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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
06d92be8411e18d6 | Pompeii | Charles Bernstein | The rich men, they know about suffering That comes from natural things, the fate that Rich men say they can't control, the swell of The tides, the erosion of polar caps And the eruption of a terrible Greed among those who cease to be content With what they lack when faced with wealth they are Too ignorant to unders... | [
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"Social Commentaries",
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
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68e5866c0e25ca03 | Political Reflection | Howard Nemerov | loquitur the sparrow in the Zoo | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
20abc76fccedbadc | Prayer for a Bamboo-Flowering Famine | Karen An-hwei Lee | Every half century, the synchronous flowering of bamboo causes famine in parts of India.
May we blossom every fifty yearswithout afflicting the people.May our seedpods nourish rodentswho roam our groveswithout rebuking lands with famine.May sweet potatoes and rice save us.May ginger and turmeric flourishto the bitter ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4314727d77f3d793 | Canned Food Drive | Kathleen Lynch | We lived in the lucky world—
not the far place where flies
sipped at eye corners
of children too weak to cry.
A camera showed that world to us
on posters. But we were children.
We wanted most to not be those
others, with their terrible bones.
We spoke of them wide-eyed, with
what we thought was tenderness.
But our word... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S4-1",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
79200ede91e3a030 | Louisiana Purchase | Charlie Smith | Who knows but that Meriwether Lewis’s
lost diaries might turn up yet
packed in a can in some cramped ex-midden
dug up a thousand years from now,
that elegant, exfoliate style
continue on up the Missouri, into sadness
and disrepute, the suicide in a hotel in Tennessee
no more important now than the bundle
of gra... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
d2946a5558ca9da6 | Thoughts on One’s Head | William Meredith | (In Plaster, with a Bronze Wash)
A person is very self-conscious about his head.
It makes one nervous just to know it is cast
In enduring materials, and that when the real one is dead
The cast one, if nobody drops it or melts it down, will last.
We pay more attention to the front end, where the face is,
Than to t... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
07753ccd9e22a23a | Occupation 1943 | Saadi Youssef | We boys, the neighborhood’s barefoot
We boys, the neighborhood’s naked
We boys of stomachs bloated from eating mud
We boys of teeth porous from eating dates and pumpkin rind
We boys will line up from Hassan al-Basri’s mausoleum to the Ashar River’s source
to meet you in the morning waving green palm fronds
We wil... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
3624b7c0acb52ae4 | To Elsie | William Carlos Williams | The pure products of America
go crazy—
mountain folk from Kentucky
or the ribbed north end of
Jersey
with its isolate lakes and
valleys, its deaf-mutes, thieves
old names
and promiscuity between
devil-may-care men who have taken
to railroading
out of sheer lust of adventure—
and young slatterns, bathed
in ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
3de6c647c32e69c7 | A Reminiscence | Anne Brontë | Yes, thou art gone and never more
Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;
But I may pass the old church door
And pace the floor that covers thee;
May stand upon the cold, damp stone,
And think that frozen lies below
The lightest heart that I have known,
The kindest I shall ever know.
Yet, though I cannot see thee mor... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
3122895bcf333cb8 | The Solitude of Night | Li Po | It was at a wine party—
I lay in a drowse, knowing it not.
The blown flowers fell and filled my lap.
When I arose, still drunken,
The birds had all gone to their nests,
And there remained but few of my comrades.
I went along the river—alone in the moonlight. | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-1"
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"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
65c5f972803bfae4 | The Walk Home | James Tate | I told the doctor I wouldn’t be seeing him again. “No, I guess
you won’t,” he said. I walked out the door feeling really good. Of
course I knew I was going to die, but still the day looked bright to
me. I walked down to the water. Ducks were circling around and about.
A sailboat sailed by. I walked along the shore.... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
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] |
a093b134dfcb4c04 | Italy | Donald Britton | Here in Italy the buildings are the color
Of dead skin and the sky is “tragic”
And the rivers are brown and turbulent
And everybody is always stopping by
To say “Ciao!” and then “Ciao!”
We think a lot about emotion, chiefly
The emotion of love. There is much to cry about.
And after, sleep. One falls in love
So ... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
02240c35dd1dc8aa | Mules and Women | Angela Jackson | with respect to Zora and the Ground of the African Church
Sorrowtalked eye-to-eye forgiven is no mere burden.
The one who sings is no mere beast.
The one who slips the harness of the horror stands alive
as earth.
Today I can watch the wind and it is blue smoke.
I shake myself inside my dress, consider... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-3",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
ed18a8e2c0e5d1d6 | [Murmurs from the earth of this land] | Muriel Rukeyser | Murmurs from the earth of this land, from the caves and craters,
from the bowl of darkness. Down watercourses of our
dragon childhood, where we ran barefoot.
We stand as growing women and men. Murmurs come down
where water has not run for sixty years.
Murmurs from the tulip tree and the catal... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Aging"
] |
d390b252b46368bc | Claribel | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Where Claribel low-lieth
The breezes pause and die,
Letting the rose-leaves fall:
But the solemn oak-tree sigheth,
Thick-leaved, ambrosial,
With an ancient melody
Of an inward agony,
Where Claribel low-lieth.
At eve the beetle boometh
Athwart the thicket lone:
At noon the wild bee hummeth
Ab... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
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"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
489bca11ec080d8b | Remembering Elaine's | Frederick Seidel | We drank our faces off until the sun arrived,
Night after night, and most of us survived
To waft outside to sunrise on Second Avenue,
And felt a kind of Wordsworth wonderment—the morning new,
The sidewalk fresh as morning dew—and us new, too.
How wonderful to be so magnified.
Every Scotch and soda had been useful... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
cce0ff4b7256b49c | Song of the Oyamel | Karen An-hwei Lee | On the other side of this doorYou are an oyamel native to the mountains of MexicoRising in a cloud forest of sister evergreensShedding pollen cones, shedding winged seedsOur lost wings singly and in pairs.This is why the monarchs vanish Raising sienna-hued colonies longer than my armsHibernating ... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
e1f0736b11153984 | Hum for the Bolt | Jamaal May | It could of course be silk. Fifty yards or soof the next closest thing to water to the touch,or it could just as easily be a shaft of wood crumpling a man struck between spaulder and helm. But now, with the rain making a noisy erasure of this town, it is the flash that arrives and leaves at nearly the same moment. It’... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Weather"
] |
6b6a5723a914c391 | Submission | Lynn Crosbie | for Mark and Debra: Malleus Maleficarum
The ground was never recovered, nor the legions, for their numbers were thought so ill omened that they never again appear in the army lists.
—J. M. Roberts
It begins with Diane—the gold shingles of her razored hair
alight in the wind that whips the trees,
the cotton slips p... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
4eeb7a4480581520 | Odysseus Hears of the Death of Kalypso | Donald Revell | All their songs are of one hour Before dawn, when the birds begin. I sing another. In helpless midday, at the hour Even sparrows have no heart to shrill Comes news . . . Suddenly, the unimaginable Needs imagination and finds none. Violet ocean only nothing. Smoke of thyme and of cedar, Ornate birds, nothing. Even a god... | [
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"S6-5",
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
eb3f8ffae9c438ac | nappy edges (a cross country sojourn) | Ntozake Shange | st. louis/ such a colored town/ a whiskey
black space of history & neighborhood/ forever ours/
to lawrenceville/ where the only road open
to me/ waz cleared by colonial slaves/ whose children never
moved/ never seems like/ mended the torments of the Depression
the stains of demented spittle/ dropped from lip... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S6-8"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Youth"
] |
7e326886eb4c2986 | Something Amazing Just Happened | Ted Berrigan | for Jim Carroll, on his birthday
A lovely body gracefully is nodding
Out of a blue Buffalo
Monday morning
curls
softly rising color the air
it’s yellow
above the black pla... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
1876d277c5526195 | Home | Kazim Ali | My father had a steel comb with which he would comb our hair.
After a bath the cold metal soothing against my scalp, his hand cupping
my chin.
My mother had a red pullover with a little yellow duck embroidered
on it and a pendant made from a gold Victoria coronation coin.
Which later, when we first moved to Buffal... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S5-5",
"S6-3",
"S6-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Islam",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
72cb06555df1a740 | 44th Birthday Evening, at Harris’s | Ted Berrigan | Nine stories high Second Avenue
On the roof there’s a party
All the friends are there watching
By the light of the moon the blazing sun
Go down over the side of the planet
To light up the underside of Earth
There are long bent telescopes for the friends
To watch this through. The friends are all in shadow.
I ca... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
f2e4a13da2bbf34e | Ansel Adams’ Aspens | Ailbhe Darcy | To tiny Ansel Adams, newly arrived on this earth,the sky must seem a miracle. I’d commit the sceneto black and white if I could, the sky brightand bottomless, trees gnarled as the knees of elephants.Helpless in his Biltrite pram, Ansel Adams is watchingthe clouds roll in. Then the clouds would gather speed,roll out aga... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-2",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
0cda8bdd44e27ceb | The Speed of Darkness | Muriel Rukeyser | I
Whoever despises the clitoris despises the penis
Whoever despises the penis despises the cunt
Whoever despises the cunt despises the life of the child.
Resurrection music, silence, and surf.
II
No longer speaking
Listening with the whole body
And with every drop of b... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
1301b728e93c7040 | Joyce's Ulysses | Mina Loy | The Normal Monster
sings in the Green Sahara
The voice and offal
of the image of God
make Celtic noises
in these lyrical hells
Hurricanes
of reasoned musics
reap the uncensored earth
The loquent consciousness
of living things
pours in torrential languages
The elderly colloquists
the Spirit and the Flesh
a... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
f875d51ed2cd0c8c | A Meditation in Time of War | William Butler Yeats | For one throb of the artery, While on that old grey stone I sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate Mankind inanimate phantasy. | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
866c71ba6bdff5ff | Corsons Inlet | A. R. Ammons | I went for a walk over the dunes again this morning
to the sea,
then turned right along
the surf
rounded a naked headland
and returned
along the inlet shore:
it was muggy sunny, the wind from the sea steady and high,
crisp in the running sand,
some... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-10",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
141f11024cb7f2f0 | Flour Is Firm | Sandra Beasley | The Traveler’s Vade Mecum, line 4234
Baking two parts flour to one part water could stop a bullet. So good soldiers carried their hardtack over their hearts. Break it down with a rifle butt, flood it, fry it in pig fat to make hellfire stew.Gnaw it raw and praise the juice.Does wheat prepare for this as it grows,seeki... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
ea334e4c12e10b81 | “From the Sustaining Air” | Larry Eigner | from the sustaining air
fresh air
There is the clarity of a shore
And shadow, mostly, brilliance
summer
the billows of August
When, wandering, I look from my page
I say nothing
when asked
I am, finally, an incompetent, after all | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
0b30d8bfd4393012 | An Old-Fashioned Song | John Hollander | (Nous n'irons plus au bois)
No more walks in the wood:
The trees have all been cut
Down, and where once they stood
Not even a wagon rut
Appears along the path
Low brush is taking over.
No more walks in the wood;
This is the aftermath
Of afternoons in the clover
Fields where we once made love
Then wandered ho... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-8",
"S2-8",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
a8562e78294be6a5 | Voices of the Air | Katherine Mansfield | But then there comes that moment rare
When, for no cause that I can find,
The little voices of the air
Sound above all the sea and wind.
The sea and wind do then obey
And sighing, sighing double notes
Of double basses, content to play
A droning chord for the little throats—
The little throats that sing and rise... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-10",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
733cbeb389f447df | Winter Journal: The Sky Is the Lost Orpheum | Emily Wilson | The shelter of it carved, caved
Across the river, the park and the little Ferris wheel
closed down
The great oaks emptying, russet, gusseted
the hovering slant light leaking from the outer edge
of cloud bed
leads and shawls pulled forth
Thy synchrony of the lost elements recovered
the shivering wa... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
32f22bfb3d5494da | From “Anagrams” [xxv] | Luke Kennard | An extremely hubristic, unflattering, and accurate self-portrait, this episode saw Halberg in direct conversa-
tion with Cain, questioning his own methods. The passing allusion to Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin appears
to reference Chapter 4, stanza XXXV: “But I myself read my bedizened /fancies, my rhythmic search for trut... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S5-6",
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S10-8",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
ca98efe465a1abf2 | Rock Pool | Alan R. Shapiro | 1
Water roared everywhere around us, yet from the bank
all we could see of it were quick spumes and flashes
here and there, in among the boulders. Cautiously,
as if they might awaken, we clambered over
the gigantic slabs and humps, the sun-baked ovals
lumpy as hammered clay, and saw downstream below us
only the ... | [
"S2"
] | [] | [
"Nature"
] | [] |
40b6336bb53fb74a | The Sky Is Clear, But It's Raining | Donald Britton | Under the trees, where everything
Is still possible in prescribed doses:
Hundreds of accordion-like units
Without edges. But there is no unwinding
Of minutes to stay the execution
Of a rain-shot weekend in early
Beach weather, no elixir
To revive the amputated flower
Still kicking on its ghost-stem
In a bowl o... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
da0232dc0bfb8e55 | In Every Life | Alicia Ostriker | In every life there’s a moment or twowhen the self disappears, the cruel woundtakes over, and then againat times we are filled with skyor with birds orsimply with the sugary tea on the tablesaid the old womanI know what you mean said the tulipabout epiphaniesfor instance a cloudless April skythe approach of a butterfly... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S6-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Aging"
] |
fd035628a74cd692 | A Night at the Opera | D. A. Powell | turns out
there are no
dead bodies
after all
unless you
put them there | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4af1230f77bcb5ed | The Desk | David Bottoms | Under the fire escape, crouched, one knee in cinders,
I pulled the ball-peen hammer from my belt,
cracked a square of window pane,
the gummed latch, and swung the window,
crawled through that stone hole into the boiler room
of Canton Elementary School, once Canton High,
where my father served three extra years
a... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S8-3",
"S9-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Indoor Activities",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
168ccf8b120a2bbf | [Were it but Me that gained the Height—] | Rebecca Hazelton | World like a coat, silver clasps,
ermine lined, warm with the dead inside,
rolling around in the red center—I thought
everything had a purpose—this was back when
I still drank—and wasn’t I a special
traveler, nestled in that pocket amongst the
butterscotch candies, the matchbooks?
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
e4029a4ae304b0f2 | Three Persons | Fanny Howe | The fields are infertileas far as I can tell.Their winter systemssparkle like the diamondsthat pelt Neptune.Limpid silversreflect in the darkmuseums and theaters back in town.To them we runto elevate our eyes to a well-shaped ethics.Colors are suppliedby our nervous minds.•Towards a justand invisible imagebehind each s... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
5008ac172d0ccc74 | My Brother My Wound | Natalie Diaz | He was calling in the bulls from the street.They came like a dark river — a blur of chest and hoof — everything moving, under, splinter — hookedtheir horns through the walls. Light hummedthe holes like yellow jackets. My mouthwas a nest torn empty.Then, he was at the table.Then, in the pig’s jaws — he was not hungry. H... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e1ec72613e5d1c6e | The Hove | John Barr | Such as there was in the littleness of that dawncould not be this. Not, certainly, the hoveof an invasion fleet from Angleterre,flotilla wrought of shipwright, chandler, armoreras if Ice Age breeding stocks were on the move.The Planners had their weather oracles,haruspices their entrails. All divinedthe red planet alig... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
a99f2bcd35423340 | My Nodebook for December | Keith Waldrop | for Ihab Hassan
1
Closing the door is supposed to open some
inward source—as with, for example, the prayer-
closet: the text says go in and “shut thy door.”
It's a stroke of luck when traditional
wisdom so matches the turning of the season.
2
I've ofen thought of writing a po... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
05466c530f859073 | Three Intentions | Ghassan Zaqtan | 1
I will cry to regret
and slaughter my heart
on a desolate rock in the steppe
and run in the wilderness run
in their illusions in the mirrors
of bullets while shooing
victory and defeat
and also the dead
with war's twig
2
I will arch my back like a noble wolf
and howl in the plains
until the plains go... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
9ccb45237a10477a | The Inside Out Mermaid | Matthea Harvey | The Inside Out Mermaid is fine with letting it all hang out–veins, muscles, the bits of fat at her belly, her small gray spleen. At first her lover loves it–with her organs on the outside, she's the ultimate open book. He can pump her lungs like two bellows and make her gasp; ask her difficult questions and study the s... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
3132b8434d1c5320 | The Sign in My Father’s Hands | Martín Espada | —for Frank Espada
The beer company
did not hire Blacks or Puerto Ricans,
so my father joined the picket line
at the Schaefer Beer Pavilion, New York World’s Fair,
amid the crowds glaring with canine hostility.
But the cops brandished nightsticks
and handcuffs to protect the beer,
and my father disappeared.
In ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
0f68288d09dcca03 | December 26 | Kenn Nesbitt | A BB gun.
A model plane.
A basketball.
A ’lectric train.
A bicycle.
A cowboy hat.
A comic book.
A baseball bat.
A deck of cards.
A science kit.
A racing car.
A catcher’s mitt.
So that’s my list
of everything
that Santa Claus
forgot to bring. | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
ba802594efd9230c | The Painter of the Night | James Tate | Someone called in a report that she had
seen a man painting in the dark over by the
pond. A police car was dispatched to go in-
vestigate. The two officers with their big
flashlights walked all around the pond, but
found nothing suspicious. Hatcher was the
younger of the two, and he said to Johnson,
"What do you think ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
1dd940b31e24bd3d | You | Frank Stanford | Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
And we wake up
And we know the first nights
With summer visitors
In the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
The darkest hair being brushed
In front of the darkest mirror
In the darkest room. | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
fc64d9d73badb526 | Of Love | Robert Herrick | How Love came in, I do not know,
Whether by th’ eye, or eare, or no:
Or whether with the soule it came
(At first) infused with the same:
Whether in part ‘tis here or there,
Or, like the soule, whole every where:
This troubles me: but as I well
As any other, this can tell;
That when from hence she does depart,
The out-l... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-5",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
6bc472ad0620498d | Days of 1994: Alexandrians | Marilyn Hacker | for Edmund White
Lunch: as we close the twentieth century,
death, like a hanger-on or a wanna-be
sits with us at the cluttered bistro
table, inflecting the conversation.
Elderly friends take lovers, rent studios,
plan trips to unpronounceable provinces.
Fifty makes the ironic ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
7698f4906029b7c5 | René Magritte | Shuzo Takiguchi | Released silhouettes
flow incessantly like water,
flow between mountains
swiftly like a kaleidoscope.
The solitude of the North Pole
bustles with human silhouettes.
Endless transmission of ABC.
On the shredded shore
a silk hat burns
like a mirror trick,
like a human echo
burns a silk hat endlessly.
Then t... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
e639fafcc5676ecc | Astrophil and Stella 2: Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot | Sir Philip Sidney | Not at first sight, nor with a dribbèd shot, Love gave the wound which while I breathe will bleed: But known worth did in mine of time proceed, Till by degrees it had full conquest got. I saw, and liked; I liked, but lovèd not; I loved, but straight did not what love decreed: At length to love’s decrees I, ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
1c471a7831a93d76 | The Secret Panel | Jeffrey Jullich | Not unusual, to have therapy only one night a week,
to have a professional to talk to about personal problems.
Evening would be a typical time, after work. It might
require traveling there by public transportation, in a city
where few people have cars, and taxis have become
expensive in the past few years. Some mo... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
4d4ad60715d6be36 | [Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?] | Lorine Niedecker | Mr. Van Ess bought 14 washcloths?
Fourteen washrags, Ed Van Ess?
Must be going to give em
to the church, I guess.
He drinks, you know. The day we moved
he came into the kitchen stewed,
mixed things up for my sister Grace—
put the spices in the wrong place. | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
3d2b94e1605b2d41 | Echo | Pura López-Colomé | It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product—
Airs no Oceans keep—
—Emily Dickinson
Afloat between your lens
and your gaze,
the last consideration to go
across my gray matter
and its salubrious
deliquescence
is
whether or not I’ll swim,
whether I’ll be able to breathe,
whether I’ll live like be... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
d5f76c497adf9610 | Idea 61: Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part | Michael Drayton | Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part. Nay, I have done, you get no more of me; And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free. Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former lov... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-8",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8458f87339ceaeeb | Stick Elegy | Terrance Hayes | The dead were still singing Turn the lights down low Beneath Yellow Bridge where years before, clowning And ass out, Stick jumped with nothing but the State Championship trophy in his righteous clutch. The water Was supposed to be deepest there, and for three seasons Straight MVPs: Charlie "Fly" Kennison, Long Timmy Lo... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
72138a44a360cd38 | What Was It? | Jennifer Moxley | I was eating my dinner alone,
sitting on the living-room couch
watching a movie on TV for company
when the forces your covetous presence prevents
slowly crawled out in fibrous droves.
Without you to follow me with your
clipboard, or record the game my face plays,
masquerading as a cryptic territory
and your fie... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-3",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
20cbf5db94fefc5a | Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward | John Donne | Let mans Soule be a Spheare, and then, in this, The intelligence that moves, devotion is, And as the other Spheares, by being growne Subject to forraigne motion, lose their owne, And being by others hurried every day, Scarce in a yeare their naturall forme obey: Pleasure or businesse, so, our Soules admit For their fir... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
2b3217c64f23a872 | The Preacher Addresses the Seminarians | Christian Wiman | I tell you it's a bitch existence some Sundays
and it's no good pretending you don't have to pretend,
don't have to hitch up those gluefutured nags Hope and Help
and whip the sorry chariot of yourself
toward whatever hell your heaven is on days like these.
I tell you it takes some hunger heaven itself won't slake
... | [
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
579c4365be859988 | The Pear | Jane Hirshfield | November. One pear sways on the tree past leaves, past reason. In the nursing home, my friend has fallen. Chased, he said, from the freckled woods by angry Thoreau, Coleridge, and Beaumarchais. Delusion too, it seems, can be well read. He is courteous, well-spoken even in dread. The old fineness in him hangs on f... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
cee1e8113108051c | The Hermit: 75 | Lucy Ives | 75.Even with geographic proximity, there may exist temporal
systems such that two people cannot meet one another or will
never meet again.
Dream last night includes swimming. Something about a thick
river, keep riding boats on it, travel from station to station,
temporary home to home. It is Berlin or a group of i... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
5c3ba7a9d6b4fcdc | Giovanni Franchi | Mina Loy | The threewomen who all walked
In the same dress
And it had falling ferns on it
Skipped parallel
To the progress
Of Giovanni Franchi
Giovanni Franchi’s wrists flicked
Flickeringly as he flacked them
His wrists explained things
Infectiously by way of his adolescence
His adolescence was all there was of him
Wha... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
a678b7034c034fd7 | Birthday Suits | Joshua Jennifer Espinoza | I turned twenty-four and
dad decided to take
another stab at making
a man out of me.
On his command, I drove us
out to Hollywood where
you could get three sets of suits
for a hundred bucks.What a steal! he exclaimed
as though his enthusiasm
would fertilize
something that never
existed within me.
Regardless,... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-8",
"S6-2",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
fd0d6f94f2cdcad8 | The Unknown Soldier | Melvin B. Tolson | I was a minuteman at Concord Bridge,
I was a frigate-gunner on Lake Erie,
I was a mortarman at Stony Ridge,
I fought at San Juan Hill and Château Thierry,
I braved Corregidor and the Arctic Sea:
The index finger brings democracy.
These States bred freedom in and in my bone—
Old as the new testament of Plymouth B... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
06e92d1a37c32c84 | Psalm 51 | Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke | O Lord, whose grace no limits comprehend; Sweet Lord, whose mercies stand from measure free; To me that grace, to me that mercy send, And wipe, O Lord, my sins from sinful me. Oh, cleanse, oh, wash, my foul iniquity; Cleanse still my spots, still wash away my stainings, ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
1d205996498e58f3 | [the bigness of cannon] | E. E. Cummings | the bigness of cannon
is skilful,
but i have seen
death’s clever enormous voice
which hides in a fragility
of poppies. . . .
i say that sometimes
on these long talkative animals
are laid fists of huger silence.
I have seen all the silence
filled with vivid noiseless boys
at Roupy
i have seen
between barrag... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
178239c8be084d0a | To My Daughter On Being Separated from Her on Her Marriage | Anne Hunter | Dear to my heart as life’s warm stream
Which animates this mortal clay,
For thee I court the waking dream,
And deck with smiles the future day;
And thus beguile the present pain
With hopes that we shall meet again.
Yet, will it be as when the past
Twined every joy, and care, and thought,
And o’er our minds one ma... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
107dfed04876c04c | Language is her caravan | Caleb Klaces | Frosty, green through gray rising steeply,top of the bank a big top, red with a sign,misty, fantastical on the walk to school.“My sister can’t express herself properly. Imagine if those performerswere stuck in their caravansforever. If round the back of the big topthe doors were locked. That’s her.She’s a trapeze artis... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b4366ca7fdb7ebc4 | Astrophil and Stella 72: Desire, though thou my old companion art | Sir Philip Sidney | Desire, though thou my old companion art, And oft so clings to my pure Love that I One from the other scarcely can descry, While each doth blow the fire of my heart, Now from thy fellowship I needs must part; Venus is taught with Dian’s wings to fly; I must no more in thy sweet passions lie; Virtue’s gold now must head... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
d7d729580afad011 | The Fishermen’s Farewell | Robin Robertson | Their long stares mark them apart; eyes gone to sea-colors: gray, foam-flecked and black in the undertow, blue as the blue banners of the mackerel, whipping west.On land, they are smoke-walkers, where each stone is a standing stone, every circle a stone circle.They would be rumor if they could, in this frozenlandscape... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
0ce8126a86beb831 | Nude Descending a Staircase | X J Kennedy | Toe after toe, a snowing flesh,
a gold of lemon, root and rind,
she sifts in sunlight down the stairs
with nothing on. Nor on her mind.
We spy beneath the banister
a constant thresh of thigh on thigh;
her lips imprint the swinging air
that parts to let her parts go by.
One-woman waterfall, she wears
her slow d... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
604261d5b0cf53e9 | Viola | Sylvia Legris | Under Venus the sugared wound, the heart-strung-up, the viola d’amore. Under Venus the Pliny-prescribed, the horsehair-hanked — not plucked, tugged — the singly sung (catgut kidney-cuffs the caterwaul, a knockback to the viola bastarda). Kittenish! A scalloped flirtatious border — florid cordial pansies (candied adorat... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
475f784833d2311d | Byzantium | William Butler Yeats | The unpurged images of day recede;
The Emperor's drunken soldiery are abed;
Night resonance recedes, night-walkers' song
After great cathedral gong;
A starlit or a moonlit dome disdains
All that man is,
All mere complexities,
The fury and the mire of human veins.
Before me floats an image, man or shade,
Shade ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
98c15336d4ed7a3b | Apotheosis | Samuel Menashe | Taut with longing You must become The god you sought— The only one | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
b9d98c45d37dc91a | I Left My Head | Lilian Moore | I left my head
somewhere
today.
Put it down for
just
a minute.
Under the
table?
On a chair?
Wish I were
able
to say
where.
Everything I need
is
in it! | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
dcb80d1b704a576f | I Love You | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | I love your lips when they’re wet with wine
And red with a wild desire;
I love your eyes when the lovelight lies
Lit with a passionate fire.
I love your arms when the warm white flesh
Touches mine in a fond embrace;
I love your hair when the strands enmesh
Your kisses against my face.
Not for me the cold, c... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
190d771fcdd20b8f | Spaces We Leave Empty | Cathy Song | The jade slipped from my wrist
with the smoothness of water
leaving the mountains,
silk falling from a shoulder,
melon slices sliding across the tongue,
the fish returning.
The bracelet worn since my first birthday
cracked into thousand-year-old eggshells.
The sound could be heard
ringing across the water
whe... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
76879f43aa324696 | Ben Jonson Entertains a Man from Stratford | Edwin Arlington Robinson | You are a friend then, as I make it out, Of our man Shakespeare, who alone of us Will put an ass's head in Fairyland As he would add a shilling to more shillings, All most harmonious, — and out of his Miraculous inviolable increase Fills Ilion, Rome, or any town you like Of olden time with timeless Englishmen; And I mu... | [
"S3",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
4fb5ed944f2ce112 | The Outstretched Earth | Jane Mead | Do you know what whole fields are?They are fields with a dog and a moon.Do you know the answer — for the many?Except there would be vineyards.Meaning there would, as usual, be commerce.Money, and a game of sorts to play it.Meanwhile — Emma lost in the cover-crop.Top of her head bobbing through mustard-flower.It is, aft... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-9",
"S4-1",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
fe25374112016c65 | Sales | W. S. Di Piero | Miguel might, if he speaks English, call the colorsof ukuleles stretching their necks from yardsof canvas duffel yoked across his shoulders,auroral azul, cherry pop, or mojito green,under this Pac Heights sky where the awful richsnap their heels past shop windows, past goatskin bagsand spiked heels that bring them clos... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-7",
"S3-8",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
d7b204c352b5782f | Sin Vergüenza (Como los Pájaros) | Jennifer Givhan | The woman in the documentary reaches her hands
to the fence touches her child through an opening
De mis manos dolor When I was a child my mama
drove me to the swap meet on the other side
for a white dress & flowered wreath my first
Holy Communion the mamas nursing
on the roadside ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2",
"S5-8",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
454f5011ddfa8e02 | The Cherry Trees | Edward Thomas | The cherry trees bend over and are sheddingOn the old road where all that passed are dead,Their petals, strewing the grass as for a weddingThis early May morn when there is none to wed. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-1",
"S2-8",
"S3-4",
"S3-9",
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"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
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"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
def36d76817d2b8f | Lucia | Ravi Shankar | My hair, voluminous from sleeping in
six different positions, redolent with your scent,
helps me recall that last night was indeed real,
that it's possible for a bedspread to spawn
a watershed in the membrane that keeps us
shut in our own skins, mute without pleasure,
that I didn't just dream you into being.
You... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
e891bc709e801f8e | Why do I hate Flarf so much? | Drew Gardner | She came from the mountains, killing zombies at will. Some people cried “but that was cool!” and I could only whisper “we should NOT be killing zombies!” What have you gotten yourself to do? Did it ever occur to you that you may in fact hate yourself? I know I do . . . I’m not nearly high enough yet—and you’re not help... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-5",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
c13ed4a9bba5a018 | Like a Sentence | John Ashbery | How little we know,
and when we know it!
It was prettily said that “No man
hath an abundance of cows on the plain, nor shards
in his cupboard.” Wait! I think I know who said that! It was . . .
Never mind, dears, the afternoon
will fold you up, along with preoccupations
that now seem so important, until only a ch... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
51f43ac1f7f2f926 | The Laboratory | Robert Browning | Now that I, tying thy glass mask tightly, May gaze thro’ these faint smokes curling whitely, As thou pliest thy trade in this devil’s-smithy— Which is the poison to poison her, prithee? He is with her, and they know that I know Where they are, what they do: they believe my tears flow While they laugh, laugh at me, a... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S8-1",
"S8-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
191ec0f7fd31547d | The Beautiful Animal | Geoffrey Brock | By the time I recalled that it is also
terrifying, we had gone too far into
the charmed woods to return. It was then
the beautiful animal appeared in our path:
ribs jutting, moon-fed eyes moving
from me to you and back. If we show
none of the fear, it may tire of waiting
for the triggering flight, it may ask onl... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
e9cb3a08c4062e2d | Clothespins | Stuart Dybek | I once hit clothespins
for the Chicago Cubs.
I'd go out after supper
when the wash was in
and collect clothespins
from under four stories
of clothesline.
A swing-and-a-miss
was a strike-out;
the garage roof, Willie Mays,
pounding his mitt
under a pop fly.
Bushes, a double,
off the fence, triple,
and over,... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
d745e49ac6d14e75 | Evening Angelus | Joyce Sutphen | I have forgotten the words,
and therefore I shall not conceive
of a mysterious salvation, I shall
not become a tall lily and bloom
into blue and white. Then what
oracular event shall appear on
my doorstep? What announcement
shall crowd me to a corner,
protesting an unworthiness,
which doubtless shall be believ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
ec4608e832a1165b | from Troilus and Criseyde: Book V | Geoffrey Chaucer | (excerpt) From Book V
The morwen com, and gostly for to speke, This Diomede is come un-to Criseyde; And shortly, lest that ye my tale breke, So wel he for hym-selven spak and seyde, That alle hire sikes soore adown he leyde. And finaly, the sothe for to seyne, He refte hir of the grete of al hire peyne. And after thi... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S6-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-7",
"S10-5",
"S10-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity",
... |
240b99b6f6aa4c05 | The Man I Could Have Been | Roddy Lumsden | The man I could have been works for a vital institution, is a vital
institution.
Without him, walls will crumble, somewhere, paint will peel.
He takes a catch.
He is outdoorsy and says It was a nightmare and means the traffic.
He’s happy to watch a film and stops short of living in one.
The man I coul... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
cc0f0e22417c5aa7 | Leviathan | Joshua Edwards | Love of air and water
Joined in apprehension,
Perhaps you know what's there
By way of fear, for while
Living in pursuit of
And going always forth
Toward something that trembles.
Its knowledge is your mind.
What do you think about
The great ocean's sullen
Aristocrats—these small
Headaches and dark affairs
Th... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
3d685e92085ee34a | Wheel | Michael Palmer | You can say the broken word but cannot speak
for it, can name a precise and particular shade
of blue if you can remember its name
(Woman of the South, New Lilac, Second Sky?)
As the light, close to blinding, fell—falls
in bars across a particular page, this
then another, some other
followed far too closely by ni... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
13dcf77b12485ddf | Gulls | Kate Camp | In Homer, the gods
take the place of consciousness.
For me, it is birds.
Gray gulls
seen from above,
a tan and white pigeon
bringing amoral intelligence
to the balcony wall.
Geoff says they are really getting tough on birds
in Brighton. Bringing in a bylaw.
I remember his balcony
it’s really just the roof of... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
cf625152bd9ec85e | The Very Rich Hours | James McMichael | Amant in bed,
dreaming.
There are no
borders to this
miniature.
B moves Bateau across the night.
It is all the loops can do
to let their gilding
bulge with what is there.
One light on the wide sea.
The bones of stars.
No other country is so
curiously watered.
From ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
ccf07b25952234d0 | Buzkashi | Diana Khoi Nguyen | A husband puts an afghan over the dead goat’s
torso, combs the knots out of her beard.
The goat smells chalk, wonders when the riders
will come in their wool pakols red from walnuts, spurs
chirring like castanets. The buzkashi whips
will grow damp in their mouths, their rope belts
slowly twisting in place. She k... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
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