The Ramayanam (Sanskrit: रामायणम्।, Rāmāyaṇam, pronounced [rɑːˈmɑːjəɳəm]) is one of the great Hindu epics. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu literature (smṛti), considered to be itihāasa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of Hinduism, the other being the Mahabharata. It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife, and the ideal king. The name Ramayana is a tatpurusha compound of Rāma and ayana ("going, advancing"), translating to "Rama's Journey". The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses in seven books (kāṇḍas) and 500 cantos (sargas), and tells the story of Rama (an avatar of the Hindu supreme-god Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, the king of Lanka (current day Sri Lanka). Incidentally the first letter of every 1000 verses (total 24) make the Gayatri mantra. Thematically, the Ramayana explores human values and the concept of dharma.

Verses in the Ramayana are written in a 32-syllable meter called anuṣṭubh. The Ramayana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and culture. Like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teachings of ancient Hindu sages (Vedas) in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical and devotional elements. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharata, Hanuman, and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Nepal, and many south-east Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia. (Full article...)

Wystan Hugh Auden (/ˈwɪstən ˈhjuː ˈɔːdən/; 21 February 1907 – 29 September 1973), who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet, born in England, later an American citizen, and is regarded by many critics as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. The central themes of his poetry are love, politics and citizenship, religion and morals, and the relationship between unique human beings and the anonymous, impersonal world of nature.

Auden grew up in and near Birmingham in a professional middle-class family and read English literature at Christ Church, Oxford. His early poems from the late 1920s and early 1930s, written in an intense and dramatic tone and in a style that alternated between telegraphic modern and fluent traditional, established his reputation as a left-wing political poet and prophet. In the late 1930s he became uncomfortable in this role and abandoned it after he moved to the United States in 1939, where in 1946 he became an American citizen. In his poems from the 1940s he explored religious and ethical themes in a less dramatic manner than in his earlier works, and combined traditional forms and styles with new, original forms. The focus of many of his poems from the 1950s and 1960s was on the ways in which words revealed and concealed emotions. He took a particular interest in writing opera librettos, a form ideally suited to direct expression of strong feelings.

He was also a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological and religious subjects, and he worked at various times on documentary films, poetic plays and other forms of performance. Throughout his career he was both controversial and influential. After his death, some of his poems, notably "Funeral Blues" ("Stop all the clocks"), "Musée des Beaux Arts", "Refugee Blues", "The Unknown Citizen", and "September 1, 1939", became known to a much wider public than during his lifetime through films, broadcasts, and popular media. (Full article...)

• ... that newspapers in Brazil printed cake recipes and 16th-century poetry to cover material censored by the military dictatorship?
• ... that Mexican poet Francisco de Terrazas was praised by Don Quixote author Miguel de Cervantes?
• ... that Eritrean poet Yirgalem Fisseha Mebrahtu was imprisoned for six years without trial, and later published poems in Tigrinya based on her experience?
• ... that Walt Whitman's poem "The Sleepers" contains "one of the most powerful and evocative passages about slavery in American literature"?
• ... that Langston Hughes allowed his poem "Mississippi–1955", written in response to Emmett Till's lynching, to be republished in all newspapers that wanted to?
• ... that a line from the 1899 poem "Sympathy" provided the title for Maya Angelou's autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings?

A Mountain Home by Heinrich Heine

On the mountain stands the shieling,   Where the good old miner dwells; Green firs rustle, and the moonbeams   Gild the mountain heights and fells. In the shieling stands an armchair,   Carven quaint and cunningly; Happy he who rests within it,   And that happy guest am I. On the footstool sits the lassie,   Leans upon my lap her head; Eyes of blue, twin stars in heaven,   Mouth as any rosebud red. And the blue eyes gaze upon me,   Limpid, large as midnight skies; And the lily finger archly   On the opening rosebud lies. "No, the mother cannot see us –   At her wheel she spins away; Father hears not-he is singing   To the zitter that old lay." So the little maiden whispers,   Softly, that none else may hear, Whispers her profoundest secrets   Unmistrusting in my ear. Now that auntie's dead, we cannot   Go again to Goslar, where People flock to see the shooting:   'Tis as merry as a fair. And up here it's lonely, lonely,   On the mountain bleak and drear; For the snow lies deep in winter;   We are buried half the year. And, you know, I'm such a coward,   Frightened like a very child At the wicked mountain spirits,   Goblins who by night run wild." Suddenly the sweet voice ceases;   Startled with a strange surprise At her own words straight the maiden   Covers with both hands her eyes. Louder outdoors moans the fir-tree,   And the wheel goes whirring round; Snatches of the song come wafted   With the zitter's fitful sound. Fear not, pretty one, nor tremble   At the evil spirits' might; Angels, dearest child, are keeping   Watch around thee day and night.