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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
a5c33bbedf842493 | The River | Jim Harrison | Yes, we'll gather by the river,
the beautiful, the beautiful river.
They say it runs by the throne of God.
This is where God invented fish.
Wherever, but then God's throne is as wide
as the universe. If you're attentive you'll
see the throne's borders in the stars. We're on this side
and when you get to the othe... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
fbc6888d57c596e3 | Midnight Office | Cynthia Cruz | The child is not dead.
She is sleeping.
Gone from this world
Which is broken.
The angel of Michael
Outside the garden
His circle of fire
Maddening around the tree.
He put the word
Back into her:
A heavy kind of music.
Then she was free.
As we all are.
All night I stood in the icy wind,
Praying for the sto... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a0dcf47286ccf769 | Prayer | Jorie Graham | Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands, swirl
themselves, each a minuscule muscle, but also, without the
way to create current, making of their unison (turning, re-
infolding,
entering and exiting their own unison in unison) making o... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
e30cbac22317fe9d | An Hymn In Honour Of Beauty | Edmund Spenser | AH whither, Love, wilt thou now carry me?
What wontless fury dost thou now inspire
Into my feeble breast, too full of thee?
Whilst seeking to aslake thy raging fire,
Thou in me kindlest much more great desire,
And up aloft above my strength dost raise
The wondrous matter of my fire to praise.
That as I erst in praise o... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
030f69388f297193 | Faith | Michael Schmidt | When I cannot believe,
The brown herds still move across green fields
Into the tufty hills, and I was born
Higher, where I could watch them as a bird might.
When even memory seems imagined, what
Can I bring to prayer? A pair of knees.
The great faith that built a stair to heaven
As now my memory tries to climb a... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
1a05fb847b60bf76 | from The Task, Book I: The Sofa | William Cowper | (excerpt)
Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjur’d up To serve occasions of poetic pomp, But genuine, and art partner of them all. How oft upon yon eminence our pace Has slacken’d to a pause, and we have borne The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, While admiratio... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-1",
"S6-5",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
dce08004fd38361c | Simon Lee: The Old Huntsman | William Wordsworth | In the sweet shire of Cardigan,
Not far from pleasant Ivor-hall,
An old Man dwells, a little man,—
'Tis said he once was tall.
For five-and-thirty years he lived
A running huntsman merry;
And still the centre of his cheek
Is red as a ripe cherry.
No man like him the horn could sound,
And hill and valley rang with glee
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
d160f16c5274b322 | Twenty-year Marriage | Ai | You keep me waiting in a truck
with its one good wheel stuck in the ditch,
while you piss against the south side of a tree.
Hurry. I’ve got nothing on under my skirt tonight.
That still excites you, but this pickup has no windows
and the seat, one fake leather thigh,
pressed close to mine is cold.
I’m the same s... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
e4b03419486a525e | The Cross of Snow | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | In the long, sleepless watches of the night, A gentle face — the face of one long dead — Looks at me from the wall, where round its head The night-lamp casts a halo of pale light. Here in this room she died; and soul more white Never through martyrdom of fire was led To its repose; nor can in books be re... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
a4478018f9bec27b | Warming Her Pearls | Carol Ann Duffy | for Judith Radstone
Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress
bids me wear them, warm them, until evening
when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them
round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,
resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk
or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself
whilst ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
fe0660f9aa912efa | Eclogue | Ed Roberson | I wonder if anyone ever thought
to tell time with them know where their shadow
tipped on 3 o'clock which floor which parking spot
from a window desk or if they ever
stood completely over their own shade's dot
that moment they had no metered footprint;
a peek-a-boo we now find ticketed
as a before and... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
37a5f938539d9548 | The Man in the Iron Lung | Mark O'Brien | I scream
The body electric,
This yellow, metal, pulsing cylinder
Whooshing all day, all night
In its repetitive dumb mechanical rhythm.
Rudely, it inserts itself in the map of my body,
Which my midnight mind,
Dream-drenched cartographer of terra incognita,
Draws upon the dark parchment of sleep.
I scream
In m... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
a952e75ec95a3685 | Pity the Beautiful | Dana Gioia | Pity the beautiful,the dolls, and the dishes, the babes with big daddies granting their wishes.Pity the pretty boys, the hunks, and Apollos, the golden lads whom success always follows.The hotties, the knock-outs,the tens out of ten, the drop-dead gorgeous, the great leading men.Pity the faded, the bloated, the blowsy,... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
edb9ba3b45760291 | Dirty Face | Shel Silverstein | Where did you get such a dirty face,
My darling dirty-faced child?
I got it from crawling along in the dirt
And biting two buttons off Jeremy’s shirt.
I got it from chewing the roots of a rose
And digging for clams in the yard with my nose.
I got it from peeking into a dark cave
And painting myself like a Navajo... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
0f64ea17562999e5 | Bright Blue Self-Portrait | Frank Lima | I thank the spiders’ webs and the circus dancers who stain our eyes withRapid movements and authorize our handcuffs to make no distinctionBetween night and day or love and hate.No one will know the sum of our arduous daily separations from bed toWork. These pillars actually belong to you since I have not counted themOr... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
8ec56f38401538df | The Wife Speaks | Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard | Husband, today could you and I behold The sun that brought us to our bridal morn Rising so splendid in the winter sky (We though fair spring returned), when we were wed; Could the shades vanish from these fifteen years, Which stand like columns guarding the approach To that great temple of the double soul That is as o... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
97706adf88da6a1d | Each Defeat | Eileen Myles | Please! Keep
reading me
Blake
because you’re going to make
me the greatest
poet of
all time
Keep smoothing
the stones in the
driveway
let me fry an egg
on your ass
& I’ll pick up
the mail.
I feel your
absence in
the morning
& imagine your
instant mouth
let me move
in with you—
Travelling
wrapping ... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
ca525707b1d89534 | Charlottesville Curriculum | Sarah Gambito | I am afraid of your transcendental death.
When people say think of a man. I think of a brown man.
Sometimes the earth grows khella because she can feel our suffering.
Yooooooing beneath Costco tikis.
When people say think of a man. I think of a white man.
I am meant to hold you in your oblique pain, your map-drive... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
0cd2a884f591d33b | Colors passing through us | Marge Piercy | Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with hen... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
2057c1ceb9f71d02 | The Uniform | Marvin Bell | Of the sleeves, I remember their weight, like wet wool,
on my arms, and the empty ends which hung past my hands.
Of the body of the shirt, I remember the large buttons
and larger buttonholes, which made a rack of wheels
down my chest and could not be quickly unbuttoned.
Of the collar, I remember its thickness with... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
93da7b3a39d57534 | Love Song | David Tomas Martinez | Though I am more Che than Chavez,I am still a dove.
I do not apologizeto you. Or to the state
of California. The IRS. New York. That administrator I bitin the third grade,who was deliciousand sweet.I, oh,
so cold.
In the mind, the Dionysian defiles wallsthe Apollonian protects.I am always lookingto take something
... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-8",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
dfead9a8ccc21080 | The Negro Speaks of Rivers | Langston Hughes | I’ve known rivers:
I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
91edbc1dec8dd9fc | Spring in Belfast | Derek Mahon | Walking among my own this windy morning
In a tide of sunlight between shower and shower,
I resume my old conspiracy with the wet
Stone and the unwieldy images of the squinting heart.
Once more, as before, I remember not to forget.
There is a perverse pride in being on the side
Of the fallen angels and refusing to... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
fe03a7a263edecb3 | Rope | Rynn Williams | The girl’s father laughs a little too hard
when I say: She knows what’s important in life
as his daughter whips the dime store jump rope
over her head for the twelve thousandth time—
laughs as if I’m joking, when really, she has it down—
sparkly pink handles grimy with effort,
her face obscured by her hair, shins... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
385f32eb61df683a | The Archaeologists | Julia Shipley | found pinsby the millionswhile meticulouslystrippinga portionof Manhattanworked overby women whomended betweenappointments:the harlot’sartifacts includeextracts ofold waxpaper wrappersfilled with pinafter pin,— imagineall sixteenthsspilledfrom the inchruler;imagine eacha singularspokeof tin,each one fell strokein a led... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
54c20cd81f6fd347 | Face Blindness | Cynthia Arrieu-King | They look at the photo and agree that’s dad in the class photo of Ip Man, Wing Chun master.
I look at the face and cannot say it looks like him to me.
My brother asked his forensics detective coworker to look at the face.
Mom thinks it’s him too, he says proudly.
My mother often watches game shows and says look it ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d48333cdf0ee3a86 | Bearings | Megan Snyder-Camp | The marriage ran under their skin, a rash, or maybe
all that red wine, luminescent cocktail hours
in which lost books were rediscovered, or just a rash,
a reaction sending out runners across her chest,
a vine, something close, ruby scarves coming back
into fashion, their son coming back
from school, from the yard... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-7",
"S8-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
660ea4006ae87d98 | Let Evening Come | Jane Kenyon | Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver h... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
8ea697a2dacc8794 | The Preface | Edward Taylor | Infinity, when all things it beheldIn Nothing, and of Nothing all did build,Upon what Base was fixt the Lath whereinHe turn | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
c46eddb8205b9bda | Poem [“Lana Turner has collapsed!”] | Frank O'Hara | Lana Turner has collapsed!
I was trotting along and suddenly
it started raining and snowing
and you said it was hailing
but hailing hits you on the head
hard so it was really snowing and
raining and I was in such a hurry
to meet you but the traffic
was acting exactly like the sky
and suddenly I see a headlinel... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-1",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
a4c23ad38a4dc337 | The Mount | Léonie Adams | Now I have tempered haste,
The joyous traveller said,
The steed has passed me now
Whose hurrying hooves I fled.
My spectre rides thereon,
I learned what mount he has,
Upon what summers fed;
And wept to know again,
Beneath the saddle swung,
Treasure for whose great theft
This breast was wrung.
His bridle bell... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
3c9631893e9df429 | On a Girdle | Edmund Waller | That which her slender waist confin’d,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer,
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass, and yet th... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
ef094cc031b3775a | The Beautiful Changes | Richard Wilbur | One wading a Fall meadow finds on all sides
The Queen Anne’s Lace lying like lilies
On water; it glides
So from the walker, it turns
Dry grass to a lake, as the slightest shade of you
Valleys my mind in fabulous blue Lucernes.
The beautiful changes as a forest is changed
By a chameleon’s tuning his skin to it;
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
e823229b564acd43 | To Help the Monkey Cross the River | Thomas Lux | which he must
cross, by swimming, for fruits and nuts,
to help him
I sit with my rifle on a platform
high in a tree, same side of the river
as the hungry monkey. How does this assist
him? When he swims for it
I look first upriver: predators move faster with
the current than against it.
If a crocodile is aimed ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
02852e04d34dae4a | Anasazi | Tacey M. Atsitty | How can we die when we're already
prone to leaving the table mid-meal
like Ancient Ones gone to breathe
elsewhere. Salt sits still, but pepper's gone
rolled off in a rush. We've practiced dying
for a long time: when we skip dance or town,
when we chew. We've rounded out
like dining room walls in a canyon, eaten
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e2115cf82602a1d0 | from Revelator | Ron Silliman | Words torn, unseen, unseemly, scenesome far suburb’s mall lot Summer’s theme: this year’s humid—to sweat is to know—pen squeezed too tight yields ink as blood or pus so the phrase scraped, removed offending thine eye: “Outsource Bush” Against which, insource what? Who will do it? Most terrible predicate—high above moun... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S3-1",
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
79c62fa5542a458c | Searching for Satellites | Roberto Harrison | the news
is released
for the secret
of worlds, I reach
the end
of my laughter
and breathe
to the night sky
a periodically
interrupted song
to reach the forest
of my refuge, here
where the lights are
where one dissolves
and appears. to see the hidden
files of your mind
and listen
listen
as I cross the ... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [] |
bb8601b0f4f07106 | What Is Impossible | A. F. Moritz | About the age of twenty, when the first hairfall
signals that nature is finished with the organism
and we just begin to conceive the use of women
(having been all this time
more enamored of the fountain than the cistern),
we retire to nursing homes,
whether they be kaleidoscopic gardens
aimed like a blunderbuss ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
29c1f43f3be27070 | To Cupid | Joanna Baillie | Child, with many a childish wile,
Timid look, and blushing smile,
Downy wings to steal thy way,
Gilded bow, and quiver gay,
Who in thy simple mien would trace
The tyrant of the human race?
Who is he whose flinty heart
Hath not felt the flying dart?
Who is he that from the wound
Hath not pain and pleasure found... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-5",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
f6df93d3f78cd416 | Reserve | Louise Imogen Guiney | You that are dear, O you above the rest! Forgive him his evasive moods and cold; The absence that belied him oft of old, The war upon sad speech, the desperate jest, And pity’s wildest gush but half-confessed, Forgive him! Let your gentle memories hold Some written word once tender and once bold, Or service done shamef... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-9",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
c5864c8a9670addc | Fate | Carolyn Wells | Two shall be born the whole world wide apart, And speak in different tongues, and pay their debts In different kinds of coin; and give no heed Each to the other’s being. And know not That each might suit the other to a T, If they were but correctly introduced. And these, unconsciously, shall bend their steps, Escaping ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-5",
"S1-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
634d0595380cb10e | Lincoln | Vachel Lindsay | Would I might rouse the Lincoln in you all, That which is gendered in the wilderness From lonely prairies and God’s tenderness. Imperial soul, star of a weedy stream, Born where the ghosts of buffaloes still dream, Whose spirit hoof-beats storm above his grave, Above that breast of earth and prairie-fire— Fire that fre... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
5e4cc8c9b5ceabb2 | Satires of Circumstance in Fifteen Glimpses VIII: In the Study | Thomas Hardy | He enters, and mute on the edge of a chair
Sits a thin-faced lady, a stranger there,
A type of decayed gentility;
And by some small signs he well can guess
That she comes to him almost breakfastless.
"I have called — I hope I do not err —
I am looking for a purchaser
Of some score volumes of the works
Of eminent divine... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
4399b38d89e36c3f | The Untold Witch | Keith Waldrop | 1
She would
sigh, if she
could think of
anything intolerable.
her numbers
fold, in
planes she can
not describe.
Does she
close her eyes for
that faint
red of processes?
Come to me,
by instinct or
for mathematics’
sake.
2
She
moves
in a metaphor of
action.
Heaven, she
says, is
hell
remembered.
... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
baca8f40a3d2cc1b | Cat | Marilyn Singer | I prefer
warm fur,
a perfect fire
to lie beside,
a cozy lap
where I can nap,
an empty chair
when she's not there.
I want heat
on my feet
on my nose
on my hide.
No cat I remember
dislikes December
inside. | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
79000fceaf25839f | Early Morning, Left-Handed | Hilda Raz | Lear's five nevers over
the fool hanged, and Cordelia
and Lear dead at last, Edmund
reported and yes he was loved
by both evil sisters, so what.
I'm awake in the dawn. Cold
stone floors. The cat. His
father loved him too, I tell
my son on the phone, my
son just married. Let him
cleave to his wife. Let my
old... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
4f08b60324e8794c | Conclusion | John Frederick Nims | legato con amore in un volume
ciò che per l’universo si squaderna . . .
If what began (look far and wide) will end:
This lava globe huddle and freeze, its core
Brittle with cold, or pulled too near its friend
Pop once like one gun in a long-drawn war,
And the stars sputter one by one, the night
So empty judging ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
f81ec873854f81ad | Storm Windows | Howard Nemerov | People are putting up storm windows now,
Or were, this morning, until the heavy rain
Drove them indoors. So, coming home at noon,
I saw storm windows lying on the ground,
Frame-full of rain; through the water and glass
I saw the crushed grass, how it seemed to stream
Away in lines like seaweed on the tide
Or bla... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
14fd2df23a9c2b9a | I Hate | C. K. Williams | I hate how this unsummoned sigh-sound, sob-sound, not sound really, feeling, sigh-feeling, sob-feeling, keeps rising in me, rasping in me, not in its old disguise as nostalgia, sweet crazed call of the blackbird; not as remembrance, grief for so many gone, nor either that other tangle of recall, regret for unredeemed... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
141ac6a22d5c6dd9 | You Also, Nightingale | Reginald Shepherd | Petrarch dreams of pebbles
on the tongue, he loves me
at a distance, black polished stone
skipping the lake that swallows
worn-down words, a kind of drown
and drench and quench and very kind
to what I would've said. Light marries
water and what else (unfit
for drinking purposes), light lavishes
my skin on inte... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
b05df4779395c80e | My Doggy Ate My Homework | Dave Crawley | “My doggy ate my homework.
He chewed it up,” I said.
But when I offered my excuse
My teacher shook her head.
I saw this wasn’t going well.
I didn’t want to fail.
Before she had a chance to talk,
I added to the tale:
“Before he ate, he took my work
And tossed it in a pot.
He simmered it with succotash
Till it... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-6"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
f83f32d4d18bc716 | The Night Would Grow Like a Telescope Pulled Out | Alberto Ríos | People would come to my great-grandmother’s house.
She was in a room. They would stay in the kitchen.
The words their words rolled like cars by on a train
Here from somewhere else and going somewhere else
Moving on faster almost than we could read them,
Sound them out my brother and me with our small mouths,
Ches... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
c85e1fd5118fc1d7 | Geodes of the Western Hemisphere | Jana Prikryl | The earth has feelings
some killed others in its mud and it has lots of mud
The earth builds a scrapyard, a sequence of them to tell
of this, a seam on its embalmed glabella future galaxies caress
The earth knows André Breton,
compiles ingenuous personalities in its fevered correspondence
Out of its winding sheet... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
9084f750d65d4e2b | Infidelity | Louis Untermeyer | You have not conquered me—it is the surge
Of love itself that beats against my will;
It is the sting of conflict, the old urge
That calls me still.
It is not you I love—it is the form
And shadow of all lovers who have died
That gives you all the freshness of a warm
And unfamiliar bride.
It is your name I breath... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
2d16e6b2cf8ccd23 | Freedsong: Dream Song | Tyehimba Jess | Our Box Henry hid away.
John Berryman’s Ol’ Henry sulked.
I see his point—he was trying to put one over.
It was that he thought that we thought
he could do it that breaks our Henry out this-a-way.
So, here he will come out and talk.
All the world like a fool-bent lover
once did see from Ol’ Henry’s side.
Her... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
513f11b6caf1d7ed | Hanging Fire | Audre Lorde | I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without
still sucks his thumb
in secret
how come my knees are
always so ashy
what if I die
before morning
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party
my room is too small for me
sup... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
83b8bf92d6b21bb0 | Lost in Translation | Gabriel Gomez | The kinship with those humans
who speak directly to me
is webbed to the ceiling.
An economy of satellites, a cosmos,
where revision we think
comes without the benefit
of our witness. A peculiar time
when stars with modest faces
sleep in enormity and mirror
death like a child’s infirmity that
despite socio-eco... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
d6fc4d59c5c0e1c7 | So We'll Go No More a Roving | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | So, we'll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the d... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S6-5",
"S8-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4767267e5ffea3fd | At the Poetry Reading | John Brehm | I can’t keep my eyes off the poet’s wife’s legs—they’re so much more beautiful than anything he might be saying, though I’m no longer in a position really to judge, having stopped listening some time ago. He’s from the Iowa Writers Workshop and can therefore get along fine without my attention. He started in reading po... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
19ba759835656a7a | The Mower to the Glow-Worms | Andrew Marvell | Ye living lamps, by whose dear light The nightingale does sit so late, And studying all the summer night, Her matchless songs does meditate; Ye country comets, that portend No war nor prince’s funeral, Shining unto no higher end Than to presage the grass’s fall; Ye glow-worms, whose officious flame To wand’ring mowers ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S2-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Summer",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
6f9412b92d66c6e6 | What Marked Tom? | Tyehimba Jess | Did a slave song at a master’s bidding
mark Tom while asleep in Charity's womb?
The whole plantation would be called to sing
and dance in Master Epps’ large parlor room—
after work sprung from dawn and dragged past dusk,
after children auctioned to parts unknown,
after funerals and whippings. Thus
was the whim o... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
464afd95541f128b | Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain | Delmore Schwartz | 1
A tattering of rain and then the reign
Of pour and pouring-down and down,
Where in the westward gathered the filming gown
Of grey and clouding weakness, and, in the mane
Of the light’s glory and the day’s splendor, gold and vain,
Vivid, more and more vivid, scarlet, lucid and more luminous,
Then came a splatte... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
c3457f9f8a639df9 | The Mask Now | Jorie Graham | Dying, Dad wanted sunscreen. Nonstop. Frantic if withheld. Would sayscreen, and we just did it. Knew he was dying. Was angry.
In last weeks wore red sleepmask over eyes day and night. Would
ride it up onto his forehead for brief intervals, then down, pulled by
hand that still worked. A bit. Sometimes shaking too muc... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
ea727414e794d989 | [They travel in threes] | Susan Hampton | They travel in threes, usually in station waggons or utes,
often have dogs, and eat out of cans in country motels,
always the one on the edge of town –
near the truckstop with good hamburgers –
I remember the Isis Motel in Guyra
They drive old cars, or horses made of wind,
whose manes are streamers of wind. They ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S8-4",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
323ad2da94151882 | He Considers Not the Lilies but Their Excellencies | Thomas P. Lynch | Thin gruel, shallow graves, whiskey watered down,the ne’er-do-well and good-for-nothing crowdof cornerboys and gobshites were amongArgyle’s manifold perturbations.Worse still, the episcopal vexations: their excellencies, eminence and graces,red-cassocked dandies and mitered wankers,the croziered posers in their bishopr... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
105242d5faed951f | Orphan | Blas Falconer | Nocturnal (Horizon Line), 2010, by Teresita Fernández
I’d come to help settle your
mother’s affairs. On the last night,
we ate where she worked all
her life. Now that she’s gone,
you said, I’ll never come back.
Looking out over the dark, you saw
a light in the distance, a boat
crossing the bay, and told
the st... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
af53070ca62bdaa6 | The Vacuum | Howard Nemerov | The house is so quiet now
The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,
Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth
Grinning into the floor, maybe at my
Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth.
I’ve lived this way long enough,
But when my old woman died her soul
Went into that vacuum cleaner, and I can’t bear
To see th... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
b59f531b51256528 | Frère Jacques, Frère Antoine | John Peck | At a bus stop in Arles a fellow wounded in the Last War
winced into sunlight: Oui, they are beating the drums against
les juifs again, and the Moors. France is an old man! | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
2dce6796b8e9cc03 | Yours & Mine | Alice Fulton | Through your lens the sequoia swallowed me
like a dryad. The camera flashed & forgot.
I, on the other hand, must practice my absent-
mindedness, memory being awkward as a touch
that goes unloved. Lately your eyes have shut
down to a shade more durable than skin’s. I know you
love distance, how it smooths. You cho... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film"
] |
3b3e4b328c169a09 | Last Simile | Abid B Al-Abras | It’s as if she were an earn,
gebidende prey for her eyrie.
Perched alertly,
a hægtesse on their innards.
In bitter morgenceald,
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
55b45de032dd3722 | The animals in that country | Margaret Atwood | In that country the animals
have the faces of people:
the ceremonial
cats possessing the streets
the fox run
politely to earth, the huntsmen
standing around him, fixed
in their tapestry of manners
the bull, embroidered
with blood and given
an elegant death, trumpets, his name
stamped on him, heraldic brand
... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
cf2c20651c73b5e4 | If gold, your figure as mirror on the ground is | Khadijah Queen | After Alejandra Pizarnik, after Fernando Pessoa
i
Comic screen to change what came to notice Even though sky
at first was the same blank slate So literal. The value of it
You make your own lion’s teeth sink in, slowly
ii
The insects claim you don’... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
8ff57dc861601380 | Factory | Mark Bibbins | He can say it was a paintingHe can say we were the paintingOr that the painting wasn’t paintingAnd that we only happen to ourselvesWe can say we kept things runningby distracting ourselves from the hideous truth of how things runThat we were brokenThat we lingered near a broken factoryThat we had brokenWe can say that... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
af46f72959e2466c | Order | Randall Mann | For once, he was just my father.We drove to the Computing Centerin a Monte Carlo Landaunot technically ours. Lexington,1977. That fall. The colorhad settled, too, undoneorange-brown and dull yellow,crimson. And it was something,yet not, the pile of leavesjust a pile of leaves. Sorry to thinkwhat thinking has done to ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
6b246556b77b8f33 | Mnemosyne | Trumbull Stickney | It’s autumn in the country I remember.
How warm a wind blew here about the ways!
And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber
During the long sun-sweetened summer-days.
It’s cold abroad the country I remember.
The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain
At midday with a wing aslant and limber;
And yellow cattle browsed... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f330713c3070fa77 | Opera Bouffe | Philip Gross | The count of cappuccino,
the marquise of meringue,
all the little cantuccini...
and what was the song they sang?
Oh, the best of us is nothing
but a sweetening of the air,
a tryst between the teeth and tongue:
we meet and no one’s there
though the café’s always crowded
as society arrives
and light glints to and fro bet... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
deae69df592c445f | Date Palm Trinity | Khaled Mattawa | Today the date palms were pruned,
the branches taken before the fruit ripened,
before sweetness littered the sidewalks.
The man who sawed them worked alone,
a crane lifting him to the yellowed fronds.
Beside his truck, he stood tall, American,
a pensive pioneer. The top of each palm
looked like the back of a man... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
3a78eddab148fd50 | Written on a Wall at Woodstock | Queen Elizabeth I | Oh Fortune, thy wresting wavering state
Hath fraught with cares my troubled wit,
Whose witness this present prison late
Could bear, where once was joy’s loan quit.
Thou causedst the guilty to be loosed
From bands where innocents were inclosed,
And caused the guiltless to be reserved,
And freed those that death had well... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S5-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
8ed58ca5e05db479 | Koi | Jennifer Wong | Among heart-shaped leaves
the white fish gleams, red tail.
Soft lotuses sleep. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
d12dca997973981b | The Stranger in Her Feminine Sign | Dunya Mikhail | Everything has gender
in Arabic.
History is male.
Fiction is female.
Dream is male.
Wish is female.
Feminine words are followed
by a circle with two dots over.
They call it the tied circle,
knotted with wishes
which come true only when forgotten
or replaced by the wishes of others.
In the town of tied wishe... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
ad86872adf4d1ee0 | Amoretti LXXIV: Most Happy Letters | Edmund Spenser | Most happy letters, fram'd by skilful trade,
With which that happy name was first design'd:
The which three times thrice happy hath me made,
With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind.
The first my being to me gave by kind,
From mother's womb deriv'd by due descent,
The second is my sovereign Queen most kind,
That honour... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
7d9a952a6af9ed8d | from The Sleepers | Walt Whitman | I see a beautiful gigantic swimmer swimming naked through the eddies of the sea, His brown hair lies close and even to his head, he strikes out with courageous arms, he urges himself with his legs, I see his white body, I see his undaunted eyes, I hate the swift-running eddies that would dash him head-foremost on the r... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0e836a6007e4e81a | Keats Is Coughing | Marianne Boruch | Everything is made of everything.
— Leonardo da Vinci
I found Rome in the woods.
Fair to admit it’s mostly
tundra to the west in the park, past Toklat
the Denali I revised, low grasslands
engineered to freeze deep
by October — this being Alaska — the great
Tabularium close to the Temple of
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S9-7",
"S10-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
433a2f6fea39f4d0 | Renee Gresham, Widow of William Lindsay Gresham, 1909–1962 | Gerard Malanga | Perhaps it was just another break-in some years back. Or the charm that suddenly seduces out of nowhere, long rehearsedtill you’ve realized too latethat half your living life went walking straightway out the doorinto the noonday glare of some Sunday godforsaken place — somewhere down in central Florida,the so-called ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
23df8aa2684adc60 | The Ice Ship | Andrew Allport | Pyke, from his Massachusetts madhouse,
envisioned it
as a divine craft, an Ark impervious to torpedoes.ICE is with us, ICE will win this war,
he wrote
Mountbatten. With a draft of one hundred and fifty feet,
two million tons displacement, it could carry
one hundred
twin-engine plane... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
7d229d9d0a31c814 | Davis Matlock | Edgar Lee Masters | Suppose it is nothing but the hive: That there are drones and workers And queens, and nothing but storing honey — (Material things as well as culture and wisdom) — For the next generation, this generation never living, Except as it swarms in the sun-light of youth, Strengthening its wings on what has been gathered, And... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
4dc6fb6318a5b986 | "Man | Thomas Sayers Ellis | A part of, a part of love, hates, hates a part of.A part of, a part of hate, loves, loves a part of.Loves a part of, a part of the man, the man the state hates.Hates a part of, a part of the name, the name the people love.Hates wholeness, hate. Loves togetherness, love,the togetherness of the large human movement.Loves... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
f765324cdf41911a | The Chimney Sweeper: A little black thing among the snow | William Blake | A little black thing among the snow,
Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!
"Where are thy father and mother? say?"
"They are both gone up to the church to pray.
Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winter's snow,
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
And b... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
224d1139a0497ac5 | from Cutty Sark | Hart Crane | I met a man in South Street, tall—
a nervous shark tooth swung on his chain.
His eyes pressed through green glass
—green glasses, or bar lights made them
so—
shine—
GREEN—
eyes—
stepped out—forgot to look at you
or left you several blocks away—
in the nickel-in... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
d96ad7284da19be4 | The Window at Night | Jennifer Grotz | Eyes wide like an owl’s, an aspirin-pale face
foretells in lamplight how it accumulates age.
Somewhat masked, somewhat naked, there’s no way
to know what others see when looking at it.
All five of the body’s senses crowd
on this small planet a weather of hair surrounds.
My face is not a democracy—the eyes are tyr... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
f429656ba140207e | Grace | Joy Harjo | for Darlene Wind and James Welch
I think of Wind and her wild ways the year we had nothing to lose and lost it anyway in the cursed country of the fox. We still talk about that winter, how the cold froze imaginary buffalo on the stuffed horizon of snowbanks. The haunting voices of the starved and mutilated broke fence... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-10",
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S8-3",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
65d454a0ee5d97d1 | The Bad Season Makes the Poet Sad | Robert Herrick | Dull to myself, and almost dead to these
My many fresh and fragrant mistresses;
Lost to all music now, since everything
Puts on the semblance here of sorrowing.
Sick is the land to th' heart, and doth endure
More dangerous faintings by her desp'rate cure.
But if that golden age would come again
And Charles here rule, a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ef69a60359e96362 | This Is My Last Report | Juan Felipe Herrera | This is my last report:
I wanted to speak of existence, the ants most of all,
dressed up in their naughty flame-trousers, the exact jaws,
their unknowable kindnesses, their abyss of hungers,
and science, their mercilessness, their prophetic military
devotions, their geometry of scent, their cocoons
for the Nomenc... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
2ec0daf669909c19 | You and I Saw Hawks Exchanging the Prey | James Wright | They did the deed of darkness
In their own mid-light.
He plucked a gray field mouse
Suddenly in the wind.
The small dead fly alive
Helplessly in his beak,
His cold pride, helpless.
All she receives is life.
They are terrified. They touch.
Life is too much.
She flies away sorrowing.
Sorrowing, she goes alone.... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
4490f29ef0c69f9c | Elegy | Aracelis Girmay | What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?
Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, t... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
836aecc150485193 | Salad Days | Tomás Q. Morín | For Micah Ruelle
We were not green in judgment or coldin blood like Cleopatra in her youthwho still was ordering chopped radishin her bowls back then,the hearts all gone to piecesnext to the winter greensthat in our days we never had use forso smitten were we with fireand ovens that I was gravy in judgment,which might... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S9-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
bb82b2101d7881e8 | Milk | Atsuro Riley | His mother
came (she said) from salt
so fed him salt.
Raised to wolf
white roots and dirt
she fed him dirt. | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
eff0b6eb1dbbec2d | Suburban Pastoral | Dave Lucas | Twilight folds over houses on our street;
its hazy gold is gilding our front lawns,
delineating asphalt and concrete
driveways with shadows. Evening is coming on,
quietly, like a second drink, the beers
men hold while rising from their plastic chairs
to stand above their sprinklers, and approve.
Soon the fireflies will... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
daf3269c240aeea6 | Don't nuzzle me fucker-maker | Simone White | Rinky-dink kale feeding guinea pig
Fonky bag uh cornchips plastic shoe
Wearing crinkle-fry bastard
. . . up in here TONIGHT
Wanchu go head mister plinth butt
And roll ya dumb ass a lavender
Cigarette don't make me slap a freeze
On this wart-o-matic bullshit
Get me a rancorous tinker toy
N turn this motherfucke... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
e18e251c63b574b5 | Observer | Nate Klug | Not seeing me, not even looking, K. on her silver cruiser charms her waythrough the last long moment of the changing light: snow boots and a Seychelles Warbler’s old blue tights,a rolled-up yoga mat in her basketwobbling like a wild tiller as she pedals. It feels illicit and somewhat right to stand across the interse... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
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