id stringlengths 16 16 | title stringlengths 1 203 | author stringlengths 2 40 | poem stringlengths 1 87.3k | labels_l1 listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2 listlengths 0 15 | labels_l1_names listlengths 1 10 | labels_l2_names listlengths 0 15 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2cdf5f5f9da348aa | Mme. Sperides | Gregory Djanikian | Alexandria, 1956, after the nationalization
of the Suez Canal and all foreign capital
Perhaps her cook, come under the influence
Of a few discreet piastres, had spoken
Too indiscreetly. Or just perhaps,
On a hot day along the azure of the Mediterranean,
Rue Fouad bearing a stream of traffic
To Muhammed Ali Squar... | [
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d88a1e1286af0ab8 | Ballad of the Three Spectres | Ivor Gurney | As I went up by Ovillers In mud and water cold to the knee,There went three jeering, fleering spectres, That walked abreast and talked of me.
The first said, ‘Here’s a right brave soldier That walks the dark unfearingly;Soon he’ll come back on a fine stretcher, And laughing for a nice Blighty.’
The second, ‘R... | [
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"Living/Death & Dying"
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2945963db55abded | Letter to My Father | Martín Espada | October 2017
You once said: My reward for this life will be a thousand pounds of dirtshoveled in my face. You were wrong. You are seven pounds of ashes
in a box, a Puerto Rican flag wrapped around you, next to a red brick
from the house in Utuado where you were born, all crammed together
on my bookshelf. You taught... | [
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"Living/Mourning",
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875d1ee7774c721d | To Our Land | Mahmoud Darwish | To our land,
and it is the one near the word of god,
a ceiling of clouds
To our land,
and it is the one far from the adjectives of nouns,
the map of absence
To our land,
and it is the one tiny as a sesame seed,
a heavenly horizon ... and a hidden chasm
To our land,
and it is the one poor as a grouse’s wings,
... | [
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e1ecfa6cb82e09fa | Letter to a Friend, Unsent | Rebecca Lindenberg | I haven't written in a while
because I don't want to talk
about anything
I've been unable to stop
thinking about: the knotted thread
of bad capillaries on my retinae,
money, or that my morning was ruined
by the unusual tightness
of jeans around my thig... | [
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4404e68ba057dd3b | “It's raining, it's pouring ... ” | Mother Goose | It’s raining, it’s pouring, The old man’s snoring. He got into bed And bumped his head And couldn’t get up in the morning. | [
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636eab8d6c4ec954 | Self-Inquiry before the Job Interview | Gary Soto | Did you sneeze?
Yes, I rid myself of the imposter inside me.
Did you iron your shirt?
Yes, I used the steam of mother's hate.
Did you wash your hands?
Yes, I learned my hygiene from a raccoon.
I prayed on my knees, and my knees answered with pain.
I gargled. I polished my shoes until I saw who I was.
I inflated my résu... | [
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f59bba6c04e69ff1 | The Kindergarten Concert | Robert Pottle | The kindergarten concert was an interesting show.
Peter walked onto the stage and yelled, “I have to go!”
Katie was embarrassed, but she had nowhere to hide.
She raised her dress to hide her face. Her mother almost died.
Keith removed his tie and said, “It’s ugly, Dad. I hate it!”
David picked his nose on stage. W... | [
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ce87cf3c7560c828 | Jean Valentine, Abridged | C. D. Wright | Valentine's palette is mostly grey. Next comes blue (borage, cobalt, silk, robe,
egg). Then white. Some inherent greens. But she draws most often from the
greyer end of the grey scale. It could be manifest in a postmortem jaw, dusty glass,
a sky, one degree Fahrenheit, a lone sock under a sickbed; the water is grey,... | [
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11328fb3adb2e8a8 | ... by an Earthquake | John Ashbery | A hears by chance a familiar name, and the name involves a riddle of the past.
B, in love with A, receives an unsigned letter in which the writer states that she is the mistress of A and begs B not to take him away from her.
B, compelled by circumstances to be a companion of A in an isolated place, alters her rosy vi... | [
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"S10-2"
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81e067c1fbbe4449 | The King’s Question | Brian Culhane | In memory of Nancy Tow Spiegel
Before he put his important question to an oracle,
Croesus planned to test all the famous soothsayers,
Sending runners half around the world, to Delphi,
Dodona, Amphiarius, Branchidae, and Ammon,
So as to determine the accuracy of their words;
His challenge: not to say anything of h... | [
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d34e609ab6649244 | False Flowers | Anne Stevenson | (for Caroline Ireland)
They were to have been a love gift,
but when she slit the paper funnel,
they both saw they were fake; false flowers
he'd picked in haste from the store's display,
handmade coloured stuff, stiff as crinoline.
Instantly she thought of women's hands
cutting in grimy light by a sweatshop windo... | [
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2323209bfa3922fb | What I Carried | Maggie Smith | I carried my fear of the world
to my children, but they refused it.
I carried my fear of the world
on my chest, where I once carried
my children, where some nights it slept
as newborns sleep, where it purred
but mostly growled, where it licked
sweat from my clavicles.
I carried my fear of the world
and apprent... | [
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a0d333ba4cbfcb9f | The Map | Larry Levis | Applying to Heavy Equipment School
I marched farther into the Great Plains
And refused to come out.
I threw up a few scaffolds of disinterest.
Around me in the fields, the hogs grunted
And lay on their sides.
You came with a little water and went away.
The glass is still on the table,
And the paper,
And the bu... | [
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d24cda3bee2c9b06 | Mother, Washing Dishes | Susan Meyers | She rarely made us do it— we’d clear the table instead—so my sister and I teased that some day we’d train our children right and not end up like her, after every meal stuck with red knuckles, a bleached rag to wipe and wring. The one chore she spared us: gummy plates in water greasy and swirling with sloughed peas, glo... | [
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fb326d6484217275 | I Ask My Grandmother If We Can Make Lahmajoun | Gregory Djanikian | Sure, she says, why not, we buy the ground lamb from the market we buy parsley, fresh tomatoes, garlic we cut, press, dice, mix make the yeasty dough the night before, kneading it until our knuckles feel the hardness of river beds or rocks in the desert we tell Tante Lola to come with her rolling pins... | [
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4c507b8930905e10 | Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field one Night | Walt Whitman | Vigil strange I kept on the field one night; When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day, One look I but gave which your dear eyes return’d with a look I shall never forget, One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach’d up as you lay on the ground, Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battl... | [
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983de707366b2bf6 | The Facts of Art | Natalie Diaz | woven plaque basket with sunflower design, Hopi, Arizona, before 1935 from an American Indian basketry exhibit in Portsmouth, Virginia
The Arizona highway sailed across the desert—
... | [
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751f3bf5cf772108 | Ode to an All-American Boyhood | Paul Carroll | To Robert Lowell, Allen Ginsberg, James Dickey
Were you guys lucky, too, to caddy, the light
on freshly-sprinkled fairway delicate and bright as eye of an
Indiana owl
or glitter of fish flickering in the Shedd Aquarium of the
imagination,
the tough but tender touch of leather socks covering the cobra-
... | [
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68d371a92265a10f | A Dialogue between Caliban and Ariel | John Fuller | Ar. Now you have been taught words and I am free,
My pine struck open, your thick tongue untied,
And bells call out the music of the sea.
From this advantage I can clearly see
You will abuse me in your grovelling pride
Now you have been taught words: and I am free
To pinch and ... | [
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4672497038354239 | Burning the Fields | Linda Bierds | 1.
In the windless late sunlight of August,
my father set fire to a globe of twine. At his back,
the harvested acres of bluegrass and timothy
rippled. I watched from a shallow hill
as the globe, chained to the flank of his pickup truck,
galloped and bucked down a yellow row, arced
at the fire trench, circled bac... | [
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1ec0f9c42f223357 | The Ditch | Michael Ryan | In the ditch, half-ton sections of cast-iron molds
hand-greased at the seams with pale petroleum waste
and screw-clamped into five-hundred-gallon cylinders
drummed with rubber-headed sledges inside and out
to settle tight the wet concrete
that, dried and caulked, became Monarch Septic Tanks;
and, across the ditch... | [
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55a7610848816a96 | The White House | Joel Craig | He knows how to do what he sets out to do
with perfectly obvious procedure. The sea
is dark and forbidding. The horizon
is dark and forbidding.
Even fr... | [
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3fc6c74c8fc36523 | The Coronet | Andrew Marvell | When for the thorns with which I long, too long,
With many a piercing wound,
My Saviour’s head have crowned,
I seek with garlands to redress that wrong:
Through every garden, every mead,
I gather flowers (my fruits are only flowers),
Dismantling all the fragrant towers
That once adorned my shepherdess’s head.
A... | [
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] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
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5abc41e47136bc5f | The Modern Pastoral Elegy | Conor O'Callaghan | A Tick-Where-Appropriate Template
It begins with unspecified “you” and “we”
raising fists of defiance to the void,
the morning we opened the obituary,
a pun on “decompose” you’d have enjoyed.
These crocodile tears shed in rhyme,
in an age too commercial to care,
recall how we met the first time
and the feisty old troo... | [
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51e14110e85a2b58 | A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop | Thomas Sayers Ellis | All those
Liquid love affairs,
Blind swimmers
Trusting rumps.
We wiggled,
Imagining water.
Wet, where was
The One?
Nevermind Atlantis
And the promise
Of moving pictures,
A lit candle
In the window
Of our conscious minds.
Those who danced,
Pretending to swim
Underwater,
... | [
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56ee42fc2b274e2f | Scenes of Life at the Capital | Philip Whalen | for Allen Ginsberg
Having returned at last and being carefully seated
On the floor—somebody else's floor, as usual—
Far away across that ocean which looked
Through Newport windows years ago—somebody else's livingroom—
Another messed-up weedy garden
Tall floppy improbably red flowers
All the leaves turned over in... | [
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d26f80cab031fedd | Porphyria's Lover | Robert Browning | The rain set early in to-night, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate ... | [
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92845eb1034c4ff5 | Communion | Fiona Sampson | If I'm you, or you me— Interpenetrating God— enlarge our intimacy. You who are animus and blood— who make me dust from this table blown into grass, invisible— Is it you—or I— I pass and cannot see? | [
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b99c1f8605b653ed | Caged Bird | Maya Angelou | A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat t... | [
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984411b77aa6384b | Refusing to Be Blessed | Hershman John | And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
In their stone boots. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.
—Anne Sexton
Pick up the smooth stone at your boot tip—
Quickly blow the dust off the edge.
This is for Sexton’s mother who died... | [
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1f168d63242c2fa9 | Roadside Ditch Natura Morta | James Galvin | No one can draw fast enoughTo capture the cutIris before its form fallsFrom its former self.But when we passed a patchIn the ditch,She told me to stop and she steppedDown, opening her claspKnife. She spared one irisWith an impressionisticCocoon on its stemAnd cut the flower beside it.Once homeShe rendered in a careful ... | [
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"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
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8282d43f4db577ac | North Point North | John Koethe | I
In these I find my calling:
In the shower, in the mirror, in unconscious
Hours spent staring at a screen
At artifacts complete unto themselves.
I think of them as self-sufficient worlds
Where I can sojourn for a while,
Then wake to find the clouds dispersing
And the sidewalks steaming with the
Rain that must... | [
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21978eca488b42f9 | Gas Station Rest Room | Alan R. Shapiro | The present tense is the body’s past tense here; hence the ghost sludge of hands on the now gray strip of towel hanging limp from the jammed dispenser; hence the mirror squinting through grime at grime, and the worn- to-a-sliver of soiled soap on the soiled sink. The streaked bowl, the sticky toilet seat,... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
bac546427271d7c1 | The Ballad of Nat Turner | Robert Hayden | Then fled, O brethren, the wicked juba
and wandered wandered far
from curfew joys in the Dismal’s night.
Fool of St. Elmo’s fire
In scary night I wandered, praying,
Lord God my harshener,
speak to me now or let me die;
speak, Lord, to this mourner.
And came at length to livid trees
... | [
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"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
bdaecc1c440624e9 | Translation | Anne Spencer | We trekked into a far country,
My friend and I.
Our deeper content was never spoken,
But each knew all the other said.
He told me how calm his soul was laid
By the lack of anvil and strife.
“The wooing kestrel,” I said, “mutes his mating-note
To please the harmony of this sweet silence.”
And when at the day’s e... | [
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56c377737c63fcea | On Hierophany | Karen An-hwei Lee | One example of hierophany is the apparition of angels. This is a new word I overheard this morning. It occurswhen the divine realm manifests — or the word intrudes — into our quotidian realm. The natural one, an untidy fleshliness of the ordinary. Or the sacred and profaneis another way to say this. I asked whether it... | [
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b97a76af3f8e92fd | The Journey | Yvor Winters | Snake River Country
I now remembered slowly how I came,
I, sometime living, sometime with a name,
Creeping by iron ways across the bare
Wastes of Wyoming, turning in despair,
Changing and turning, till the fall of night,
Then throbbing motionless with iron might.
Four days and nights! Small stations by the way,
... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7b5c6578b6addc74 | The Unaccompanied | Simon Armitage | Wandering slowly back after dark one night
above a river, toward a suspension bridge,
a sound concerns him that might be a tune
or might not: noise drifting in, trailing off.
Then concerns him again, now clearly a song
pulsing out from the opposite bank, being sung
by chorusing men, all pewter-haired or bald,
in... | [
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S9-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fbfed1235313cace | The Ladder | Michael Chitwood | He worked years on the tablet,
deciphering the pictographs. He knew
it was a kind of language, those images.
An eye. A bird, maybe a crow.
A basket of wheat. A ladder.
Did the order of the images matter?
He cross-referenced similar texts.
He studied the history of the region
and satisfied many hours in the tabl... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
2b9ebecb52d8e6a4 | Chinoisserie | Lynn Emanuel | My mother in her dress of red Viyella, teetering like a tiny idol
on three-inch lacquered spikes, chignon dressed with little gold-
throated bells that chirped more sweetly than the cricket,
held her small, perfect hands to the torrent pouring from the slots.
Money went like water through our fingers: was dammed
b... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
eaf454c71d30914b | Birth of the White Bison | Laren McClung | In the age of the fish, cobblestones shift through a square & in hand turnold weapon — beyond the city an ocean swings in pelicans & spinner dolphins,leaves them on the Peruvian shore, orin a small town two thousand blackbirds fallfrom the Arkansas sky “just like last year” — but far off in the silence of the rural pla... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
9ef91e22f58e5383 | It Must Be Shameless | Simone White | Apart disclaimed wicked pea, split soft skin
of the principle princess, who writhes,
a little blood passes her perineum every night,
grey linen sheets flax talisman plot luxe
to strip and scrub all gore
a plain bar of secret white soap
it is a pine tree, it is an orange blossom, is it a rose hip
under a baby ton... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
72f954df802be81c | Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks | Jane Kenyon | I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years. . . .
I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper....
When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me. . . .
I am food on the prisoner's plate. . . .
I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until i... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
4f8c9b402c57b132 | Death | Donald Revell | Death calls my dog by the wrong name.
A little man when I was small, Death grew
Beside me, always taller, but always
Confused as I have almost never been.
Confusion, like the heart, gets left behind
Early by a boy, abandoned the very moment
Futurity with her bare arms comes a-waltzing
Down the fire escapes to ta... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
904fd505f5f141b5 | The Sensible Girlfriend | Terry Wolverton | for C.
Like shoes
she chose for comfort,
not for style,
that fit her contours
without chafe
or blistering
Here is sanity.
It took her years to arrive,
like an explorer
settling at last
into uneasy retirement,
a small cottage
at the edge of the sea.
How the breakers crash
against the underpinnings;
still... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S8-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
7ca1b43c668e64bb | One or Two Things Sacred to Sorrow | Katrina Roberts | Coleman Hawkins doing that thing
with his sax: high
and lonely as a kestrel
twirls on thermals, sorting
files of sound with a singular
finger, now alighting
in pools of light, hovering
then fixed like whirring
wings of the insect glazed
in serous amber but
dreaming of oxygen:
Sound leading a mindinto that so... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
3ee63b1d08f118be | To Wordsworth | Felicia Dorothea Hemans | There is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices — by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course
Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scences, a fountain from the heart.
Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
78e2984c46477a3d | “Tournez, Tournez, Bon Chevaux De Bois” | Edith Sitwell | Turn, turn again,Ape’s blood in each vein!The people that passSeem castles of glass,The old and the goodGiraffes of the blue wood,The soldier, the nurse,Wooden-face and a curse,Are shadowed with plumageLike birds, by the gloomage.Blond hair like a clown’s The music floats—drownsThe creaking of ropes,The breaking of hop... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
a4e2a7d0436c851e | Apertures | Howard Altmann | Old and blind and in love
with light, he’d reach for
the hands of writers to guide
him back to the landscape,
once the subject of his photo-
graphs. Often he’d see just
how hard it was to render it
right, and would feel free
of such burdens. A last cloud
on a lake he’d let carry him
into night. Breaking sound... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S6-1",
"S10-6",
"S10-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Aging"
] |
b0fa29cb09fdc1d1 | 1 January 1965 | Joseph Brodsky | The Wise Men will unlearn your name.
Above your head no star will flame.
One weary sound will be the same—
the hoarse roar of the gale.
The shadows fall from your tired eyes
as your lone bedside candle dies,
for here the calendar breeds nights
till stores of candles fail.
What prompts this melancholy key?
A lo... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
04f72c7a2587ee5b | MyKillAdoreHer | Paul Martínez Pompa | That Lucia broke the machine twice in one week was evidence enough. He also offered this—she’s no longer automatic, her stitches are crooked and once another seamstress found Lucia’s “lost” sewing patterns in the trash. The security guard half listened as Lucia gathered her things. Then the manager turned directly to h... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
996e0229ef12222c | Chase Scene | Gabriel Ojeda-Sague | at night you stumble, dreaming
cross-eyed of a chase scene
three yellow wasps on your chest
the city you turned around in
a chase that quickly lands into a fight
the nagging anxiety of a stain somewhere
a tickle at the back of the throat
a song’s bridge playing over and over in the head
maybe the stain is at th... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
69528bad0fbfd7b7 | Translations | Kathryn Nuernberger | I want to believe we can’t see anything
we don’t have a word for.
When I look out the window and say green, I mean sea green,
I mean moss green, I mean gray, I mean pale and also
electrically flecked with white and I mean green
in its damp way of glowing off a leaf.
Scheele’s green, the green of Renaissance paint... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
99f19cff3ac5b114 | The Loneliness of the Military Historian | Margaret Atwood | Confess: it’s my profession
that alarms you.
This is why few people ask me to dinner,
though Lord knows I don’t go out of my way to be scary.
I wear dresses of sensible cut
and unalarming shades of beige,
I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser’s:
no prophetess mane of mine,
complete with snakes, will fri... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
ba3dbfdfd360ff92 | Small Trek | Eleanor Ross Taylor | snowboundhomebound hidebound hamstrung hogtied in a corner up a tree down the rivernosedive headway deadmarch footloose pointblank playground | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
f163132ff2acbe45 | The Legs of the Sky | René Magritte | The floor, moonlit, the moon behind you, is not enclosed by walls; a patch of sky is hidden by distant trees. But a patch of floor is
itself hidden by the sky’s legs, standing on it, and this cannot be the
opportunity for useless thoughts.
Translated from the French | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
9c1ee102d23a2ab4 | Ode to his Wife (Written in Patna, 1784) | Warren Hastings | And now, my Marian, from its shackles free, My wearied fancy turns for ease to thee; To thee, my compass through life’s varied stream, My constant object, and unfailing theme. Torn from the bosom of my soul’s repose, And self-devoted to surrounding woes, Oft o’er my solitary thoughts I brood— (For passing crowds to me ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-7",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
bd907b7acf5a87f5 | Backside | Chika Sagawa | Night eats color,
Flower bouquets lose their fake ornaments.
Day falls into the leaves like sparkling fish
And struggles, like the lowly mud,
The shapeless dreams and trees
Nurtured outside this shriveled, deridable despair.
And the space that was chopped down
Tickles the weeds there by its feet.
Fingers staine... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
59dfe82b2304fb7d | Prison Song | Alan Dugan | The skin ripples over my body like moon-wooed water,
rearing to escape me. Where could it find another
animal as naked as the one it hates to cover?
Once it told me what was happening outside,
who was attacking, who caressing, and what the air
was doing to feed or freeze me. Now I wake up
dark at night, in a text... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
a4ea67f2e4e5a7bf | here rests | Lucille Clifton | my sister Josephine
born july in '29
and dead these 15 years
who carried a book
on every stroll.
when daddy was dying
she left the streets
and moved back home
to tend him.
her pimp came too
her Diamond Dick
and they would take turns
reading
a bible aloud through the house.
when you poem this
and you will... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
eb850bfe0a9d349a | ‘Early to bed’ | Mary Mapes Dodge | Early to bed and early to rise: If that would make me wealthy and wise I’d rise at daybreak, cold or hot, And go back to bed at once. Why not? | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
3e5f55ed29033aee | Radiator | Connie Wanek | Mittens are drying on the radiator, boots nearby, one on its side. Like some monstrous segmented insect the radiator elongates under the window. Or it is a beast with many shoulders domesticated in the Ice Age. How many years it takes to move from room to room! Some cage their radiators but this is unnecessary as they ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
3461254b46e53a52 | Patience, Though I Have Not | Sir Thomas Wyatt | Patience, though I have not The thing that I require, I must of force, God wot, Forbear my most desire; For no ways can I find To sail against the wind. Patience, do what they will To work me woe or spite, I shall content me still To think both day and night, To think and hold my peace, Since there is no ... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
dd05a6ac2f74a2b7 | loose strife [Say, when we woke those icy spring mornings] | Quan Barry | Say, when we woke those icy spring mornings they were still there.
The upper portion of their faces long ruined but you could still see
the meaning in their hands,
palms once covered in gold. We knew better than to call them
by their names, Light that Shines Throughout the Un... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
1a776d4bf79b98ef | In a Restless World Like This Is | Charles Bernstein | Not long ago, or maybe I dreamt it
Or made it up, or have suddenly lost
Track of its train in the hocus pocus
Of the dissolving days; no, if I bend
The turn around the corner, come at it
From all three sides at once, or bounce the ball
Against all manner of bleary-eyed fortune
Tellers—well, you can see for yours... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
74902772b37c05c0 | Shakespeare | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | A vision as of crowded city streets, With human life in endless overflow; Thunder of thoroughfares; trumpets that blow To battle; clamor, in obscure retreats, Of sailors landed from their anchored fleets; Tolling of bells in turrets, and below Voices of children, and bright flowers that th... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
c7d7d89c9a1833ca | Double Elegy | Michael S. Harper | Whatever city or country road
you two are on
there are nettles,
and the dark invisible
elements cling to your skin
though you do not cry
and you do not scratch
your arms at forty-five degree angles
as the landing point of a swan
in the Ohio, the Detroit River;
at the Paradise Theatre
you named the cellist
w... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bf221a4ffbc1a276 | “Because he swings so neatly through the trees,” | Richard Wilbur | Because he swings so neatly through the trees,
An ape feels natural in the word trapeze. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
ac2fe808072fb07e | Monuments for a Friendly Girl at a Tenth Grade Party | William E. Stafford | The only relics left are those long
spangled seconds our school clock chipped out
when you crossed the social hall
and we found each other alive,
by our glances never to accept our town's
ways, torture for advancement,
nor ever again be prisoners by choice.
Now I learn you died
serving among the natives of Gard... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-4",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
c6fe8e8d739a60e0 | Minding Rites | David Yezzi | This guy I know, a rabbi, Friday nights,
on his way home before sunset in winter,
always stops at a florist or bodega
and buys a bunch of flowers for his wife.
Every week the same, a ritual,
regardless of her mood that morning, fresh
upsets at work, or snarling on the bridge;
he brings her roses wrapped in cello... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
e9d7c3c1b8201e14 | Duende | Catherine Bowman | An hour inland from Bangor, Maine,
over rolling hills, in an oval pasture
surrounded by giant conifers,
the forest floor bejeweled
with ruby-studded mushrooms,
I watch the sheep sing,
if bleating could be called a song.
Maybe someone in a grove long ago
saw a man attached to a beast
of burden and so the concep... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-9",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
14c3ea6237af72f0 | Poem to My Child, If Ever You Shall Be | Ross Gay | —after Steve Scafidi
The way the universe sat waiting to become,
quietly, in the nether of space and time,
you too remain some cellular snuggle
dangling between my legs, curled in the warm
swim of my mostly quietest self. If you come to be—
And who knows?—I wonder, little bubble
of unbudded capillaries, little o... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
b14fc9d7c57918c8 | Whenever I Saw You I Handed You a Bouquet, and | Sharon Olds | what about those nosegays?! If you were to return
I would give you more, for all you have given us, for
your going first. Those posies might have a
peony, a freesia, a tulip — an eye snack
and nostril snack, I could not get enough of
giving you coronation bundles, handing them
and almost bowing, tongue-tied with
... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
f2217eac490a7c25 | [As if the moon could haul through you] | Neil Fischer | As if the moon could haul through you Its tremor of light and stone, Be cleared of sound. Plough The mind's noise until it's a shine In the purl of south-bending river that bears Itself toward a blacker part of the forest. If you hum, hum through the motes of air, Perhaps your nerves will find at last A tone to which t... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
a1becdb48a936f1f | Only a Dad | Edgar Albert Guest | Only a dad, with a tired face, Coming home from the daily race, Bringing little of gold or fame, To show how well he has played the game, But glad in his heart that his own rejoice To see him come, and to hear his voice. Only a dad, with a brood of four, One of ten million men or more. Plodding along in the daily strif... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
979b0084a578e769 | Under the Lemon Tree | Marsha De La O | Not rain, but fine mist
falls from my lemon tree,
a balm of droplets in green shadow.
Six years now my mother gone to earth.
This dew, light as footsteps of the dead.
She often walked out here, craned her neck,
considered the fruit, hundreds of globes
in their leathery hides, figuring on
custard and pudding, me... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
3aa5a36d315fd2bf | John Brown: A Paradox | Louise Imogen Guiney | Compassionate eyes had our brave John Brown, And a craggy stern forehead, a militant frown; He, the storm-bow of peace. Give him volley on volley, The fool who redeemed us once of our folly, And the smiter that healed us, our right John Brown! Too vehement, verily, was John Brown! For waiting is statesmanlike; his the ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
0c2a339824397bf2 | Sheets | Fanny Howe | After I.F. Annensky
First the sky was yellowthen white snow followed.On a handwas an amethyst: a cube of lilac in hospital light. • Whose fault is it when no one visits?• Last night I dreamedI was in a peaceful placebut woke upfreezing and ashamed.On a side street (on my sheets)one I loved passedas a shadow.Maddish, ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
2ab73a1dc4e58827 | Yard Work | Don Thompson | My leaf blower lifted the blackbird— wings still spread, weightless, floating on the loud, electric wind almost as if it were alive.Three or four times it flew, but fell again, sideslipped down like a kite with no string, so I gave up. . . I had work to do,and when the dust I raised had settled in that other world unde... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
86b53ab2ee667ead | Create Desire | Karen Volkman | Someone was searching for a Form of Fire.
Bird-eyed, the wind watched.
Four deer in a blowsy meadow.
As though it were simply random, a stately stare.
What’s six and six and two and ten?
Time that my eye ached, my heart shook, why.
Mistaking lime for lemon.
Dressed in cobalt, charcoal, thistle—and control.
If t... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
0f770ffbc9a5bb27 | Two in the Campagna | Robert Browning | I I wonder do you feel to-day
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?
II For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S2-1",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
9df38535f2c929c7 | Thanatopsis | William Cullen Bryant | To him who in the love of Nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he i... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
c24b06df4db201c5 | ONE POSSIBLE MEANING | Charlie Smith | This afternoon the park is filled with brides. Among varieties of persuasion the big trees turn back toward the forest. Adventurers gather in side streets. The police are looking hard at the sky. Down at the bay, boys trapped in solitude fish. Girls hike their pants and stare at the wave line, remembering secrets they ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
bae388b3353e0fef | Virginity | Anna Swir | One must be brave to live through
a day. What remains
is nothing but the pleasure of longing—very precious.
Longing
purifies as does flying, strengthens as does an effort,
it fashions the soul
as work
fashions the belly.
It is like an athlete, like a runner
who will never
stop running. And this
gives him end... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
aa35e0bb54a01e8f | The Mother’s Return | Dorothy Wordsworth | A month, sweet Little-ones, is past Since your dear Mother went away, And she tomorrow will return; Tomorrow is the happy day. O blessed tidings! thoughts of joy! The eldest heard with steady glee; Silent he stood; then laughed amain, And shouted, ‘Mother, come to me!’ Louder and louder did he shout, With witless hope ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
60af9229ae33906f | The Bait | Eric Chock | Saturday mornings, before
my weekly chores,
I used to sneak out of the house
and across the street,
grabbing the first grasshopper
walking in the damp California grass
along the stream.
Carefully hiding a silver hook
beneath its green wings,
I'd float it out
across the gentle ripples
towards the end of its l... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
1c4c6279440853f8 | Suzanna Socked Me Sunday | Jack Prelutsky | Suzanna socked me Sunday,
she socked me Monday, too,
she also socked me Tuesday,
I was turning black and blue.
She socked me double Wednesday,
and Thursday even more,
but when she socked me Friday,
she began to get me sore.
“Enough’s enough,” I yelled at her,
“I hate it when you hit me!”
“Well, then I won’t” ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
fc41f6e1e2b8d883 | Artifice | Peter Spagnuolo | The plastic Great Horned Owl, stuck with glueon the stamped tin, corbelled cornice lipimpresses no one — not the starlings that dipand stitch, nor pigeons as they fluff and cooaround its feet. And vinyl siding’s tooregular — each molded, faux-grained stripidentical, but for dents, and that dripof bird shit from a sil... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
c46ad11b4e0c247f | Sylvia | Gerald Stern | Across a space peopled with stars I am
laughing while my sides ache for existence
it turns out is profound though the profound
because of time it turns out is an illusion
and all of this is infinitely improbable
given the space, for which I gratefully lie
in three feet of snow making a shallow grave
I would have... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
47f0f0d571248173 | Heavy Tells A Story | Luis J. Rodríguez | When Heavy tells a story
the millwright shanty under the electric furnaces
chokes with quiet, amid the roar,
as Heavy pauses, adjusts his mountainous weight
over a creaky grease-stained metal chair
and looks up at the whirling ceiling fan
next to fluorescent lights hanging by wires.
His fingers lace like so many... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
ebb216f8cf647353 | First Poem for You | Kim Addonizio | I like to touch your tattoos in complete
darkness, when I can’t see them. I’m sure of
where they are, know by heart the neat
lines of lightning pulsing just above
your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue
swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent
twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you
to me, ta... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
37227cf488f29033 | The Silence Will Be Sudden Then Last | Deborah Landau | Sybaritic afterlife I don’t crave you.
I like daylight. I like crowds.
I don’t think it will be charming underground.
The silence will be sudden then last.
What’s chic will shrink.
There won’t be any pretty, pity.
Will never peaches there, or air.
We’ll be so squashed and sour there.
I don’t want a cold place.
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ba8621f908595d04 | This Is a Poem About My Life | Frank Lima | the grapes
remind me of the whales
gathering salt for the oceanthis is a poem about my life
you've interrupted
my life and death schedule
which gives me that poetic look each daythis is a poem about my life
where was I before I met you?
I was eroding on my way to work
and slept a lot
deep in the subwaysthis is... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
55c515cc8d613fda | Silhouettes | Kien Lam | A crow perches inside me.
Actually, it is a whale. It is hard to tell
by touch alone. Nothing I own ever looks
me properly in the eye. Sometimes
a loud caw at dusk feels
like the largest mammal on Earth.
A deep breath out the blowhole
into my stomach. One second it swims
and the next it is a small extension
of... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
bd529dc5ae1602c1 | Ever After | Joyce Sutphen | What am I to you now that you are no
longer what you used to be to me?
Who are we to each other now that
there is no us, now that what we once
were is divided into me and you
who are not one but two separate and
unrelated persons except for that ex-
that goes in front of the words
that used to mean me, used to ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
4143d27a7b954cff | A Yellow Leaf | Alberto Ríos | A yellow leaf in the branches Of a shamel ash In the front yard; I see it, a yellow leaf Among so many. Nothing distinguishes it, Nothing striking, striped, stripped, Strident, nothing More than its yellow On this day, Which is enough, which makes me Think of it later in the day, Remember it in conversation With a frie... | [
"S2"
] | [] | [
"Nature"
] | [] |
9b9ac084bd87cc87 | Sather Tower Mystery | Ishmael Reed | Seems there was this Professor
a member of what should be called
The Good German Department
Must have signed his name to
5,000 petitions in front of
the Co-Op on Cedar
and bought two tons of benefit
cookies
Blames Texas for the sorry
state of the oceans
Rode a Greyhound bus “Civil
Rights,” Alabama, 1960
Fou... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
c74edefa2715838d | Love Song for Alex, 1979 | Margaret Walker | My monkey-wrench man is my sweet patootie;
the lover of my life, my youth and age.
My heart belongs to him and to him only;
the children of my flesh are his and bear his rage
Now grown to years advancing through the dozens
the honeyed kiss, the lips of wine and fire
fade blissfully into the distant years of yonde... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
620aa50c889db997 | [The water was rising...] | Lyn Hejinian | The water was rising, I got up on the bed
Still wearing the Hawaiian shirt he had on yesterday
He used his thoughts to draw a rudimentary circle on the wall
Hitting Beirut and killing 22 civilians
But now go the bells, and we are ready
Novelty is no better than repetition
That graces the walls of toilet stalls wi... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
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