern reader, accompanied by extensive extra material to provide a background to the poem. The result of 3,000 years of story-telling, Homer's epic tale of the fall of Troy has resonated with every age and every human conflict: this is the Iliad at its most electrifying and vital.

HarperCollins is proud to present its new range of best-loved, essential classics. 'Alas that mortals Should blame the gods! From us, they say, All evils come. Yet they themselves It is who through defiant deeds Bring sorrow on them-far more sorrow Than fate would have them bear.' Attributed to the blind Greek poet, Homer, The Odyssey is an epic tale about cunning and strength of mind. It takes its starting point ten years after the fall of the city of Troy and follows its Greek warrior hero Odysseus as he tries to journey to his home of Ithaca in northwest Greece after the Greek victory over the Trojans. On his travels, Odysseus comes across surreal islands and foreign lands where he is in turn challenged and supported by those that he meets on his travels as he attempts to find his way back home in order to vanquish those who threaten his estate. In turn, his son Telemachus has to grow up quickly as he attempts to find his father and protect his mother from her suitors. Dealing with the universal themes of temptation and courage, the epic journey that Odysseus undertakes is as meaningful today as it was almost 3,000 years ago when the story was composed.