Audio only
Length5h 9m
About this audiobook
Read by Ellen Burstyn
The legendary Academy Award–winning actress reflects on her love affair with poetry and makes us believers.
In this beautiful book, Ellen Burstyn celebrates poetic magic and shares her favorite works. Now into her nineties, Ellen reveals she had an evangelical response to learning poetry even as a child and would memorize and recite the works of Edna St Millay to envelope herself in the poet’s deeper emotional landscape. As she continued her epic rise through film and theater—eventually winning an Oscar, a Tony, a BAFTA, and an Emmy—poetry gave voice to her experience as no other literary art form could. She never went anywhere without her curated “poetry pack.” No matter where she was in the world, while waiting on set, in rehearsal, on a train, or just relaxing, she found comfort in verse.
For nearly nine decades, poetry has led Ellen on a life of adventure, from a pilgrimage to Rumi’s birthplace to a friendship with Maya Angelou, during which the poet read her work in Ellen’s movie trailer, to selecting the poems to join her in love, in motherhood and in grief.
Featuring work by W.B. Yeats, Edna Vincent St. Millay, Rainer Maria Rilke, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allan Poe, William Ernest Henley, and others, Poetry Says It Better is a perfect daily companion for everyone looking to deepen and add meaning to their life experience. Throughout, Burstyn’s charming voice and luminous insights help readers meet her in this poetic celebration—soul to soul.
Audiobook details
GenrePoetry, Biography and Memoir, Literary Classics
Length5 hrs 9 mins
Narrated byEllen Burstyn
FormatAudiobook
Publish dateApr 28, 2026
LanguageEnglish
And the World Spins AnywayGeorgie Jones1h 45m$20 · $0.00
TerraformPropaganda5h 39m$24 · $0.00
The Essential NerudaPablo Neruda1h 55m$25
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (Illustrated Edition) (Annotated)Samuel Taylor Coleridge1h 57m$2 · $0.00
UnashamedHarry Baker1h 33m4 (1)$20 · $0.00
Maybe You Never Cry AgainBernie Mac4h 25m$20 · $0.00
Inquire WithinIn-Q2h 18m$16 · $0.00
The Poetic EddaJackson Crawford6h 24m$17
Poems of ParentingLoryn Brantz42m4 (1)$9 · $0.00
Emily DickinsonEmily Dickinson5h 23m$16
The Weary Blues (Annotated)Langston Hughes2h 13m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated)Edgar Allan Poe18h 27m$2 · $0.00
Stranger MusicLeonard Cohen5h 45m$20
The Essential Rumi, New Expanded EditionJalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi9h 24m$20
The Complete Poetry (Annotated)Oscar Wilde6h 44m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Works (Annotated)Robert Burns38h 34m$2 · $0.00
Saundarya LahariUnknown Author3h 16m5 (1)$18 · $0.00
Songs of a SourdoughRobert W. Service2h 13m$1 · $0.00
Little Flower of Jesus (Annotated)Thérèse of Lisieux5h 4m$2 · $0.00
The Poems of LeopardiGiacomo Leopardi3h 9m$2 · $0.00
Why Not Me? A Feeling of Millions (Hinglish)Unknown Author4h 8m5 (1)$20 · $0.00
Matters of the HeartJacinta Nampijinpa Price9h 35m$29 · $0.00
How to Test Negative for StupidJohn Kennedy8h 13m$28 · $0.00
Defying JihadEsther Ahmad8h 50m$20
Bad Fat Black GirlSesali Bowen6h 32m$24 · $0.00
Frederick Douglass: All 3 Memoirs in One VolumeFrederick Douglass42h 36m$1 · $0.00
Send MeMarty Skovlund, Joe Kent8h 10m$26 · $0.00
Ulysses S. Grant: Life of the Fearless General & Commander-in-Chief (Complete Edition - Volumes 1&2)Ulysses S. Grant30h 34m$2 · $0.00
Left for DeadEbony Canion5h 34m$17
Invisible StormJason Kander6h 48m$24 · $0.00
Forever BoyKate Swenson9h 27m$29 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m$29 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m$7 · $0.00
MotherlandJulia Ioffe17h 52m$40 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m$29 · $0.00
A Bridge Not Too FarDeepak Ohri4h 55m$15
Where Cowards Go to DieBenjamin Sledge8h 42m$20 · $0.00
Will You Love Me?Cathy Glass9h 5m$29 · $0.00
Designing Terry Pratchett’s DiscworldPaul Kidby3h 52m$20 · $0.00
HostageEli Sharabi5h 25m5 (1)$24 · $0.00
C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis38h 55m$30
The Jeeves and Wooster Stories: The Complete Collection (33 Books)P. G. Wodehouse21h 57m$15 · $0.00
The Gulag Archipelago Volume 3Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn21h 56m$46 · $0.00
Sherlock Holmes: The Ultimate CollectionArthur Conan Doyle59h 49m$5 · $0.00
The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Novels, Short Stories and Autobiographical WritingsFyodor Dostoyevsky270h 59m$2 · $0.00
The Bark Canoes and Skin Boats of North America (Annotated)Howard Irving Chapelle, Tappan Adney13h 10m$2 · $0.00
Charles Dickens: Complete Works (Annotated)Charles Dickens819h 4m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Novels of Jane Austen & Brontë Sisters (Annotated)Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë203h 52m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Works: Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Patrick & Branwell BrontëCharlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë138h 12m$1 · $0.00
The Complete Works of William ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare108h 44m$1.80 · $0.00
The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Annotated)Oscar Wilde126h 19m$2 · $0.00
L. M. Montgomery – Premium Collection: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry & MemoirsLucy Maud Montgomery155h 1m$2 · $0.00
The Complete Works of the Brontë Family Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë140h 13m$2 · $0.00
MARK TWAIN: 12 Novels, 195 Short Stories, Autobiography, 10 Travel Books, 160+ Essays & Speeches (Illustrated)Mark Twain415h 9m5 (2)$2 · $0.00
The Great Gatsby: Original 1925 Edition (An F. Scott Fitzgerald Classic NovelFrancis Scott Fitzgerald4h 45m$18 · $0.00
All NovelsGeorge Orwell53h 48m$10 · $0.00
The Complete Works of TolstoyLeo Tolstoy412h 44m$1 · $0.00
The Complete Works of Louisa May Alcott (Annotated)Louisa May Alcott226h 24m$2 · $0.00
Sherlock Holmes series - completeArthur Conan54h 8m$3.50 · $0.00
The Fire Next TimeJames Baldwin2h 25m$15
You may also like
Devotional Poetry for the Children. Second PartVarious1h 2m$2 · $0.00
GitanjaliRabindranath Tagore2h 45m$1 · $0.00
I'm Your ManSylvie Simmons18h 33m$40 · $0.00
Song So Wild and BluePaul Lisicky8h 58m$29 · $0.00
The Story of Opal: The Journal of an Understanding HeartOpal Stanley Whiteley7h 52m$1 · $0.00
LimelightSolli Raphael1h 48m$15
Velvet DragonfliesBilly Chapata1h 36m$15
SonglabAlex Forbes3h 47m$15 · $0.00
Tell Me Another StoryEmmy Marucci1h 34m$15
I Am EnoughGrace Byers4m$4 · $0.00
The UnfoldingArielle Estoria3h 56m$20 · $0.00
Heart Utterances at Various Periods of a Chequered LifeEliza Paul Gurney1h 12m$2 · $0.00
Everything Comes NextNaomi Shihab Nye3h 9m$18 · $0.00
Word After Word After WordPatricia MacLachlan1h 7m$13 · $0.00
soft magicUpile Chisala28m$2
I Give You the Springtime of My Blushing HeartDedan Gills, Belvie Rooks2h 9m$15
Hate That CatSharon Creech1h 3m$13 · $0.00
PoemsRalph Waldo Emerson6h 14m$2 · $0.00
HoneybeeNaomi Shihab Nye2h 46m$18 · $0.00
The AbbeyJames Martin5h 14m$20 · $0.00