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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
220ddce7dbd88430 | Clean | C. Dale Young | Already his abdomen was sculpted, and already
the thin trail descending from beneath his belly button.
Even now it is difficult to explain it. I was, after all,
only 7; I didn't even know what Turkish meant.
In the dead of winter, which only meant
certain flowers had ceased blooming on the island,
we had driven u... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
8466f583766719d9 | Greed | Philip Schultz | My ocean town struggles to pick up leaves, offer summer school, and keep our library open. Every day now more men stand at the railroad station, waiting to be chosen for work. Because it’s thought the Hispanics will work for less they get picked first, while the whites and blacks avoid the terror in one another’s eyes.... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7277f91682ea28a7 | Southern Gothic | Rickey Laurentiis | About the dead having available to themall breeds of knowledge,some pure, others wicked, especially what isfuture, and the history that remains once the waters recede, revealing the land that couldn’t reject or contain it, and the land that is not new, is indigo, is ancient, lived as all the trees that fit and clothe i... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-5",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
ebd6fb013b39852e | The Arch | Patricia Lockwood | Of all living monuments has the fewestfacts attached to it, they slide right offits surface, no Lincoln lap for them to siton and no horse to be astride. Here is what I know for sure:Was a gift from one city to another. A citycannot travel to another city, a city cannot v... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-7",
"S9-7",
"S10-1"
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4d830dd3764f6f8c | Corn Maze | David Barber | Here is where You can get nowhere Faster than everAs you go underDeeper and deeperIn the fertile smotherOf another acreLike any otherYou can’t peer overAnd then anotherAnd everywhereYou veer or hareThere you areFarther and fartherAfield than beforeBut on you blunderIn the verdant meanderAs if the answerTo looking for... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
604f9811247c073f | The Farmer’s Bride | Charlotte Mew | Three summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe—but more’s to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.
When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter’s day
Her smile went out, and ’twadn’t a woman—
More like a l... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-9",
"S3-4",
"S3-9",
"S8-1",
"S8-7"
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
35dda3b7b84b72fa | A Possum Entering the Argument | Tom Healy | We’re talking about
when we met
and you say
it was easier
to fall for me thinking
(I’ll remember
this pause)
it was likely I’d be
dead by now.
Talking. Falling.
Thinking. Waiting . . .
Have I
undone
what you’ve tried to do?
You say no.
You say the surprise
of still being
is something
being built—
the... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-5",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
7975c9b93a3bc79c | Ersatz Ignatz | Monica Youn | The clockwork saguaros sprout extra faces like planaria stroked by
a razor. Chug
say the sparrows, emitting fluffs of steam. Chug chug say the piston-powered
ground squirrels.
The tumbleweeds circle on retrofitted tracks, but the blue pasteboard welkin
is much dented by... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
dac48cae754df252 | mandan (they send) | Roberto Harrison | like the lost car that a river knows
like the heat of an ointment in pinpoints of breathing
like the unknown western in mountains of tar
like a knot in each word for comfort
like a horse on a face with four hooves
like the knives that a heart squirms into
like the feel that the last day pushes, that a fire paints... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
25de03718adf4efe | Lost in the Milky Way | Linda Hogan | Some of us are like trees that grow with a spiral grain
as if prepared for the path of the spirit’s journey
to the world of all souls.
It is not an easy path.
A dog stands at the opening constellation
past the great helping hand.
The dog wants to know,
did you ever harm an animal, hurt any creature,
did you ta... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
c05271084999cf33 | elegy for kari edwards | Julian Talamantez Brolaski | for memorial at Zinc Bar, 23 June 2007, NYC
I am your sugarplum fairy commodore in chief.
—kari edwards
conturbabimus illa
(vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus [let us live,
my Lesbia, and let us love])
—Catullus V.II
damesirs of fishairs
princes reginae
I dont need this botheration
guilded toe in a... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-4",
"S8-6",
"S10-2"
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"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
8625e4c7420eaa9d | Medusa on Sansome and Pine | Tiffany Higgins | The woman is daft.Invented her own sect.Has upside-down sex.With alternate species.You see her on the street.Corner of Sansome and Pine:Morning rev up of sf financial types.Instead, there she is, beneath a gigantic hat.Hair wild, in coils, like a rattle-Snake. Smiles like she’s got the shakes.Every cell in her seems ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
9a835f8f449a3bfc | This Morning in a Morning Voice | Todd Boss | to beat the froggiest of morning voices, my son gets out of bed and takes a lumpish song along—a little lyric learned in kindergarten, something about a boat. He’s found it in the bog of his throat before his feet have hit the ground, follows its wonky melody down the hall and ... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
6e2510ab3f215c79 | The Evening of the Mind | Donald Justice | Now comes the evening of the mind.
Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood;
Here is the shadow moving down the page
Where you sit reading by the garden wall.
Now the dwarf peach trees, nailed to their trellises,
Shudder and droop. You know their voices now,
Faintly the martyred peaches crying out
Your name... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
f6bde7a300019fe1 | Three Songs at the End of Summer | Jane Kenyon | A second crop of hay lies cut
and turned. Five gleaming crows
search and peck between the rows.
They make a low, companionable squawk,
and like midwives and undertakers
possess a weird authority.
Crickets leap from the stubble,
parting before me like the Red Sea.
The garden sprawls and spoils.
Across the lake ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Summer"
] |
f6800a996f2f06b6 | The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd | Sir Walter Ralegh | If all the world and love were young,
And truth in every Shepherd’s tongue,
These pretty pleasures might me move,
To live with thee, and be thy love.
Time drives the flocks from field to fold,
When Rivers rage and Rocks grow cold,
And Philomel becometh dumb,
The rest complains of cares to come.
The flowers do fade, and... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S1-9",
"S2-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
f95530c6345a2330 | Light | C. K. Williams | Another drought morning after a too brief dawn downpour,
unaccountable silvery glitterings on the leaves of the withering maples—
I think of a troop of the blissful blessed approaching Dante,
“a hundred spheres shining,” he rhapsodizes, “the purest pearls…”
then of the frightening brilliants myriad gleam in my lamp... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
609e6cb3873bce6b | The Chinese Mother’s Lullaby | Biddy Jenkinson | Pull in your feet, little darling, so I can kiss your wee trotters while I fold under a toe and another one underneath. I bend a little piggie. I bend another little piggie And look at that naughty little piggie that is still sticking out. Now, now, my treasure, there is work to be done here. Your t... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
fe81a89f000e647c | Elegy for an Old Boxer | James McKean | From my window I watch the roots of a willow push your house crooked, women rummage through boxes, your sons cart away the TV, its cord trailing like your useless arms. Only weeks ago we watched the heavyweights, and between rounds you pummeled the air, drank whiskey, admonished “Know your competition!” You did, Kansas... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
99b2ce9fa4dbadf6 | Eschatology, Piscatology | James Brookes | The halotolerant crocodileidles in brackish water like a tow truck.Salt glands meter in its diapsid skull;smug fucker that the epochs couldn’t kill.How easy “kill” then closes onto “smile,”the lockjaw of a life that rides its luck,knowing from hindmost teeth to jackknifed tailLeviathan is neither fish nor mammal. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
38db3ea898011742 | Grain Field | Adelaide Crapsey | Scarlet the poppiesBlue the corn-flowers,Golden the wheat.Gold for The Eternal:Blue of Our Lady:Red for the fiveWounds of her Son. | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
18aa8c39f202a03f | Edges | Allen Tate | I’ve often wondered why she laughed On thinking why I wondered so; It seemed such waste that long white hands Should touch my hands and let them go. And once when we were parting there, Unseen of anything but trees, I touched her fingers, thoughtfully, For more than simple niceties. But for some futile things unsai... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
169d01576c1bca73 | Poem to Some of My Recent Poems | James Tate | My beloved little billiard balls,
my polite mongrels, edible patriotic plums,
you owe your beauty to your mother, who
resembled a cyclindrical corned beef
with all the trimmings, may God rest
her forsaken soul, for it is all of us
she forsook; and I shall never forget
her sputtering embers, and then the little m... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
8cd5a63fb64b95af | The Use of Poetry | Michael Ryan | On the day a fourteen-year-old disappeared in Ojai, California,
having left a Christmas Eve slumber party barefoot
to “go with a guy” in a green truck,
and all Christmas Day volunteers searched for her body within a fifteen-mile radius,
and her father and grandfather searched
and spoke to reporters because TV cove... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S8-4",
"S8-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
66ed74381b4590ab | The Village: The Seasons | L. E. Sissman | (To Saul Touster)
I. January 22, 1932
Could a four-year-old look out of a square sedan
(A Studebaker Six in currency green
With wooden artillery wheels) and see a scene
Of snow, light lavender, landing on deepening blue
Buildings built out of red-violet bricks, and black
Passersby passing by over the widening wh... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S9-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
a653024a43871016 | Monsters | Dorothea Lasky | This is a world where there are monsters
There are monsters everywhere, racoons and skunks
There are possums outside, there are monsters in my bed.
There is one monster. He is my little one.
I talk to my little monster.
I give my little monster some bacon but that does not satisfy him.
I tell him, ssh ssh, don’t ... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-2"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
898587fe70488cc7 | Psalm 58 | Christopher Smart | Ye congregation of the tribes, On justice do you set your mind; And are ye free from guile and bribes Ye judges of mankind? Nay, ye of frail and mortal mould Imagine mischief in your heart; Your suffrages and selves are sold Unto the general mart. Men of unrighteous seed betray Perverseness from their m... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7cb1ff9f24248ba0 | On Stella's Birth-day | Jonathan Swift | Stella this Day is thirty four, (We won't dispute a Year or more) However Stella, be not troubled, Although thy Size and Years are doubled, Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen The brightest Virgin of the Green, So little is thy Form declin'd Made up so largely in thy Mind. Oh, would it please the Gods to split Thy Beauty... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
69f1712758f6e35a | Backyard Georgics | Lance Larsen | It takes a calendar one damp day to declare fall,weeks of dying mums to second the motion. * * * Gone the homeland, gone the father, nothing leftbut invisible north to magnetize your doubts. * * * Not eulogies or hearses but the sandwiches afte... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
fd434fab49a98d29 | Strange Service | Ivor Gurney | Little did I dream, England, that you bore me
Under the Cotswold hills beside the water meadows, | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
85b4bd7505778247 | Driving through Minnesota During the Hanoi Bombings | Robert Bly | We drive between lakes just turning green;
Late June. The white turkeys have been moved
A second time to new grass.
How long the seconds are in great pain!
Terror just before death,
Shoulders torn, shot
From helicopters. “I saw the boy
being tortured with a telephone generator,”
The sergeant said.
“I felt sorr... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
f4d81b4b63f070d2 | Letter from the Estuary | Erik Kennedy | Two feet of snow at my parents’ place, in another season.
Here, the cicadas sing like Christian women’s choirs
in a disused cotton mill. Belief is a kind of weather.
I haven’t seen proper snow for three years.
The new urban forest for native plants and birds
will be splendid if the local cats don’t kill the birds.... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-10",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
0991b0a7d75c6180 | Calmly We Walk through This April’s Day | Delmore Schwartz | Calmly we walk through this April’s day,
Metropolitan poetry here and there,
In the park sit pauper and rentier,
The screaming children, the motor-car
Fugitive about us, running away,
Between the worker and the millionaire
Number provides all distances,
It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,
Many great dears are take... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S6-1",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
94bcb9b71e9186d3 | To the States, | Walt Whitman | To Identify the 16th, 17th, or 18th Presidentiad.
Why reclining, interrogating? why myself and all drowsing? What deepening twilight—scum floating atop of the waters, Who are they as bats and night-dogs askant in the capitol? What a filthy Presidentiad! (O South, your torrid suns! O North, your arctic freezings!) Are ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
ed4e2dbfcd0e57fe | from Step | George Albon | iridescence as old
story, that brought
cold from deep
a chord moves into
an upper chamber
among rival unknowns
declension toward one
end—the merest
light-sensitive dot
a perfect world
the strokes same light value
runny, evened
illuminations came
from the plant
the signal blinked
search for asylum
carrie... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
1b1dcb33a9ed7e4f | Amoretti LXII: "The weary yeare his race now having run" | Edmund Spenser | The weary yeare his race now having run,
The new begins his compast course anew:
With shew of morning mylde he hath begun,
Betokening peace and plenty to ensew.
So let us, which this chaunge of weather vew,
Chaunge eeke our mynds and former lives amend,
The old yeares sinnes forepast let us eschew,
And fly the faults w... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
80571a82b9c8ef6d | Requiem for the New Year | Mary Karr | On this first dark day of the year
my daddy was born lo
these eighty-six years ago who now
has not drawn breath or held
bodily mass for some ten years and still
I have not got used to it.
My mind can still form to that chair him
whom no chair holds.
Each year on this night on the brink
... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
880693eead9870d8 | For a' That and a' That | Robert Burns | Is there, for honest poverty, That hings his head, an' a' that? The coward slave, we pass him by, We dare be poor for a' that! For a' that, an' a' that, Our toils obscure, an' a' that; The rank is but the guinea's stamp; T... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
3e8583d120fd760f | Damp Rot | John Engels | Water sheets on the old stone of the cellar walls,
trickles out over the floor into little deltas of mud,
worse every year, so that now I can see daylight
at the footings, and upstairs the floors sometimes
tremble and the clothes go damp in the closets. And sometimes
I think the whole place is about to come down, ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
3c1af4ef54596193 | Early Morning in Milwaukee | John Koethe | Is this what I was made for? Is the world that fits
Like what I feel when I wake up each morning? Steamclouds
Hovering over the lake, and smoke ascending from ten thousand chimneys
As in a picture on a calendar, in a frieze of ordinary days?
Beneath a sky of oatmeal gray, the land slides downwards from a Kmart park... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
6a7213b67e9a886a | Arrochar Alps | Marion McCready | I have been known to birth a mountain whole,a range of them in my belly,I popped them out one by one.The blood-cut son born black,I could not believe the wholeness of him,the crushed diamond of his face.And then the other,who flew from me, a shooting star;a twin mirror girl, whose orchid faceopened and opened and opene... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
12e4f760dcfbbdf6 | Mother and Child | Louise Glück | We’re all dreamers; we don’t know who we are.
Some machine made us; machine of the world, the constricting family.
Then back to the world, polished by soft whips.
We dream; we don’t remember.
Machine of the family: dark fur, forests of the mother’s body.
Machine of the mother: white city inside her.
And before th... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
00420fedc83a74cd | Charles Graner Is Not America | Geoffrey Brock | Let’s get this straight: Charles Graner
is not America. America would never
hold a knife to his wife’s throat, then say
when she woke that he was considering
killing her. And America’s wife in turn
would never call her husband “my own
Hannibal Lecter.” Am I right, or what?
Charles Graner may be Hannibal Lecter,
... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
4745aacf09d4c782 | theoria | Rodney Koeneke | Blood to babe to father’s
laden table. Dance, said
the father, show us your grace.
Whose tattered cotton
whose weary gristle, heads
duly shriven, wrenched
in complaint? Cleft so a heart
works without wanting,
summoned to pleasure,
free to pick dates. Curve
into cursive, praxis to ashes.
What reveler consider... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
58a7b1cad741f7af | On Immigration | Prageeta Sharma | After being humiliated one continues the manuscript of identity.
Activities, diseases, doldrums, the crony affair after the situation,
the one where one faces how one is the undertaste,
how one isn't the neighbor, the piebaker, a white folk. How one isn't a gorgeous
dream wrapped up in tireless affection, primped f... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
64a7d5a1613d3ff6 | Xenophobia | Rae Armantrout | 1
“must represent the governess
for, of course, the creature itself
could not inspire such terror.”
staring at me fixedly, no
trace of recognition.
“when the window opened of its own accord.
In the big walnut tree
were six or seven wolves ...
strained attention. They were white.”
(The fear of cloudy skies.)
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
da3deab6c6757e9d | Body of Rags, International Bridge Between the US & Mexico | Ray Gonzalez | Is it alive?
—neither a head,
legs nor arms!
...................
... torpid against
the flange of the supporting girder . ?
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
dc86f043770e9e83 | A Kind of Villanelle | Joyce Sutphen | I will have been walking away:
no matter what direction I intended,
at that moment, I will have been walking
Away into the direction that you now say
I have always intended, no matter what my
intention was then, I will have been
Walking away, though it will not be clear
what it was that I was leaving or
even wh... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
94d661263b272e48 | We had decided with Cocteau | Christopher Shannon | the difference between a cigarette holder and cigarette case,the pleasure of a lorgnette over spectacles, of a fortnight overtwo weeks, of a spiral over graduated stairs, of the frisson of cryinglike pouty boys, and of the way to walk a lobster on a leash: drag it,its exoskeleton rapping on the cobbles t... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
f1d7a544ba2ce4a5 | Stars | Marjorie Pickthall | Now in the West the slender moon lies low,
And now Orion glimmers through the trees,
Clearing the earth with even pace and slow,
And now the stately-moving Pleiades,
In that soft infinite darkness overhead
Hang jewel-wise upon a silver thread.
And all the lonelier stars that have their place,
Calm lamps within the dist... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
a17c203e8b1dcf40 | The Son of the Wall | Avot Yeshurun | The Christian cannot
be the pitying one
because he is
the one pitied.
From a dusty road
in a straight line
from przedmiescie to Krasnystaw
at the entrance to town
at Zhitkovski's
in his house we lived,
he makes coffins
with crosses.
On the threshold
I sat as a boy
opposite a building
held together by nai... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
09582041790d0e75 | Red Migraine | Michael Dickman | The redbreast killsand kills itself againstthe windowSooner or later the blood in the breast will break the window into hundreds of pieces you can swallow wholeKeep swallowingThe redbreastloves you and wants youto remember the loveSo it makes you puke into the toilet blindI was blinded by loveAnd drowned in an empty ba... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
76599f90625b6556 | The Planet Krypton | Lynn Emanuel | Outside the window the McGill smelter
sent a red dust down on the smoking yards of copper,
on the railroad tracks’ frayed ends disappeared
into the congestion of the afternoon. Ely lay dull
and scuffed: a miner’s boot toe worn away and dim,
while my mother knelt before the Philco to coax
the detonation from the s... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
bea2f76d4357df7a | Market | Mark Levine | Money changed hands. It’s how we came to be
Came to be planted here in the mortar
In the miniature cash forest
Aster greenwood ficus hemlock
Taproot stipe calyx anther in the
Mortal hereafter
Hearing hands making money change.
Speak up. I can’t hear you.
There’s something wrong with your voice.
You’re speaking... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
88d03943c8b73807 | This Hour and What Is Dead | Li-Young Lee | Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking
through bare rooms over my head,
opening and closing doors.
What could he be looking for in an empty house?
What could he possibly need there in heaven?
Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches?
His love for me feels like spilled water
running back ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
60a88e097225cd68 | Fowl | Michael Lista | The girl from Scarborough liked being slappedDown the hall from where her mother slept.A big, hard-working hand, anybody’sTo come medicinally down, antibodyTo the slow infection of her Western face(what sucked the most was that it wasn’t fast).Some birds don’t migrate. Above, two lonely fowlScream across the sky thei... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
39417caf1ed51015 | Hail | Mary Szybist | Mary who mattered to me, gone or asleep among fruits, spilled in ash, in dust, I did not leave you. Even now I can't keep from composing you, limbs & blue cloak & soft hands. I sleep to the sound of your name, I say there is no Mary except the word Mary, no trace on the dust of my pillowslip. I only dream... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-2",
"S5-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
42b67374e17e1665 | The Ballad of the Children of the Czar | Delmore Schwartz | 1
The children of the Czar
Played with a bouncing ball
In the May morning, in the Czar’s garden,
Tossing it back and forth.
It fell among the flowerbeds
Or fled to the north gate.
A daylight moon hung up
In the Western sky, bald white.
Like Papa’s face, said Sister,
Hurling the white ball forth.
2
Wh... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
00ab839647f74e3a | The Lady in Kicking Horse Reservoir | Richard Hugo | Not my hands but green across you now.
Green tons hold you down, and ten bass curve
teasing in your hair. Summer slime
will pile deep on your breast. Four months of ice
will keep you firm. I hope each spring
to find you tangled in those pads
pulled not quite loose by the spillway pour,
stars in dead reflection o... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
6f5448c6ab0b94ce | Amoretti LXVIII: Most Glorious Lord of Life | Edmund Spenser | Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day,
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin:
And having harrow'd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash'd from sin,
May live for ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
797cbb853a536536 | A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp | Thomas Moore | Written at Norfolk, in Virginia
“They made her a grave, too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.
“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear;
Long and loving our l... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
9c20d10b71e4b7f8 | Thoughts about the Person from Porlock | Stevie Smith | Coleridge received the Person from Porlock
And ever after called him a curse,
Then why did he hurry to let him in?
He could have hid in the house.
It was not right of Coleridge in fact it was wrong
(But often we all do wrong)
As the truth is I think he was already stuck
With Kubla Khan.
He was weeping and waili... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7b4d4206dc428e79 | Sonnet 19: When I consider how my light is spent | John Milton | When I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide; “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S6-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
c22dd19974f7e4dd | Barber of the Pea | Farnoosh Fathi | For John Ashbery
“Good Barber of the Pea!” I exhumed,
high into the vag
where the barber keeps his
pea —
“Good Sprout!” His mouth, his gray,
hunted tongue,
always in the distance —
“No use denying
we master the particular service
we deny ourselves. In the shade of this pea
(the sum of his shade and the gav... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
c620473db7f42405 | Estevanico | Jeffrey Yang | of Azamor
at the mouth of the Oum er Rbia River
Province, Doukkala
Dorantes’s slave, with Captain Castillo
and myself Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
named in honor of Alhajahad
grandson to the conqueror of Canaria,
four far from a tribe, lost
band of followers, at once
master and slave, trader and healer
lost, af... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
1d867720e5a9ac66 | This One, That One | Lawson Fusao Inada | This one appeared to me
in a dream, was forgotten,
only to reveal itself
on the shower wall
this morning.
It must have been the water. •
That one was on the full moon
last night, clear as a bell.
Someone projected it there.
•
This one was on the ground,
on crunchy pine needles.
The moon projected i... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
e8c78763d94847c6 | Taking Down the Tree | Jane Kenyon | "Give me some light!" cries Hamlet's
uncle midway through the murder
of Gonzago. "Light! Light!" cry scattering
courtesans. Here, as in Denmark,
it's dark at four, and even the moon
shines with only half a heart.
The ornaments go down into the box:
the silver spaniel, My Darling
on its collar, from Mother's chi... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
c16b0e41d0cdff5c | Poem (At night Chinamen jump) | Frank O'Hara | At night Chinamen jump
on Asia with a thump
while in our willful way
we, in secret, play
affectionate games and bruise
our knees like China’s shoes.
The birds push apples through
grass the moon turns blue,
these apples roll beneath
our buttocks like a heath
full of Chinese thrushes
flushed from China’s bushe... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
9d89d1604144d726 | Khalil Zaqtan | Ghassan Zaqtan | And I will bend down to smell his desire
his tomb's flowers and marble
his wilting joy
his swapping temptation for content
And I will keep him from the cold, visitors, oleander,
and the sons of bitches and say: No one
will resemble me like my father
his white stumbling and the illusion that plucks words
A shout... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c9d74741cd6de1e8 | Men Who March Away | Thomas Hardy | What of the faith and fire within usMen who march awayEre the barn-cocks sayNight is growing gray,Leaving all that here can win us;What of the faith and fire within usMen who march away?
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,Friend with the musing eye,Who watch us stepping byWith doubt and dolorous sigh?Can much ponderi... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
45aaf219ba8a3db1 | Outshines Its Canopy of Intent | Jane Miller | We were up late and everyone had been drinking, and someone said, Hey, is that God’s
head on the boil?
We didn’t know where to look or what to think, it was obviously some sort of perverse
joke, or not, right?
And the conversation went on for days, sober, drunk, asleep, awake, what did it matter?
Some of us felt t... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
bac2e22c5af293c9 | The Sound of Music | Kathryn Nuernberger | When I tell you I love
the song “Edelweiss”
you have to understand
that even though I too
am a sophisticate
who scorns musicals,
I was once a little girl
who stood in my grand-
father’s living room
singing, Cuckoo!Cuckoo! while he sipped
his scotch and laughed
at my preciosity.
And when I sing the lyrics
i... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
799af9953756874e | 7th Game : 1960 Series | Paul Blackburn | —for Joel—
Nice day,
sweet October afternoon
Men walk the sun-shot avenues,
Second, Third, eyes
intent elsewhere
ears communing with transistors in shirt pockets
Bars are ... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
f01f030314b5f5ac | White Cedar | Jake Crist | Arborvitae
It rises in a Champaign County bog
Amid bedstraw and skunk cabbage,
Rises out there in an ice age
River valley gorged with glacial till,
And swills the moraine-filtered rainwater
With the wafer ash and honeysuckle.
Stalwart, set apart, and biblical —
As if one of that ancient company
That gave its ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c9d5ce75d72b96b6 | Vobiscum Est Iope | Thomas Campion | When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admirèd guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finished love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques an... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
47d67ea7b074b4fc | An Offering for Patricia | Anthony Hecht | The work has been going forward with the greatest difficulty, chiefly because I cannot concentrate. I have no feeling about whether what I am writing is good or bad, and the whole business is totally without excitement and pleasure for me. And I am sure I know the reason. It’s that I can’t stand leaving unresolved my s... | [
"S1",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
a33955a2a50caa45 | Carl Hamblin | Edgar Lee Masters | The press of the Spoon River Clarion was wrecked, And I was tarred and feathered, For publishing this on the day the Anarchists were hanged in Chicago: "I saw a beautiful woman with bandaged eyes Standing on the steps of a marble temple. Great multitudes passed in front of her, Lifting their faces to her imploringly. I... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
e2e56d0abbb3baf9 | Shells | Mark Nickels | Essentially, for some time, in an effort
to determine whether I loved you or not,
I've been praying to you, even though
the inside of the tabernacle, as I thought,
is empty: oxygen, carbon dioxide,
brass, nickel, and a sheet, a sheet
of gilded plywood. (And in the rectory,
the housekeeper is cooking pasta, stamp... | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
780df7e99b2846a5 | Astrophil and Stella 21: Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame | Sir Philip Sidney | Your words my friend (right healthful caustics) blame My young mind marred, whom Love doth windlass so, That mine own writings like bad servants show My wits, quick in vain thoughts, in virtue lame, That Plato I read for nought, but if he tame Such coltish gyres, that to my birth I owe Nobler desires, least else that f... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-5"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/New Love"
] |
fd61363f9745d14a | Slum Drummers, Nairobi | Peter Balakian | 1.
What were we watching on the tube under mildewed ceilings in Eastlands?
A Kenyan guy shaking a rattle made from a can
while another guy in the band was talking to the queen
about making sound out of anything? The queen smiled.
The Jubilee receiving line filed through.
2.
We shimmied past tin shacks s... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
bba292f40d2ca601 | First Fire | Camille T. Dungy | Stripped in a flamedance, the bluff backing our houses
quivered in wet-black skin. A shawl of haze tugged tight
around the starkness. We could have choked on August.
Smoke thick in our throats, nearly naked as the earth,
we played bare feet over the heat caught in asphalt.
Could we, green girls, have prepared for ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
88345eafbbe13bec | Picking up Your Spilled Pills off the Floor Is Briefly Humbling | Ben Fama | I was humbled when my boss mocked me
for calling from vacation
I’m broke again
until Friday
from my bed
I see the lights, I see
the party lights
it’s torture
a post-Fordist allegory?
I appropriated a corporate apology
and saved it
in case something happened
but my end date came
and my vacation days paid ou... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
755e9a90faca4ace | [I want to be near you] | Oli Hazzard | I want to be near you | via nearness generally | an app "chance" rather than "skill" | determining the tax obligations of the feathers as | one falls into the pixel | on the white water | interlude. A grid is applied to the | field which dissolves into | the screen harmlessly beneath a summer storm. Brace. The silence ... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-2",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences"
] |
a6fb53c7e9882007 | from Poems of the Thirties: 286 [The Stalin Epigram] | Osip Mandelstam | Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.
But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,
the ten thick worms his fingers,
his words like measures of weight,
the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boot-rims.
Ringed wit... | [
"S4"
] | [] | [
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
7f7192c04cd3a079 | The Lake in Central Park | Jay Wright | It should have a woman's name,
something to tell us how the green skirt of land
has bound its hips.
When the day lowers its vermilion tapestry over the west ridge,
the water has the sound of leaves shaken in a sack,
and the child's voice that you have heard below
... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
c39d9d1b21888a79 | The Weary Blues | Langston Hughes | Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
70d52afcc1dacaeb | January 22nd, Missolonghi | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | On this Day I Complete my Thirty-Sixth Year
'Tis time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move: Yet though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love! My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of Love are gone; The worm—the canker, ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
535b8cc92e441aa6 | From “Mankindness” | Christina Davis | 1 Because he, because she,in so far asshe (in so far as he) existsis on the wayto battle.Not what is your name,but whatthe battle?2 “Each one of us has comehere and changed” —is the battle. Borna loved one,borne a loved one. 3 My father fought in this war, thus I can speak of it.My mother fought in this, thus I can spe... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
160edc1db6338a3a | The Knife-Sharpener’s Daughter | Stuart Dybek | A drain spout splashing
rusty stains on concrete,
the taste of doorknobs
you kiss before squinting
through the musty keyhole
at the knife-sharpener’s daughter,
while across the city
the knife-sharpener
limps his pushcart
with its dinging axles,
with its screeching whetstone
up wet alleys
crying: scissors! k... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
d8c16eedb4a7f520 | Negroes | Charles Reznikoff | 1
One night in April or May,
his daughter saw someone's hand
make the curtain which was drawn tightly across her window bulge
and ran to the adjoining room in her night clothes
where he and his son were sitting.
He ran around the house one way
and his son ran the other way
and they found a Negro
under a workbe... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
f48666e6d4d1aa23 | People Behaving Badly a Concern | John Ashbery | Aggressive panhandling, public urination, verbal threats,
public nudity and violation of the open container law
followed us down the days, for why
are we here much longer,
or even this long? I ask you
to be civil and not interrupt night’s business.
It was fun getting used to you,
who couldn’t have been more nice... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S3-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
497d5b87841434d5 | Surprise | Carrie Fountain | I don't want to teach you anything
or show you my wound or have you taste
the amazing thing I made this morning
with only what we had left in the fridge
before you came home with new groceries.
I’m as tired as you are of genius. Hey,
do you know where we put the sky?
I haven’t seen it for months.
When I was in ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
1630a331aa89f564 | My Factless Autobiography | Alli Warren | I arise around survival of the event
as worse than the event
The whole place surrounds the smell
I take one step toward and ten paces back
breathless with the mirrors
with the fees and meters
Feces I fax my demon family
weeping on the bridge again
My condition was induced as follows
Releasing actual sales numb... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e026d73198f9329e | Snakes | Eileen Myles | for Kathe Izzo
I was 6 and
I lost my snake.
The table shook
I can do better
than this
and shambled
to the kitchen
to the scene
of the crime
I was green
I put my sneaker
down, little shoe
I felt the cold
metal tap
my calf
moo and everything
began to change.
I am 6
turned into lightning
wrote on the n... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-3",
"S8-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
b8e68fa9480efbbc | My Grave | Ella Wheeler Wilcox | If, when I die, I must be buried, let No cemetery engulph me — no lone grot, Where the great palpitating world comes not, Save when, with heart bowed down and eyelids wet, It pays its last sad melancholy debt To some outjourneying pilgrim. May my lot Be rather to lie in some much-used spot, Where human life, with all i... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
909dd9c70f56e3c5 | An Autumn Sunset | Edith Wharton | I Leaguered in fire The wild black promontories of the coast extend Their savage silhouettes; The sun in universal carnage sets, And, halting higher, The motionless storm-clouds mass their sullen threats, Like an advancing mob in sword-points penned, That, balked, yet stands at bay. Mid-zenith hangs the fascinated day ... | [
"S2"
] | [] | [
"Nature"
] | [] |
befa8d2ea8e93517 | The Empty Dance Shoes | Cornelius Eady | My friends,
As it has been proven in the laboratory,
An empty pair of dance shoes
Will sit on the floor like a wart
Until it is given a reason to move.
Those of us who study inertia
(Those of us covered with wild hair and sleep)
Can state this without fear:
The energy in a pair of shoes at rest
Is about the sa... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-10"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance"
] |
f644781364951e3d | Living Among the Dead | William Matthews | There is another world,
but it is in this one.
Paul Eluard
First there were those who died
before I was born.
It was as if they had just left
and their shadows would
slip out after them
under the door so recently closed
the air in its path was still
swirling to rest.
Some of the furniture... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
317b5c692bda06dd | Ne’ilah | Marge Piercy | The hinge of the year
the great gates opening
and then slowly slowly
closing on us.
I always imagine those gates
hanging over the ocean
fiery over the stone grey
waters of evening.
We cast what we must
change about ourselves
onto the waters flowing
to the sea. The sins,
errors, bad habits, whatever
you cal... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
c1a3731635bb80fc | Fly, Dragonfly! | Joyce Sidman | Water nymph, you have
climbed from the shallows to don
your dragon-colors.
Perched on a reed stem
all night, shedding your skin, you dry
your wings in moonlight.
Night melts into day.
Swift birds wait to snap you up.
Fly, dragonfly! Fly!
| [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
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