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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ed961377b8a142fb | Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt | Jorie Graham | Although what glitters
on the trees,
row after perfect row,
is merely
the injustice
of the world,
the chips on the bark of each
beech tree
catching the light, the sum
of these delays
is the beautiful, the human
beautiful,
body of flaws.
The dead
wou... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Fall"
] |
199ad3607258e7ab | Darkness Starts | Christian Wiman | A shadow in the shape of a house
slides out of a house
and loses its shape on the lawn.
Trees seek each other
as the wind within them dies.
Darkness starts inside of things
but keeps on going when the things are gone.
Barefoot careless in the farthest parts of the yard
children become their cries. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
c8c560d1f0768f20 | Song: I prithee spare me gentle boy | Sir John Suckling | I prithee spare me gentle boy,
Press me no more for that slight toy,
That foolish trifle of an heart;
I swear it will not do its part,
Though thou dost thine, employ’st thy pow’r and art.
For through long custom it has known
The little secrets, and is grown
Sullen and wise, will have its will,
And like old hawks pursue... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
e6b90be57e62377f | We Are Remarkably Loud Not Masked | Juan Felipe Herrera | young Jesse Washington —
even though you on the wooden stick
cross of fire bitten charred cut & burned 5 minute jury
April 15, 1916 Waco, Texas shackled & dragged — lynched
You live on
... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
bee6714a66a14b68 | Sailing to Byzantium | William Butler Yeats | I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of un... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c25b54e0389e34f0 | Scorpio, or, The Scorpion | Joseph Gordon Macleod | Now as the farmer sits at his accounts
Reviewing fleeces neath deciduous beeches
And notes in red contented ink
Net profits of his quite impossible serenity;
As graded apples marketably beautiful
Into the bushel-baskets sink
And trussed hay to the tin roof reaches,
And where red tiles through darkening trees are... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
572e6f066e54ab82 | The First Sam Hazo at the Last | Samuel Hazo | A minor brush with medicine
in eighty years was all
he’d known.
But this was different.
His right arm limp and slung,
his right leg dead to feeling
and response, he let me spoon him
chicken-broth.
Later he... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
70bb7857b382ec2e | Knowlt Hoheimer | Edgar Lee Masters | I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet enter my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army.
Rather a thousand times the county jail
Than to lie under this marble figure with wings... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-9",
"S3-11",
"S11-2",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
081d05c96f594add | Food | Brenda Hillman | In a side booth at MacDonald’s before your music class
you go up and down in your seat like an arpeggio
under the poster of the talking hamburger:
two white eyes rolling around in the top bun, the thin
patty of beef imitating the tongue of its animal nature.
You eat merrily. I watch the Oakland mommies,
trying to... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-1",
"S9-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
4a5b85e064105f28 | Admit Possession to Rent | Tod Marshall | We stopped at a farmer’s house
before parking at the dock
that creaked over the river.
Rowboats for rent, five bucks
an hour, twenty for the day.
Deep water: I knew a canvas bag
was in the trunk. I knew lunch
would be roast beef sandwiches
and hot stew from a thermos,
chunks of carrot and potatoes
cut by my m... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-3",
"S6-7",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
f68d5dc3d28ab19d | The Golden Shovel | Terrance Hayes | after Gwendolyn Brooks
I. 1981
When I am so small Da’s sock covers my arm, we
cruise at twilight until we find the place the real
men lean, bloodshot and translucent with cool.
His smile is a gold-plated incantation as we
drift by women on bar stools, with nothing left
in them but approachlessness. This is a sch... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S10-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
73804212348cac02 | Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard | Thomas Gray | The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea, The plowman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me. Now fades the glimm'ring landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels hi... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
7553ceaf29f2ad97 | The Solitary Reaper | William Wordsworth | Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of tr... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
eeab832c12b25f14 | Testament | Carolyn M. Rodgers | child,
in the august of your life
you come barefoot to me
the blisters of events
having worn through to the
soles of your shoes.
it is not the time
this is not the time
there is no such time
to tell you
that some pains ease away
on the ebb & toll of
themselves.
there is no such dream that
can not fail, no... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
cbc360a885e73a02 | Black Gentleman | Rickey Laurentiis | O fly away home, fly away. — Robert Hayden
There are eyes, glasses even, but still he can’t see what the world sees seeing him. They know an image of him they themselves created.He knows his own: fine-lined from foot to finger, each limb adjusted, because it’s had to, to achieve finally flight — ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
58c8952470443be6 | What is this about losing respect? | Mark Rudman | What is this about losing respect?
Do I have to talk about it?
He said he feared what I might
write about him when he was gone,
and I told him not to worry.He worried about the “streak of morbidity” in your work.
He was a man of God, not of imagination.
And it wasn’t his fault if he got the shakes.
It was a fami... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e74bf839dcf93fc1 | Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock | Galway Kinnell | 1
I can support it no longer.
Laughing ruefully at myself
For all I claim to have suffered
I get up. Damned nightmarer!
It is New Hampshire out here,
It is nearly the dawn.
The song of the whippoorwill stops
And the dimension of depth seizes everything.
2
The whistles of a peabody bird go overhead
Like a nee... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
cc7f7b292bc0063c | Love, I'm Done with You | Ross Gay | You ever wake up with your footie PJs warming
your neck like a noose? Ever upchuck
after a home-cooked meal? Or notice
how the blood on the bottoms of your feet
just won’t seem to go away? Love, it used to be
you could retire your toothbrush for like two or three days and still
I’d push my downy face into your ne... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
d736638dd03f66cd | Time After Time | Adam Fitzgerald | After Cyndi Lauper
I’m in the barricade hearing the clock thickening you. Autumn encircles a confusion that’s nothing new.Flash back to warring eyes almost letting me drown.Out of which, a picture of me walking in a foreign head. I can’t hear what you said. Then you say: Cold room,the second that life unwinds. ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
08c0574dda7dacee | Sweet Tooth | Russell Edson | A little girl made of sugar and spice and everything nice was eaten by someone with a sweet tooth the size of an elephant’s tusk.
Ah, he said, this darn tooth, it’s driving me nuts.
Then another voice is heard. It’s the little girl’s father who says, have you seen a little girl made of sugar and spi... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
74c1572f784ea3bf | In October 1914 [Antwerp] | Ford Madox Ford | I GLOOM! An October like November; August a hundred thousand hours, And all September, A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, And half October like a thousand years . . . And doom! That then was Antwerp. . . In the name of God, How could they do it? Those souls that usually dived Into t... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
e527e1100e83c803 | The End | Mark Strand | Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,
Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like
When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,
Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.
When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,
W... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
87103d673cb71000 | [love is more thicker than forget] | E. E. Cummings | love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less l... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
406f099b61aa3e79 | The Mortician's Goddaughter Versed in Lust | Rigoberto González | Just when I had long outgrown those late-night
seizures in my hand, those involuntary impulses
return to make my fingers twitch like the tips of twigs
after the bird leaps off the branch—
what a crafty little devil, bouncing back all
feathered and ticklish, jittery with pleasure
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
1c33df3eccaa7d9c | Islands | Yusef Komunyakaa | For Derek WalcottAn island is one great eye gazing out, a beckoning lighthouse,searchlight, a wishbone compass, or counterweight to the stars.When it comes to outlook & point of view, a figure stands on a rocky ledgepeering out toward an archipelago of glass on the mainland, a seagull’swings touching the ti... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4242b9355da60377 | To Be Held | Linda Hogan | To be held
by the light
was what I wanted,
to be a tree drinking the rain,
no longer parched in this hot land.
To be roots in a tunnel growing
but also to be sheltering the inborn leaves
and the green slide of mineral
down the immense distances
into infinite comfort
and the land here, only clay,
still contai... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
f0ca2be17801d882 | Strikers in Hyde Park | Louise Imogen Guiney | A woof reversed the fatal shuttles weave, How slow! but never once they slip the thread. Hither, upon the Georgian idler’s tread, Up spacious ways the lindens interleave, Clouding the royal air since yester-eve, Come men bereft of time and scant of bread, Loud, who were dumb, immortal, who were dead, Thro’ the cowed wo... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
72019a164edb2d3f | One Morning | Emmy Pérez | Yellow pines No ever no green except
where stems brown needles green I walk
on the wooden train The fall’s water you swam in
one cold morning What you braved That ice
path A horse fence Where fences are horses
with long hair I braid the tale of the fall of stables
Four paws touch dir... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
9fa6b148825298d5 | Well, You Needn’t | William Matthews | Rather than hold his hands properly
arched off the keys, like cats
with their backs up,
Monk, playing block chords,
hit the keys with his fingertips well
above his wrists,
shoulders up, wrists down, scarce
room for the pencil, ground
freshly to a point,
piano teachers love to poke
into the palms of junior
pi... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
91a630bc95d0ec50 | Trouble Deaf Heaven | Bin Ramke | Sonnet 29
Is there a sound? There is a forest.
What is the world? The word is wilderness.
What is the answer? The answer is the world.
What is the beginning? A beginning is happiness.
What is the end? No one lives there now.
What is a beginning? The beginning is light.
What makes happiness? Nothing.
What makes ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
42825641519047c8 | My Soul | Stevie Smith | In the flame of the flickering fire
The sins of my soul are few
And the thoughts in my head are the thoughts of a bed
With a solitary view.
But the eye of eternal consciousness
Must blink as a bat blinks bright
Or ever the thoughts in my head be stilled
On the brink of eternal night.
Oh feed to the golden fish ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
abd055ca4ba2f4a9 | Colonoscopy Sonnet | Sandra M. Gilbert | On the news tonight, a presidential colonoscopy — a tale of how for three whole hours the chief exec of trouble handed trouble to his vice (although no double trouble came), but then no more details revealed: no bacterial armies multiplying in a flare of war among kingly polyps & no kinky creases. Welcome to the ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
f412376c44e43bc4 | Late-ish | John Ashbery | The girl in the green ski chasuble
hasn’t yet graduated from radio school.
Let’s pay attention.
Looking ahead, why, he waved his mouth along.
Doesn’t life get difficult in the summer?
The divine medicine for it collapsed
in front of the shortstop,
who took off like a battalion.
Crowds of older people who would ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
bd5aa6807123f5fb | Praise Be | Yusef Komunyakaa | When the trees were guilty, hugged up
to history & locked in a cross-brace
with Whitman's Louisiana live oak,
you went into that mossy weather.
Did you witness the shotguns at Angola
riding on horseback through the tall sway
of sugarcane, the glint of blue steel
in the bloodred strawberry fields?
Silence was ba... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-5",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
433dea6f03b124c5 | O Donald! Ye Are Just the Man | Susanna Blamire | O Donald! ye are just the man
Who, when he’s got a wife,
Begins to fratch— nae notice ta’en—
They’re strangers a’ their life.
The fan may drop— she takes it up,
The husband keeps his chair;
She hands the kettle— gives his cup—
Without e’en— thank ye, dear.”
Now, truly, these slights are but toys;
But frae neg... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-5",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
9f9252fcfdfff32b | What the Stars Meant | John Koethe | On a backwards-running clock in Lisbon,
By the marble statue of Pessoa;
On an antique astrolabe in London
Tracing out the sky above Samoa,
Thousands of miles away—in time, in place,
Each night conspires to create a myth
That stands for nothing real, yet leaves you with
The vague impression of a human face.
The ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S3-7",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
349d1575a0f594bb | Elegy | Daisy Fried | In memory D.K., Scrovegni Chapel, Padua
“Even Duccio can’t matchGiotto’s stage management of great tragedy”:Transgendered Professor Y. in leather miniskirtpaces before the screen, wood pointerscraping saint faces, slapping hunched women of the Lamentation. Blue-gold tumult of the chapel walls. After-lunch lecture hall... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
3a163d91f3e91449 | Houses, Scams, Language
(with a line in romanian) | Andrei Codrescu | silver & gossamer & porcelain & cobwebs
some people are made out of
they walk from here to there
a limited number of times only—
but the bony phone is just dumb plastic
it rings not at all
i don’t understand: my ideas are universal
but my audience is five guys at the shell
station people just don’t get it
she... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S9-7",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
ac5c9947ab7ba332 | A Poem for the háawtnin’ & héwlekipx [The Holy Ghost of You, the Space & Thin Air] | Michael Wasson | ’inept’ipéecwise cilaakt: (I am wanting to) hold a wake / (I am wanting to) hold the body
Had this body been madeof nothing
but its bright skeleton & autumn-
blown skinI would shut my eyes
into butterfly wingson a mapped earth. Had the gods
even their own gods, I could re-
learn the very shapeof my face in a pudd... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
b76af92f0dafb621 | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 5 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
A use in measured language lies;
The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
In words, like weeds, I'll ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
77ae3bac9d549511 | A Part of Speech | Joseph Brodsky | I was born and grew up in the Baltic marshland
by zinc-gray breakers that always marched on
in twos. Hence all rhymes, hence that wan flat voice
that ripples between them like hair still moist,
if it ripples at all. Propped on a pallid elbow,
the helix picks out of them no sea rumble
but a clap of canvas, of shut... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
ec2781a6bb27e5d8 | Something with a Lifespan | Katie Peterson | How many times
should I look at you and should
I change my life?
Monarch you makeyour orange assent to death.And how much dexteritycan you really teach me?Does your courageeven map onto theseworldly obligationsto friends, my job, desirefor a little affection in the latehours of the evening, etc.?I can't put myself e... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
34436c1324df3ef1 | To Judgment: An Assay | Jane Hirshfield | You change a life
as eating an artichoke changes the taste
of whatever is eaten after.
Yet you are not an artichoke, not a piano or cat—
not objectively present at all—
and what of you a cat possesses is essential but narrow:
to know if the distance between two things can be leapt.
The piano, that good servant,
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
d2ac818e21e884e9 | The Foggy, Foggy Blue | Delmore Schwartz | When I was a young man, I loved to write poems
And I called a spade a spade
And the only only thing that made me sing
Was to lift the masks at the masquerade.
I took them off my own face,
I took them off others too
And the only only wrong in all my song
Was the view that I kne... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging"
] |
dcbf98c2f62e1f1c | Scrim | David Ferry | I sit here in a shelter behind the words Of what I’m writing, looking out as if Through a dim curtain of rain, that keeps me in here. The words are like a scrim upon a page, Obscuring what might be there beyond the scrim. I can dimly see there’s something or someone there. But I can’t tell if it’s God, or o... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
c9febbf1abf5952f | For a War Memorial | G. K. Chesterton | (SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE)
The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die.
A storm stooped on the place of tombs
With bolts to blast and rive;
But these be names of many men
The lightning found alive.
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
97d1dc52c824b380 | Flatirons | David Yezzi | IFrom the false summit, coxcomb-cum-arête,cool thermals underscore our frailties,past edges where our wingless feet are set and the long look down dilutes the evergreens.As sandstone ends, the world of ghosts begins—they sometimes rise up still in dreams, my love.With one hand firm, I step onto the skinof the abyss, em... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
04e132d3d9829c61 | Magnificat in Little | Léonie Adams | I was enriched, not casting after marvels,
But as one walking in a usual place,
Without desert but common eyes and ears,
No recourse but to hear, power but to see,
Got to love you of grace.
Subtle musicians, that could body wind,
Or contrive strings to anguish, in conceit
Random and artless strung a branch with ... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
4cb14fb032a65182 | From “Anagrams” [xxxi] | Luke Kennard | +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-8",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
4f6ecf6dc8123773 | In the Tree House at Night | James L. Dickey | And now the green household is dark.
The half-moon completely is shining
On the earth-lighted tops of the trees.
To be dead, a house must be still.
The floor and the walls wave me slowly;
I am deep in them over my head.
The needles and pine cones about me
Are full of small birds at their roundest,
Their fists w... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
3c0655097be2f1c6 | Prayer of a Soldier in France | Joyce Kilmer | My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).
Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).
I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.
(Then shall my fickle soul forge... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
dd9d662345851491 | The Dream of a Fire Engine | Kimiko Hahn | Without the sun filtered through closed eyelids,without the siren along the service road,without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair,Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure, firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant,without communist or past tense,or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing in fai... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-8",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ef2a301b5d33a668 | Free Radical | Alison C. Rollins | Before Gilgamesh invented
the kaleidoscope and Galileo
the Rubik’s cube, before the
scimitar-horned oryx went
missing, before the tamarind
trees went bare, before the
stars’ eyelids were wrapped
in tinfoil, before the leaves
could gnaw on water, before
electrons made donations,
before the owl wore a mask,
be... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7cd04b8151dac64a | Sea Fever | John Masefield | I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking, And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running ti... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
ec7dbe3e5308cb25 | The Schooner Flight | Derek Walcott | 1 Adios, Carenage
In idle August, while the sea soft,
and leaves of brown islands stick to the rim
of this Caribbean, I blow out the light
by the dreamless face of Maria Concepcion
to ship as a seaman on the schooner Flight.
Out in the yard turning gray in the dawn,
I stood like a stone and nothing else move
bu... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
181c8ecf73863c77 | The Welty Tour | Rebecca Morgan Frank | In the next room, Peter’s gloved hands crack
cordoned-off spines: he has been granted
permission, his agent’s call his pedigree.
So the tour itself is only the docent and me.
He is docile, eager to please, leads me
up the stairs and takes me to the bed.The coverlet is authentic, he says.
He lectures me on the hea... | [
"S1",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-9",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends"
] |
d58067a5c43535bf | Baseball Days, '61 | Peter Balakian | All summer the patio drifted in and out of light the color of margarine;
days were blue, not always sky blue.
At night the word Algeria circulated among the grown-ups.
A patient of my father had whooping cough, the words drifted into
summer blue. The evenings spun into stadium lights.
Kennedy’s hair blew across th... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
c963f66d5f944391 | Heart, My Box of Snow | Rebecca Hoogs | made it to Florida and then I went for a walk. The frog pond is half-iced over. I chucked a stick at it— still thin. On the white side, the wind twirled a leaf around like a prepubescent figure skater who’s given up her childhood to get here. Of course, the leaf was wearing its practice costume of brown... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
ea6e5e785142a93e | Carpentry | Carl Dennis | Carpenters whose wives have run off
Are sometimes discovered weeping on the job.
But even then they don’t complain of their work.
Whitman’s father was a carpenter.
He was so happy hammering houses
That he jumped with a shout from the roof beam
And rolled with a yawp in the timothy.
This led his son to conclude w... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
675e998f1e5b0a94 | Miley Cyrus or Manatee? | James Reidel | What is flat and nothing but skin,
What lolls in a shallow world,
What is watched for its surface,
Between long episodes of water the color of a dead screen’s
sea-green glass,
What has but a few hairs in the snapshot?
A bit of muzzle,
No more than a pug’s worth for a rented red kayak,
For this sailor swallowed ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
fb9799b103b7a9dd | Traveling Broke & Ugly | Megan Denton Ray | My husband doesn’t believe me—that the dogs barked nightly
at the spirit in the corner of the kitchen. That I knew of a family
whose quilts were flung against the wall mid-sleep. Once, I told him
I met Satan in Scandinavia, and she had pigtails and a machete
sticky with spiderwort. She couldn’t have been older than... | [
"S5",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S9-7",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
121a94ded2d7b580 | Upon Nothing | John Wilmot Earl of Rochester | Nothing! thou elder brother even to Shade: That hadst a being ere the world was made, And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid. Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not, When primitive Nothing Something straight begot; Then all proceeded from the great united What. Something, the general attribute of ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
43c6496aa01a84a0 | Editing the Moon | Caroline Caddy | Be precise
authority is magic.
When you think you've got it straight
wax wane declination
feel the movement under your hand
one summer morning
as you observe it set
then rise that night.
Always use a well-sharpened pencil
followed by a good eraser.
Watch the white emerge. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
1b6813102ddc79d2 | Talk to the Undertaker | D. A. Powell | let’s say you want flowers
you should have flowers
let’s say you want forever
you should have flowers
let’s say he should have
you in and out by tuesday
and if you want flowers
you should have flowers
and the flowers will stay
fresh until tuesday you say
yes that’s the way it’s done
should you want flowers | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6a33defa059c72eb | Night Music | Linda Gregg | She sits on the mountain that is her home
and the landscapes slide away. One goes down
and then up to the monastery. One drops away
to a winnowing ring and a farmhouse where a girl
and her mother are hanging the laundry.
There’s a tiny port in the distance where
the shore reaches the water. She is numb
and clear... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
9585ad7b6bba46ff | Andererway | Sophia Dahlin | when it pushes shadow from the trees
and presses it from their needles outside the Dye House
and the bus is dark inside when it picks apart the lawn
and you are here
will you soften me? for the sun
will you deflect it?
I am blinking in the atrium the library
I don’t know if you have a room for me
or... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
656ae556b9dfcb77 | Hyperion | John Keats | (excerpt)
BOOK I Deep in the shady sadness of a vale Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud. No stir of air was there, Not so m... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S3-11",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e88bbc96a86f77c2 | The TV Then Spoke of a Plague Afflicting the Machines | Max Ritvo | A lavender fog breeds with our children.
Our girls are dying on the roadsides,
their wombs pried open by the scramble that grows inside.
Save us from the lavender fog —
it’s the ghosts of your dead people,
who have never bothered our village before.
Their shapes convulse in our water sources.
When we get close ... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S6-8",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Youth"
] |
c28c3d407a75ab5a | Listening to Townes Van Zandt | Christine Gosnay | We are of one mindand too much has not been saidabout all the quiet afternoons childhood offered us, lit gray like a cat, or blue, and cursed with an early moon. When father wore an apron or crept like a bear, we screamed.Nothing is so gone. Where is his record player or the channel that forked a distant year toward us... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
85013ef238296055 | For Malcolm, A Year After | Etheridge Knight | Compose for Red a proper verse;
Adhere to foot and strict iamb;
Control the burst of angry words
Or they might boil and break the dam.
Or they might boil and overflow
And drench me, drown me, drive me mad.
So swear no oath, so shed no tear,
And sing no song blue Baptist sad.
Evoke no image, stir no flame,
And ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S10-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
96fc1f7b9b42d6c8 | Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666 | Anne Bradstreet | Here Follows Some Verses Upon the Burning
of Our house, July 10th. 1666. Copied Out of
a Loose Paper.
In silent night when rest I took,
For sorrow near I did not look,
I wakened was with thund’ring noise
And piteous shrieks of dreadful voice.
That fearful sound of “fire” and “fire,”
Let no man know is my Desire.
I, st... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
e7b195738f0dbdf1 | Nights of 1964—1966: The Old Reliable | Marilyn Hacker | for Lewis Ellingham
The laughing soldiers fought to their defeat . . .
James Fenton, “In a Notebook”
White decorators interested in Art,
Black file clerks with theatrical ambitions,
kids making pharmaceutical revisions
in journals Comp. instructors urged they start,
the part-Cherokee teenage genius (maybe),
the... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
9cdd267987a4b4c5 | The Arkansas Prison System | Frank Stanford | Is like a lyric poem
with seven basic themes
first the cottonpicker
dragging behind it a wagon of testicles
a pair of pliers which can fill in
for a cross in a pinch
then there is the warm pond
between the maiden’s thighs
next we have some friends
of yours and mine
who shall be with us always
Pablo the artis... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
34d30f284813a8fd | Letter from Swan’s Island | Elizabeth Spires | The island’s dark tonight.
The radio crackles with static, news
of a blackout, the voice
coming through first loud, then soft,
as if a storm were moving
to cut all lifelines off. My one-room
cabin has a bed, a table, a chair.
Living this way, I understand better
that scene by an anonymous
illuminator: a row of... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
4587231d44eb6a72 | Home for Christmas | Franz Wright | Fifteen years later the old tollbooth keeper is still at his post but cannot break a twenty, regrettably, his brains blown out, or provide the forgotten directions. I did phone, what do you think? Before I can blink I am parked out front of the unbelievably small, unlighted house.I’ve got my finger on the buried bell, ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
8cccdef67b32a159 | Neighbors, Throwing Knives | David Bottoms | In the woods at the corner of our yards
we hang the plywood squares,
the Magic Marker images of pronghorn, panther,
grizzly, whitetail,
and step off the paces we use to measure
our skill.
Here in the soft light filtering
through needles and cones, green shifting
membrane of poplar, hickory, live... | [
"S2"
] | [] | [
"Nature"
] | [] |
e2b880991e2117a0 | Update on the Last Judgment | Ellen Hinsey | There will be no deafening noise. No hornblow of thunder.
The small plants of the earth will not tremble on the hillside as grace is prepared.
The sky will neither drown us in its plenty, nor the ground crack and consume feet in its hunger.
No, bodies will not, in their last rags of flesh, creep from under the earth, a... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
64f6152eaa364e32 | San Francisco | Richard Brautigan | This poem was found written on a paper bag by Richard Brautigan in a laundromat in San Francisco. The author is unknown.
By accident, you put
Your money in my
Machine (#4)
By accident, I put
My money in another
Machine (#6)
On purpose, I put
Your clothes in the
Empty machine full
Of water and no
Clothes
It ... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
720d5429b2af8460 | An Aubade | Joel Brouwer | She said what about San Francisco? Another second chance. There would be bridges "shrouded in fog." Streets "pregnant and glowing" with traffic. Dawn, she didn't know, would maybe "draw near." He said dawn draws near everywhere. She said a city but a city close to nature. A backyard scattered with birds he wouldn't be ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
6e2543f057220749 | Gwendolyn Brooks: America in the Wintertime | Haki R. Madhubuti | in this moment of orangutans, wolves, and scavengers,
of high heat redesigning the north & south poles
and the wanderings of new tribes in limousines,
with the confirmations of liars, thieves, and get-over artists,
in the wilderness of pennsylvania avenue,
standing rock, misspelled executive orders
on yellow pape... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
4d2d7c962749c45a | [Les plantes et les planètes] | Robert Marteau | Les plantes et les planètes
Au même ciel obáissent ;
Du même soleil les bêtes
Et les hommes se nourrissent ;
Et le mátal dans la mine
Couve l'astre minuscule,
Soufre dont la fleur si fine
Vit en chaque corpuscule.
Naines ou gáantes sont
Poudre et bran jetás loin
Qui sans chute ou frein s'en vont
Aux quatre m... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
3de1922a1615fe6f | "Dear, if you change, I'll never choose again" | John Dowland | Dear, if you change, I’ll never choose again;
Sweet, if you shrink, I’ll never think of love;
Fair, if you fail, I’ll judge all beauty vain;
Wise, if too weak, more wits I’ll never prove.
Dear, sweet, fair, wise,-change, shrink, nor be not weak;
And on my faith, my faith shall never break.
Earth with her flowers shall ... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
7fdcc224ab74a8fa | The Broken String | Diakwain | Nuing-kuiten my father’s friend
was a lion sorcerer
and walked on feet of hair.
People saw his spoor and said:
“The sorcerer has visited us.
He is the one who treads on hair.
This big animal prowling
was Nuing-kuiten.”
He used to travel by night—
he did not want to be seen
for people might shoot at him
and h... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-2"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
3b276d288e72e051 | I’m Glad I’m Me | Phil Bolsta | I don’t understand why everyone stares
When I take off my clothes and dance down the stairs.
Or when I stick carrots in both of my ears,
Then dye my hair green and go shopping at Sears.
I just love to dress up and do goofy things.
If I were an angel, I’d tie-dye my wings!
Why can’t folks accept me the way that I ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
c1de115a059a8b98 | Explorer | Kazim Ali | I fear dispersal but the resounding really sounds may be full of echo
or echolocation for the next round
Eye rowed in the guest book of God my many sacred tongues
body and bow
Fingers spell now all the spaces I open
You now verse now open oh pen
Cacti quiver for a century
In the desert I swam myself earthword to... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S5-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Weather",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
264e3e132c3507d4 | The Tunning of Elenor Rumming | John Skelton | Tell you I chyll,
If that ye wyll
A whyle be styll,
Of a comely gyll
That dwelt on a hyll:
But she is not gryll,
For she is somwhat sage
And well worne in age;
For her vysage
It would aswage
A mannes courage.
Her lothely lere
Is nothynge clere,
But ugly of chere,
Droupy and drowsy,
Scurvy and lowsy;
Her... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
18a1c44cd97a0c9d | The Wedding Party | Deborah Landau | •
Well look, the wedding guests are here again.
Why not just send a card?
Snapshot. Snapshot. Smile and kiss.
But this bride has such a red face!
Let her scramble past pardon en route to the loo.
Evacuate the taffeta dire and paunchy.
The groom is erect.
The groom downed three pints
and stole from the caterer.... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
fb08f6026e330087 | To Fishermen | Carol Frost | No more savage art: filleting: a deft pressure along the
backbone
from tail fan to the red gills: fighting mystery with a
honed blade
through the small bones: salt and scales on face and
hands:: the Greek God,
as well, found flesh unmysterious, but in anger and
disappointment:—
seagull cries, your mu... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
7a3d36c4f724d353 | Undone Song at Neap Tide | Kathryn Starbuck | When the sun and moon were in quadrature, when
the garden had become a wilderness and the clock refused to strike
When the old year died and the sand walked into
the sea with the neap tide
When you had been too long away and your old snowblue footprints
clotted and hesitated in the clay
When the worry of this undone so... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-6",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
39a7977d29d80345 | Lives of the Watchmakers | Michael Rutherglen | Surely there are teeth so small. I have listened for their turning, this frail swell and fall like old blood yearning upwards through the skin of days. Slowly, I am learning their count, though numbers fray in me, and the loaded instants graft, coming always to the same tangle: the distant cry mergi... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9840c96e1c657db2 | Adolescence | Adrienne Su | The trouble was not about finding acceptance.
Acceptance was available in the depths of the mind
And among like people. The trouble was the look into the canyon
Which had come a long time earlier
And spent many years being forgotten.
The fine garments and rows of strong shoes,
The pantry stocked with good grains ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7d38223f5369885c | Inscrutable Twist | Anne Pierson Wiese | The twist of the stream was inscrutable. It was a seemingly run-of-the-mill stream that flowed for several miles by the side of Route 302 in northern Vermont— and presumably does still—but I’ve not been back there for what seems like a long time. I have it in my mind’s eye, the way one crested a rise and rounded... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
8ffac8ee6ddf9337 | Poem for Nana | June Jordan | What will we do
when there is nobody left
to kill?
*
40,000 gallons of oil gushing into
the ocean
But I
sit on top this mountainside above
the Pacific
checking out the flowers
the California poppies orange
as I meet myself in heat
I’m wonderingwhere’s the Indians?
... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
553bedc8603cb2d4 | Rintrah Roars | James Galvin | for John Grant
My father-in-law writes from Umbria (where peasants eat songbirds
for lunch and pray beneath frescoes by Giotto): Saturday, 30 Jan. (last
day of the season wherein big men can kill little birds).
Lyndon Johnson, while being escorted by a young Marine who said,
“That one over there is your helicopter... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
cebe33359eb4532c | Philosopher Orders Crispy Pork | Heather McHugh | I love him so, this creature I do pray was treated kindly. I will pay as much as pig-lovers see fit to guarantee him that. As for his fat, I’d give up years yes years of my own life for such a gulpable semblable. (My life! Such as it is! This liberality of leaves! The world won’t need those seventeen more poems, aft... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
057a0201a994da68 | The Shepheardes Calender: January | Edmund Spenser | Januarie. Ægloga prima. ARGVMENT. IN this fyrst Æglogue Colin clout a shepheardes boy complaineth him of his vnfortunate loue, being but newly (as semeth) enamoured of a countrie lasse called Rosalinde: with which strong affection being very sore traueled, he compareth his carefull case to the sadde season of the ye... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
3f69a13d5d7f755b | In the Kitchen | Chen Jun | Early in the morning a dough rises from the bowl
curling upward.
He clenches his fists of bean paste, his mouth
dripping a black cocoa stream ...
Hey, I say, have you just smuggled
nine knife mountains and nine oil pans from hell?
Deep-fried ghosts are the sweetest the crispiest the most intelligent
even ... | [
"S5",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S9-1",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
42592f37e83c90ea | Drowning in Wheat | John Kinsella | They’d been warned
on every farm
that playing
in the silos
would lead to death.
You sink in wheat.
Slowly. And the more
you struggle the worse it gets.
‘You’ll see a rat sail past
your face, nimble on its turf,
and then you’ll disappear.’
In there, hard work
has no reward.
So it became a kind of test
to s... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
94c3d033e350ffba | S. I. W. | Wilfred Owen | I will to the King, And offer him consolation in his trouble, For that man there has set his teeth to die, And being one that hates obedience, Discipline, and orderliness of life, I cannot mourn him. W.B. YEATS
... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
09f82c9ec8b2f092 | Address: The Archaeans, One Cell Creatures | Pattiann Rogers | Although most are totally naked and too scant for even the slightest color and although they have no voice that I’ve ever heard for cry or song, they are, nevertheless, more than mirage, more than hallucination, more than falsehood. They have confronted sulfuric boiling black sea bottoms and stayed, ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-9"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences"
] |
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