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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ad41444cf1b63f07 | Little or Nothing | Ken Mikolowski | there are these trees.
and beyond these trees,
trees. and beyond that
little or nothing. little
fields and nothing but sky. | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
02fb779fbb8886e6 | Against Conceit | Roddy Lumsden | Don't say Sir Pigeon in his cobalt bonnet. Don't find among your notes jottings on duvets and blizzards and the page unwalked across black missives of girlhood must be sent off and do not claim the furnace of the universe is powered by human screams. When the dark turns dark or when the bullet lifts a... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
09a60944a898ec2d | Miser Time | Kay Ryan | Miser time growsprofligate near the end: unpinching and unplanning,abandoning thewhole idea ofsavings. It’s hardto understandbut time apparentlyexpands with itsdiminishing. The door thrown wideon sliding hills of high-denomination bills and nothing much to buy. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
a1b650398fb372c4 | Definitely | Mary Jo Bang | What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind’s unstoppable mouth.
Inside the braincase, it’s I
Want that fills every blank. And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure
The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I’ve conjured a body
In the chai... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
59d3e32f4c83d7f5 | Before Parting | Algernon Charles Swinburne | A month or twain to live on honeycomb Is pleasant; but one tires of scented time, Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme, And that strong purple under juice and foam Where the wine’s heart has burst; Nor feel the latter kisses like the first. Once yet, this poor one time; I will not pray Even to change the bi... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
63e17d42d5d80977 | Information | David Ignatow | This tree has two million and seventy-five thousand leaves. Perhaps I missed a leaf or two but I do feel triumphant at having persisted in counting by hand branch by branch and marked down on paper with pencil each total. Adding them up was a pleasure I could understand; I did something on my own that was not dependent... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
b9a9f0c81b55104d | Idea 59: As Love and I, late harbour’d in one inn | Michael Drayton | To Proverbs
As Love and I, late harbour’d in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain: In love there is no lack, thus I begin, Fair words make fools, replieth he again; Who spares to speak, doth spare to speed (quoth I), As well (saith he) too forward, as too slow; Fortune assists the boldest, I reply, A hasty... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
fe2ef683c65bdef9 | The Little Vagabond | William Blake | Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold, But the Ale-house is healthy & pleasant & warm; Besides I can tell where I am use'd well, Such usage in heaven will never do well. But if at the Church they would give us some Ale. And a pleasant fire, our souls to regale; We'd sing and we'd pray, all the live-long day; ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S5-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
6bae2f00ccacd64f | Antiphons of the Known World | Luke Davies | For Daniel Morden
Athena, coming onto me (verbatim transcription):Every step you take will be the right one.
Women encouraged me like that:Avoiding void, no one goes nameless in this world.
Power? I was the son of a king:Hacking the armor from the limbs of the dying.
In the path of the blade of the plough I met God... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Animals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
121d80079b424293 | My Mother upon Hearing News of Her Mother’s Death | Cathy Linh Che | She opened her mouth and a moose came out, a donkey, and an ox—out of her mouth, years of animal grief. I lead her to the bed. She held my hand and followed. She said, Chết rồi, and like that, the cord was cut, the thread snapped, and the cable that tied my mother to her mother broke. And now her eyes red as a market f... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
397cdc107bc0b1be | To the Western World | Louis Simpson | A siren sang, and Europe turned away
From the high castle and the shepherd’s crook.
Three caravels went sailing to Cathay
On the strange ocean, and the captains shook
Their banners out across the Mexique Bay.
And in our early days we did the same.
Remembering our fathers in their wreck
We crossed the sea from Pa... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
87b030bd255ebde5 | Balloon | John Kinsella | It didn’t happen in that order—the endless growl of what will turn out to beminiature quad and trail bikes, carried alongthe top of the valley and rumbling its contents:small kids with helmets weighing more than their heads,ragged on by parents with crossed arms and ambitionin their eyes: round and round the drone of f... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
6db02679a7a9b7b9 | Lord Is Not a Word | Christian Wiman | Lord is not a word.
Song is not a salve.
Suffer the child, who lived
on sunlight and solitude.
Savor the man, craving
earth like an aftertaste.
To discover in one's hand
two local stones the size
of a dead man's eyes
saves no one, but to fling them
with a grace you did not know
you knew, to bring them
skimm... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
4b5a365dd01423d1 | And Then I Saw | Alfred Corn | My body, laid out on a marble slab.
Naked but for a linen sheet tucked under
Its chin, as though to keep the patient warm.
A solemn band approached; identified
The late departed with what looked like mingled
Relief, mild satisfaction, and bereavement.
One of them took away an arm—the right,
Was it?—and loped off... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
2717a7b97053f58d | Auguries of Innocence | William Blake | To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hourA Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons Shudders Hell thr' all its regions A dog starvd at his Masters Gate Predicts the ruin of the State ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S8-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
6c06e4a4896583ca | Harlan County | Kate Buckley | Stepping over the stones of my mother,
chicken bones, straw,
the cellar in which the man was found,
that man my grandfather
the day the sharecroppers left town,
their son shot dead —
the thing whiskey’ll do to a man.
The woman who waited under the house at night,
counting ghosts and bobcats through lattice of l... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
adee86431428acab | Sentence | Eduardo C. Corral | After Don McKay
I crawl back he unpacks his tools
oils the wooden handles rinses the metal
fragrant his thighs fragrant his sneer
koi & eternity inked on his skin an ecstatic
blue a bewildered green
some wounds are ovals some wounds are opals
the ears of a white wolf pivot towa... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b7132375a346f8d3 | The Blight | James Lasdun | What’s there to say? We didn’t care for him much,and you can’t exactly commiseratewith someone you don’t just not lovebut almost (admit it) hate.So the news just hung over uslike the dud summer weather we’d had—rain since June, the lawn sodden,garden a bog, all slugs, late blight so badour sickened Beefsteak vines, our... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-10",
"S8-4",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
a7dc9e6fa2403a59 | Roses | Barbara Guest | “painting has no air . . .”
—Gertrude Stein
That there should never be air
in a picture surprises me.
It would seem to be only a picture
of a certain kind, a portrait in paper
or glue, somewhere a stickiness
as opposed to a stick-to-it-ness
of another genre. It might be
quite new to do without
that ... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
5b9697526e571d4c | Requiescat | Matthew Arnold | Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew!
In quiet she reposes;
Ah, would that I did too!
Her mirth the world required;
She bathed it in smiles of glee.
But her heart was tired, tired,
And now they let her be.
Her life was turning, turning,
In mazes of heat and sound.
But for peace h... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e2e3148c3c186d52 | Recursive | Luisa A. Igloria | Do not look for illumination.
Mostly there is the twitch that precedes
gesture, the button’s resistance
as you try to slide it into the too-small
aperture slashed in a finger-width
of cloth. And yes, I know it is hard to disregard
how tiny and even the stitches are,
how they ring the space
that had to be opened... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
117b911592526cb3 | Motherhood | May Swenson | She sat on a shelf,
her breasts two bellies
on her poked-out belly,
on which the navel looked
like a sucked-in mouth—
her knees bent and apart,
her long left arm raised,
with the large hand knuckled
to a bar in the ceiling—
her right hand clamping
the skinny infant to her chest—
its round, pale, new,
soft m... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
d6142e8e1bf38b19 | Six Further Studies | Keith Waldrop | I
In heaven there is no more sea, and houses no longer need a widow’s
walk. And no more widows, there being neither marriage nor giving
in marriage. How the air hangs lower and lower on this—I hope
—hottest day of summer. A faintly rotten scent the ground gives off
brings to mind lilacs that have budded and blosso... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
98e9aecd78554aaf | In the Year of “No Work” | Matthew Nienow | I would drive the pre-dawn dark to stakemy spot to fish for dinner, to numb my hands in the icebucket, to pluck, from the neat stack, a herring,to fit the skullcap and pierce the eye with a toothpick,the body double-hooked, my fingertips glimmeringwith the scales of the dead while the line whined freefrom the reel, and... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S6-7",
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S9-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
260fbc004e63dd07 | Bess | William E. Stafford | Ours are the streets where Bess first met her
cancer. She went to work every day past the
secure houses. At her job in the library
she arranged better and better flowers, and when
students asked for books her hand went out
to help. In the last year of her life
she had to keep her friends from knowing
how happy t... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
e67036d61bc1ad9a | The Strange Girl Asks Politely To Be Called Princess | Kathryn Nuernberger | When the strange girl skips rope her hair flies
like a porpoise. She collects things that melt
and things that tick, circles and cubes
and checkerboards in a drawer
she can pull out from her navel.
Other children, alerted by the rumble
of marbles in her chest, chase her
across the field. She insists she is only
... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-1"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends"
] |
c8a0182174659462 | In the Cannery the Porpoise Soul | Juan Felipe Herrera | In the cannery the porpoise soul
& the shadow fins of spirit boats lie awake
the hundred hooks & flying reels
one harpoon
& the silver fleshing in the nets
the mayor is waiting/counting scales
dreaming new quotas & tuna coasts
(under the table blood & payrolls
swim to the shores on a crucifix of oil)
in the ca... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
aeb5ae75af0933d3 | Genealogy | Jennifer Chang | This stream took a shorter course—
a thread of water that makes oasis
out of mud, in pooling,
does not aspire to lake. To river, leave
the forest, the clamorous wild.
I cannot. Wherever I am,
I am here, nonsensical, rhapsodic,
stock-still as the trees. Trickling
never floods, furrows its meager path
through th... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
50324a2ad86c67d4 | Evening | William Lisle Bowles | Evening! as slow thy placid shades descend, Veiling with gentlest hush the landscape still, The lonely battlement, the farthest hill And wood, I think of those who have no friend; Who now, perhaps, by melancholy led, From the broad blaze of day, where pleasure flaunts, Retiring, wander to the ri... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
0ff42ce802cc1e48 | Sonnet 22: Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear | John Milton | Cyriack, this three years' day these eyes, though clear To outward view of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun or moon or star throughout the year, Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heav'n's hand or will... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
ea046d192be28406 | For Christmas Day: Hark! the Herald Angels Sing | Charles Wesley | Hark! the herald Angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King,
Peace on earth and mercy mild,
God and sinner reconcil’d.
Hark! the herald Angels sing,
Glory to the new-born King.
Joyful all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies,
With the angelic host proclaim,
Christ is born in Bethlehem.
Hark! the hera... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
1856940ea45576cf | Sicilian Cyclamens | D. H. Lawrence | When he pushed his bush of black hair off his brow:
When she lifted her mop from her eyes, and screwed it
in a knob behind
—O act of fearful temerity!
When they felt their foreheads bare, naked to heaven,
their eyes revealed:
When they left the light of heaven brandished like a... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
126a30540fc2b2f8 | "I stand alone at the foot " | William Kloefkorn | I stand alone at the foot Of my father’s grave, Trembling to tell: The door to the granary is open, Sir, And someone lost the bucket To the well. | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
57a89b32921a3966 | Tobacco Origin Story, Because Tobacco Was a Gift Intended to Walk Alongside Us to the Stars | Joy Harjo | From a story of how the tobacco plant came to our people, told to me by my cousin George Coser Jr.
It was way back, before there was a way back
When time threaded earth and sky.
Children were conceived, were born, grew, and walked tall
In what we now call a day.
There must have been two suns, a bright moon, someho... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-8",
"S2-8",
"S5-8",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Classic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e6f3e3ba54e38f93 | Birdsong, face it, some male machine | Marianne Boruch | Birdsong, face it, some male machine gone addled—repeat, repeat—the damage keeps doing, the world ending then starting, the first word the last, etc. It's that etcetera. How to love. Is a wire just loose? Build an ear for that. Fewer, they say. So many fewer, by far. He's showing off to call her back. Or clai... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
c80c2e34ffe78863 | Winter Stars | Larry Levis | My father once broke a man’s hand
Over the exhaust pipe of a John Deere tractor. The man,
Rubén Vásquez, wanted to kill his own father
With a sharpened fruit knife, & he held
The curved tip of it, lightly, between his first
Two fingers, so it could slash
Horizontally, & with surprising grace,
Across a throat. It... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-9",
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7fd1b66112f310e6 | Method | Tess Taylor | In the dirt you dig fragments.
Turn them and ponder.
Weed chard. Forms
morph like clouds.
At lunch, you write down
how in this jungle
a gem-backed toad startled
and hopped away—
how June tiger lilies trumpet the sun.
In the bean patch brown spiders,
egg sacs on their backs.
Toddling through shadows,
sturdy,... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-2"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
6c21d191b1dea58c | Byron | Frank Lima | I put my handInto the dreamThat falls uponThe air. ItTouches me a little,But I don’t complain.I’m almost asleepWhen I get there.Where ByronLost the scent of hisLife, over there,Where the dreams are.It’s alwaysHot, likeThe eyes of theDream. SometimesThe dream isOn the dunesWatching the moltenOcean burn the sun.The dream... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
bd4ba3b3b27aae55 | [Letter to Gary Bottone] | Jack Spicer | Dear Gary, Somehow your letter was no surprise (and I think you knew that it was no surprise or you would have tried to break the news more gently); somehow I think we understand what the other is going to say long before we say it—a proof of love and, I think, a protection against misunderstanding. So I've been exp... | [
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-6",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0f264cc663b81a01 | Pedestrian | Thomas Lux | Tottering and elastic, middle name of Groan,
ramfeezled after a hard night
at the corpse-polishing plant, slope-
shouldered, a half loaf
of bread, even his hair tired, famished,
fingering the diminished beans
in his pocket—you meet him.
On a thousand street corners you meet him,
emerging from the subway, emergi... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
f0a766acae4fb3dc | Cossacks and Bandits | Katia Kapovich | I grew up in a village built on coal and labor.
An outhouse on a dirt road by a water pump
glared at the whitewashed fences of uniformed yards
that gaped like broken teeth in the mouths of miners.
All summer we played Cossacks and Bandits,
shot our symbolic rifles and revolvers
and when killed would crush a wild ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
d7d8574e7676265f | Leap Year Poem | Mother Goose | Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear
And twenty-nine in each leap year. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
63f3314dc2686024 | The Raising of Lazarus | Franz Wright | Adapted from the original notebook fragment written by Rainer Maria Rilke in Spain in 1913.
Evidently, this was needed. Because people needto be screamed at with proof.But he knew his friends. Before they werehe knew them. And they knewthat he would never leave themthere, desolate. So he let his exhausted eyes closeat... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b85e43945b7d1c66 | The Farmer | W.D. Ehrhart | Each day I go into the fields
to see what is growing
and what remains to be done.
It is always the same thing: nothing
is growing, everything needs to be done.
Plow, harrow, disc, water, pray
till my bones ache and hands rub
blood-raw with honest labor—
all that grows is the slow
intransigent intensity of nee... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-9",
"S9-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
788f461fa33cbacb | The Poet Contemplates the Nature of Reality | Jill Bialosky | On the side of the road a deer, frozen, frigid.Go back to your life, the voice said.What is my life? she wondered. For months she lost
herself in work—Freud said work is as important
as love to the soul—and at night she sat with a boy,
forcing him to practice his violin, helping him recite his notes.
Then the ice t... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
b1b50353b66166d2 | The Islands of Africa | Philip Lamantia | to Rimbaud
Two pages to a grape fable
dangles the swan of samite blood
shaping sand from thistle covered fog
Over sacred lakes of fever
(polished mouths of the vegetable frog
rolling to my iron venus)
I drop the chiseled pear
Standing in smoke filled valleys
(great domains of wingless flight
and the angel’s f... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
22e4b87c132aeb85 | Arrival | Heidy Steidlmayer | Midwinter, the crows take their darkness out on day. A thin rain falls and breaks. I wonder at the way the oaks unravel here (and travel word of mouth) another year. Not going, I go south. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
6673c02bc4600edf | Hell Pig | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | To keep me from staying out late at night,
my mother warned of the Hell Pig. Black and full
of hot drool, eyes the color of a lung—it'd follow me
home if I stayed past my curfew. How to tell my friends
to press Pause in the middle of a video, say their good-byes
while I shuffled up the stairs and into my father's ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-5",
"S6-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
30de8445efab6fcd | Fragment 6: The Moon, how definite its orb! | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | The Moon, how definite its orb!Yet gaze again, and with a steady gaze—'Tis there indeed,—but where is it not?—It is suffused o'er all the sapphire Heaven,Trees, herbage, snake-like stream, unwrinkled Lake,Whose very murmur does of it partakeAnd low and close the broad smooth mountainIs more a thing of Heaven than whenD... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
50246130dc713e4a | Café du Néant | Mina Loy | Little tapers leaning lighted diagonally
Stuck in coffin tables of the Café du Néant
Leaning to the breath of baited bodies
Like young poplars fringing the Loire
Eyes that are full of love
And eyes that are full of kohl
Projecting light across the fulsome ambiente
Trailing the rest of the animal behind them
Tel... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8ad5ea7b6a1055e2 | Dear Friend | Blas Falconer | X.
Your bags were packed
and left at the door, the vase you
filled with shells, wrapped in tissue,
your books boxed. I have the whelk
you found on shore, the small conch,
intact—the point, the fine grooves—
and keep it in a box with a picture of you
at the beach: your hair slicked back,
head cocked at an angle... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
fd1a23d094627d59 | Flying | Chinua Achebe | (for Niyi Osundare)
Something in altitude kindles power-thirst
Mere horse-height suffices the emir
Bestowing from rich folds of prodigious turban
Upon crawling peasants in the dust
Rare imperceptible nods enwrapped
In princely boredom.
I too have known
A parching of that primordial palate,
A quickening to mani... | [
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Religion/Other Religions"
] |
265ce9bcae9b21a8 | Split | Jennifer Michael Hecht | We speak of rebellion when the kidis a hellion and the folks are as mildas a spoon.Likewise Republicansborn of freethinking lesbiansseem like reactors, turncoatson how they were raised.Let me offer anotherconcatenationof this explanation. Think of your motheras one discrete cornerof a person with a multiplemental disor... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
3b451c7560963ab9 | The Moon’s Magnetic Field Once Came from an Asteroid | Rebecca Morgan Frank | When you walked in
it was like recognizing
the moon when he returns.
His lover bites his cheek; she
has no choice. All we see
is the dissolution, then await
the reconstruction.
Each time, the sky
yanks her into his orbit.
I want to say I’m sorry.
I want to sayYou win. Our bodies are like
the confessional boo... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
6f404da4c0fdc0e6 | Under Two Windows | Schuyler Van Rensselaer | I. AUBADE The dawn is here—and the long night through I have never seen thy face,
Though my feet have worn the patient grass at the gate of thy dwelling-place.
While the white moon sailed till, red in the west, it found the far world edge,
No leaflet stirred of the leaves that climb to garland thy window ledge.
Yet the... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-9",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
f67e948032e5806c | The Naked Surgeon | Michael Hartnett | 1
The sky is alone tonight —
the moon and stars
seek some presence
in the firm quiet, in the hard lack.
A meteor falls in the empty dark.
Someone is absent, the universe is bare
listen, God, are you there?
Sand silts the world —
dockleaves in the yard,
broken teeth eat sadness
in the hayless barn.
Silence k... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
2c946deb7968d300 | The Funeral | John Donne | Whoever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign, you must not touch, For 'tis my outward soul, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control And keep these limbs, her provinces, fro... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S5-2",
"S6-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8ef1a78b7adbf32d | an introduction | Sheena Raza Faisal | my god wakes up with bed head
and sticky fingers, doesn’t
want to go into work today
my god forgets to do the dishes
lets all the houseplants die
my god teenages
built this earth on Friday night
and tires of it on Sunday morning
my god commands
a willing army, unwillingly
mutters, whines
my god is so type B
... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S5-5"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Islam"
] |
963a84b42592bfcf | Song of Welcome | Joseph Brodsky | Here’s your mom, here’s your dad.
Welcome to being their flesh and blood.
Why do you look so sad?
Here’s your food, here’s your drink.
Also some thoughts, if you care to think.
Welcome to everything.
Here’s your practically clean slate.
Welcome to it, though it’s kind of late.
Welcome at any rate.
... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
58d3875d12e829ea | I’m not a religious person but | Chen Chen | God sent an angel. One of his least qualified, though. Fluent only inLemme get back to you. The angel sounded like me, early twenties, unpaid interning. Proficient in fetching coffee, sending supervague emails. It got so bad God personally had to speak to me. This was annoying because I’m not a religious person. I thou... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
2262daaed4d01210 | Aesthetics | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | we must know a force
greater than our weaknesses
—Jean Toomer
like most boys, ignorant
or fearful of beauty, we
pinned back the wings
of butterflies and plucked
off their legs, and watched
and watched them tumble
from leaves like pinecones
wheeling from rooftops;
and we laughed.
we crumbled alka... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
bf5c5a83f87d29a0 | The Desert of Atacama VI | Raúl Zurita | Arid plains do not dream
No one has ever managed to see
Those chimerical pampas
i. The landscapes are convergent and divergent in the
Desert of Atacama
ii. Over the convergent and divergent landscape Chile
is convergent and divergent in the Desert of Atacama
iii. That's why... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
ae51615104109c79 | The Moralists | Yvor Winters | You would extend the mind beyond the act,
Furious, bending, suffering in thin
And unpoetic dicta; you have been
Forced by hypothesis to fiercer fact.
As metal singing hard, with firmness racked,
You formulate our passion; and behind
In some harsh moment nowise of the mind
Lie the old meanings your advance has pa... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
3a4b8369226506c7 | Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher | Walter Savage Landor | I strove with none, for none was worth my strife:
Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art:
I warm’d both hands before the fire of Life;
It sinks; and I am ready to depart. | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
86c2050c365c7569 | Dirt Cowboy Café | Cynthia Huntington | Heart, oh heart,
I sit here writing your name
on pieces of paper,
folded, hidden, misplaced . . .
found again.
There is the element of saying
and there is the element of making:
one needn’t choose.
I am singing the dream out from the ice,
asking it to carry me
like a horse or a river, down and away.
This day... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
89b61fab59e12bbc | One Cow, Two Moos | J. Patrick Lewis | We used to have a single cow,
We called her Mrs. Rupple.
But she got struck by a lightning bolt,
And now we have a couple.
She's walking sort of funny now,
Oh pity her poor calf.
Old Mrs. Rupple gives no milk,
She gives us half-and-half. | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
0f19f2b84f7c117b | Ecological Poem | Brian Kim Stefans | Around the pool the hippos drool
as if the chloride wouldn’t kill them.
In fact, they like to play the fool,
the harbinger, the pilgrim.
The bird that plops into the glass
makes a sound, then isn’t there.
Spiders toss, in oleaginous mass,
Goo Gone into the air.
The ants that drag a beat-up car
onto the lawn ar... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
22cc8cffc2e84da9 | A Diamond | Jack Spicer | A Translation for Robert Jones
A diamond
Is there
At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness
And there is nothing in the universe like diamond
Nothing in the whole mind.
The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean.
A dog howls at the moon
A dog howls at the branches
A dog howl... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
e45f36db66056281 | History Will Decide | Anne Waldman | After Brion Gysin / William S. Burroughs
All writing around the sides the persons a galaxy all writing resounds a hot history. All writing is in fact cut-ups history will decide games heated and heated economic behavior. To rise up scene all sounds of Tahrir and inside supply side threatened. A long delineation. Longe... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
0dd540fdda1f7e90 | Les Saltimbanques | Matthew Sweeney | I was walking from the Louvre to Place Saint-Michel along the Seine when I noticed a crowd gathered under a large linden tree. As I approached I thought how much I’d liked to walk down Unter den Linden when I’d lived in Berlin, and now I saw again how attractive the light green seeds of the linden tree were against the... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-7",
"S9-7",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
698196c1377ebde2 | The Accounts | Katie Peterson | I.
The nest was at rest for a time, not being
made. Before the eggs were laid, it softened.
The robin sleeping. Inside the house,
the sound of laundry
in the dryer, the sound of a zipper
tumbling inside
the apparatus, and shirts with buttons,
as well as napkins
and a tablecloth printed with blueberries
and st... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ce19badb3da5195b | A Reminiscence | Richard O. Moore | Held in a late season
At a shifting of worlds,
In the golden balance of autumn,
Out of love and reason
We made our peace;
Stood still in October
In the failing light and sought,
Each in the other, ease
And release from silence,
From the slow damnation
Of speech that is weak
And falls from silence.
In the Oc... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
f5caeec1a49bda98 | The Intruder | Frank Stanford | after Jean Follain
In the evenings they listen to the same
tunes nobody could call happy
somebody turns up at the edge of town
the roses bloom
and an old dinner bell rings once more
under the thunder clouds
In front of the porch posts of the store
a man seated on a soda water case
turns around and spits and sa... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
0feaa38da50baafa | Book 4, Epigram 7: "Our fathers did but use the world before" | Thomas Bastard | Our fathers did but use the world before,And having used did leave the same to us.We spill whatever resteth to their store.What can our heirs inherit but our curse?For we have sucked the sweet and sap away,And sowed consumption in the fruitful ground;The woods and forests clad in rich arrayWith nakedness and baldness w... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f1d88f653053b275 | Into the Mud | Joyce Sidman | Sun slant low, chill seeps into black water. No more days of bugs and basking. Last breath, last sight of light and down I go, into the mud. Every year, here, I sink and settle, shuttered like a shed. Inside, my eyes close, my heart slows to its winter rhythm. Goodbye, good- bye! Remember the warmth. Remember the qu... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
5115b277f73ceb23 | License | Alice Notley | None of it’s there that you cared for, so familiarfurniture and paintings. The medals aren’t there eitherI’m still there but it isn’t; I’m here; sword,I have sword — imagine — and disguising protect-ive the ancient helmet. Her head was cut offnonetheless. The man brought the head alongto the doctor: the head said to. S... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
0dbdd5b5ea979293 | Latitudes | Yusef Komunyakaa | If I am not Ulysses, I am
his dear, ruthless half brother.
Strap me to the mast
so I may endure night sirens
singing my birth when water
broke into a thousand blossoms
in a landlocked town of the South,
before my name was heard
in the womb-shaped world
of deep sonorous waters.
Storms ran my ship to the brink,... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-10",
"S6-4",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
240c485706b2fc9c | Teusaquillo, 1989 | Maurice Kilwein Guevara | Eleven bombs had gone off the previous night,
most of them in this neighborhood, which is called
Teusaquillo, and it is one of the pleasantest in Bogotá.
—Alma Guillermoprieto
Flowering sietecueros trees:
How easily we married ourselves
to the idea of that bruised light
outside the window,
capillary
fibers of ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
c259201cb1a95307 | [The house was just twinkling in the moon light] | Gertrude Stein | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
The house was just twinkling in the moon light,
And inside it twinkling with delight,
Is my baby bright.
Twinkling with delight in the house twinkling
with the moonlight,
Bless my baby bless my baby bright,
Bless my baby twinkling with delight,
In the house twink... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
6568284be870632b | An Unknown Shore: Variations on a Fragment by Oppen | Andrew Allport | Cortez arrives.
he is absolutely lost
at an unknown shore.
an he is enraptured
(this is the nature of poetry
The poem:
Cortez arrives at an unknown shore
he is absolutely lost
and he is enraptured
Cortez arrives at an unknown shore
he is utterly lost
but he is enraptured
C... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
2c30a4ad01dbee37 | Meeting the Mountains | Gary Snyder | He crawls to the edge of the foaming creek
He backs up the slab ledge
He puts a finger in the water
He turns to a trapped pool
Puts both hands in the water
Puts one foot in the pool
Drops pebbles in the pool
He slaps the water surface with both hands
He cries out, rises up and stands
Facing toward the torrent ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
a488355c77dcc346 | Old Europe Stared at Her Breakfast | Jennifer Maiden | (US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld dismissed those European countries which opposed the US attack on Iraq as only 'Old Europe')
Old Europe stared at her breakfast,
buttered her croissant, sipped coffee
which tasted like a gun
and blinked her grey eyes to restore the sun.
Old Europe grasped at the old A.J.P. Taylor
li... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
17147af1bf803b7a | Ampersands | Clark Moore | ... and we remarked on how piranhas, in uncounted numbers,
are capable of consuming an entire ampersand in such-and-such
a time frame. The sun was up, and below, and was somewhere
overhead. And I thought....
... and we shared thick and hearty laughs, and continued into the very
dense jungle. And thick. Precedi... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S9-7",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
05af2d140969bdce | Different Ways to Pray | Naomi Shihab Nye | There was the method of kneeling,
a fine method, if you lived in a country
where stones were smooth.
The women dreamed wistfully of bleached courtyards,
hidden corners where knee fit rock.
Their prayers were weathered rib bones,
small calcium words uttered in sequence,
as if this shedding of syllables could some... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-5"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Islam"
] |
e0ff4ebee695b959 | Fireflies | Marilyn Kallet | In the dry summer field at nightfall, fireflies rise like sparks. Imagine the presence of ghosts flickering, the ghosts of young friends, your father nearest in the distance. This time they carry no sorrow,no remorse, their presence is so light. Childhood comes to you, memories of your street in lamplight, holding thos... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
a9cb0b86bfa2714a | from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza 5 | Gertrude Stein | Why can pansies be their aid or paths.
He said paths she had said paths
All like to do their best with half of the time
A sweeter sweetener came and came in time
Tell him what happened then only to go
He nervous as you add only not only as they angry were
Be kind to half the time that they shall say
It is undoub... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
1a1bf32b5bc8654e | Are All the Break-Ups in Your Poems Real? | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck
in your heel, the wetness of a finished lollipop stick,
the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse—
then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance,
bit, and bite. Wait. I have made them up—all of them—
and when I say I am married, it means I marriedall of them, a ... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
17eee13737d2871a | Dear, beloved | Sumita Chakraborty | Child. We are done for
in the most remarkable ways.
— Brigit Pegeen Kelly
It would be winter, with a thin snow. An aged sunbeam
would fall on me, then on a nearby summit, until a mass
of ice would come upon me like a crown of master diamonds
in shades of gold and pink. The base of the mountains
would be still in... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S2-5",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
70d94c89052c936a | The Old Slave-Music | Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt | Blow back the breath of the bird, Scatter the song through the air, There was music you never heard, And cannot hear anywhere. It was not the sob of the vain In the old, old dark so sweet, (I shall never hear it again,) Nor the coming of fairy feet. It was music and music alone, Not a sigh from a ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
6e34f6c10b767f64 | Digging in a Footlocker | Walter McDonald | Crouched before dismantled guns,
we found war souvenirs
our uncle padlocked in the attic,
a brittle latch easily pried off.
Stiff uniforms on top, snapshots
of soldiers young as our cousins,
a velvet box of medals
as if he fought all battles
in World War II. Bayonets, machetes,
a folded flag, two hand grenades... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
a9780b9f6e0d194b | In the Dark Again | Sara Nicholson | My husband's out-of-town so I set
Our house on fire. Champagne
And eggs, asparagus for breakfast.
Water for lunch. I eat dinner early
In the late afternoon while the wind
Disorganizes leaves, leaving me
To clean them up. I think that the
Imagination's guided by logic—
A hand that's used to translating
Images o... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-8",
"S8-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
84bf490a1551fc84 | Echo | Raymond Antrobus | 1
My ear amps whistle like they are singing
to Echo, goddess of noise,
the raveled knot of tongues,
of blaring birds, consonant crumbs
of dull doorbells, sounds swamped
in my misty hearing aid tubes.
Gaudí believed in holy sound
and built a cathedral to contain it,
pulling hearing men from their knees
as thou... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c52f927b191ce0d5 | Sleeping with Butler’s Lives of the Saints | Eugene Gloria | After Octavio Paz
What’s most human must drive
an arrow to the heart.
Ghosts, too, must abide by this directive
& remain transparent,
going about their business in old houses.
Before I was an I, I longed to be ethereal.
Sprouting wings at will & gliding through
cul-de-sacs and malls around the valley.
My hands... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
e7343ac6aed44511 | Fowling Piece | Heidy Steidlmayer | The pull of guns I understand, my father taught me hand on hand how death is. Life asserts. (Best take it like a man.) I shot a dove, the common sort and mourned not life but life so short that gazed from death as if unhurt. And I had nothing to report. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
b7bc2aea08362045 | The German word for dream is traume. | Cathy Linh Che | The coal-dust hushed
parameters of the room.
Outside, my mother stitched
whole dresses for $3.00 a piece.
I slept in a bedroom
which faced the street.
A cheerleader was killed
in a drive-by that year.
She died in her sleep.
I watched the headlights
sweep overhead.
*
It felt like skin.
It did not
... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-3"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
26b3ce30a48ab916 | The Long Hill | Sara Teasdale | I must have passed the crest a while ago And now I am going down.Strange to have crossed the crest and not to know— But the brambles were always catching the hem of my gown.All the morning I thought how proud it would be To stand there straight as a queen—Wrapped in the wind and the sun, with the world under m... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
2a40bcd7c523752d | China III | Adrienne Su | It is too much a part of things,
even though the source is not within.
In small American cities
with and without universities,
it keeps a constant presence
in the Confucian sense,
the inner arriving to match
the outer, spirit not separate
from matter (the latter illusion
left by the missions
the people have m... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S3-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
b0a4e823693eca8d | Testament Scratched into a Water Station Barrel | Eduardo C. Corral | In the desert, the moonshivers. Tonight, to stay awake, I’ll cut my feet
with glass.Outside Oaxaca, in a clinic, my mother said,
“I hate your Indian face.”In the dream I’m running. My limbs skeletal
and scabbed.After my mother’s death, I found, in a box,
her wedding dress.As I lifted the lid, a stench corkscrewed
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
2504274a97d4121d | Church | Jacqueline Woodson | On Sundays, the preacher gives everyone a chance
to repent their sins. Miss Edna makes me go
to church. She wears a bright hat
I wear my suit. Babies dress in lace.
Girls my age, some pretty, some not so
pretty. Old ladies and men nodding.
Miss Edna every now and then throwing her hand
in the air. Saying Yes, Lo... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
c0903981a1dd3962 | As | Paul Muldoon | As naught gives way to aught
and oxhide gives way to chain mail
and byrnie gives way to battle-ax
and Cavalier gives way to Roundhead
and Cromwell Road gives way to the Connaught
and I Am Curious (Yellow) gives way to I Am Curious (Blue)
and barrelhouse gives way to Frank’N’Stein
and a pint of Shelley plain to a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
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