Thousands of years in the past, men in Babylon try to build a tower that reaches heaven. One miner, in his exploration, learns the mind-baffling true shape of the world.

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,

Lonely and sickly, the Andalusian Hebrew poet Solomon ibn Gabirol creates a golem to care for him. But the golem possesses more life than he expected and kills him as well as several others before fleeing and starting a new life.

A middle-aged man working for a Jewish organization in New York plunges into a mid-life crisis when his wife and children leave him, leading him to rethink his religion and career choices.

A heartbroken man remembers his ex-lover while reading about the dramatic end to the relationship between two famous poets and listening to his favorite musician.

A professor tries to convey to his students the magnitude of the most perfectly crafted poem ever written in the English language: “Lycidas.”

In Iowa, a young violinist is asked to play at a famous poet's memorial. In the process, he gains a new perspective on who and why we grieve.

When a librarian finds a moving book of poetry among a donation, she is introduced to fellow lovers of the author's work who strive to preserve the poet's desire for privacy while commemorating her work.

A young British soldier returns to his home in Westminster after the war, only to find that both he and the city have been impacted by the cruelness of the war.

Drawing from Almeda Roth’s 1873 poetry collection Offerings and Roth’s town newspaper the Vidette, an unnamed researcher guides the reader through a rich biography of Roth’s personal affairs, love interest, and ultimate death.