PoetryMTEB/PoetryFoundationSubjectsClassification

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
bc6ebb9f936a43f5	Insect	Annie Finch	That hour-glass-backed, orchard-legged, heavy-headed will, paper-folded, wedge-contorted, savage—dense to kill— pulls back on backward-moving, arching high legs still, lowered through a deep, knees-reaching, feathered down green will, antenna-honest, thread-descending, carpeted as if with skill, a focus-...	[ "S2", "S6" ]	[ "S2-5", "S6-4" ]	[ "Nature", "Living" ]	[ "Nature/Animals", "Living/Death & Dying" ]
d3cd726c3ded6c82	Special Orders	Edward Hirsch	Give me back my father walking the halls of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company with sawdust clinging to his shoes. Give me back his tape measure and his keys, his drafting pencil and his order forms; give me his daydreams on lined paper. I don't understand this uncontainable grief. ...	[ "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S6-5", "S8-3" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]
b19276af1be7892b	The Descent	Fanny Howe	The descent has deepened the interior lengthened designated ending Blind pulled down inside and then shot up again to see east via the plateglass a moon a monsoon an ashram I used time almost wantonly in that bald but sensual sky to give me gusts and more measurement not to snap the stars shut but Joseph s...	[ "S6", "S7" ]	[ "S6-1" ]	[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[ "Living/Aging" ]
5aa4b238f287da2c	The Lost Mistress	Robert Browning	All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, today; One day more bursts them open fully – You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, deares...	[ "S1", "S8" ]	[ "S8-1" ]	[ "Love", "Relationships" ]	[ "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]
abe28d7e87cbd6c4	To Autumn	John Keats	Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; ConspiringConspiring Working together; literally, to conspire is “to breathe together” (OED) with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-evesthatch-eves ...	[ "S2", "S9" ]	[ "S2-3", "S2-5", "S2-7", "S2-8", "S9-1" ]	[ "Nature", "Activities" ]	[ "Nature/Fall", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
40d69484bbac46bf	Toy Boat	Ocean Vuong	For Tamir Rice yellow plastic black sea eye-shaped shard on a darkened map no shores now to arrive — or depart no wind but this waiting which moves you as if the seconds could be entered & never left toy boat — oarless each wave a green lamp outlasted toy boat toy leaf dropped from a toy tree wai...	[ "S3", "S6", "S7" ]	[ "S3-8", "S6-3", "S6-4", "S6-8" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Living/Coming of Age", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Youth" ]
618e6798cc0614d4	Against the Evidence	David Ignatow	As I reach to close each book lying open on my desk, it leaps up to snap at my fingers. My legs won’t hold me, I must sit down. My fingers pain me where the thick leaves snapped together at my touch. All my life I’ve held books in my hands like children, carefully turning their pages an...	[ "S10" ]	[ "S10-8" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books" ]
f5984543a95dc4a6	from Epitaphs	Abraham Sutzkever	Written on a slat of a railway car: If some time someone should find pearls threaded on a blood-red string of silk which, near the throat, runs all the thinner like life’s own path until it’s gone somewhere in a fog and can’t be seen— If someone should find these pearls let him know how—cool, aloof—they lit up ...	[ "S3", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]	[ "S3-4", "S6-1", "S10-5" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Aging" ]
80153f20c0b47b09	Sometime During Eternity . . .	Lawrence Ferlinghetti	Sometime during eternity some guys show up and one of them who shows up real late is a kind of carpenter from some square-type place ...	[ "S3", "S4", "S5" ]	[]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion" ]	[]
157003bd8bb4de5e	Afrofuturism (Blanche says, “Meh”)	Douglas Kearney	After Lauren Halsey and Mike Demps	[ "S2", "S3", "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S2-9", "S3-8", "S9-7", "S10-3" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Music", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
05c814b382c9186c	Mosaic	Linda Pastan	1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air as if it had learned a dance of its own, the way the boy has among the vivid breakable flowers, the way Abraham has among the boulders, his two feet heavy as stones. 2. NEAR SINAI God's hand here is the size of a tiny cl...	[ "S5", "S9" ]	[ "S5-6", "S9-7" ]	[ "Religion", "Activities" ]	[ "Religion/Judaism", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
97bc625276d60bb8	The Last Troubadour	David St. John	Standing at the glass-paneled wall of Liza’s kitchen at the old house half-hidden Over a mile up Canyon Road in Joshua’s gated compound I’m just smoking a joint & looking down at the dusk dusting the Malibu lights as they flare Along the coastline below & I can hear the ripped-up Buick fenders &...	[ "S10" ]	[ "S10-4" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture" ]
1acc6c17be666d31	April Snow	Matthew Zapruder	Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep on the runway. The world is in a delay. All the political consultants drinking whiskey keep their heads down, lifting them only to look at the beautiful scarred waitress who wears typewriter keys as a necklace. They jingle when she brings them drinks. Outside the giant pla...	[ "S2", "S3", "S6", "S9" ]	[ "S2-1", "S2-7", "S2-10", "S9-7" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities" ]	[ "Nature/Spring", "Nature/Weather", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
1dfb70960e39bd32	Limbo: Altered States	Mary Karr	No sooner does the plane angle up than I cork off to dream a bomb blast: A fireball roiling through the cabin in slo-mo, seat blown loose from its bolts, I hang weightless a nanosecond in blue space then jerk awake to ordered rows. And there’s the silver liquor cart jangling its thousand bells, the per...	[ "S6", "S9" ]	[ "S6-6", "S9-7" ]	[ "Living", "Activities" ]	[ "Living/Health & Illness", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
470c12815f177308	john	Lucille Clifton	somebody coming in blackness like a star and the world be a great bush on his head and his eyes be fire in the city and his mouth be true as time he be calling the people brother even in the prison even in the jail i’m just only a baptist preacher somebody bigger than me coming in blackness like a star	[ "S3", "S5" ]	[ "S3-8", "S5-2" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Religion" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Religion/Christianity" ]
1f661a8007908e6e	Claustrophilia	Alice Fulton	It's just me throwing myself at you, romance as usual, us times us, not lust but moxibustion, a substance burning close to the body as possible withut risk of immolation. Nearness without contact causes numbness. Analgesia. Pins and needles. As the snugness of the surgeon's glove causes hand fatigue. At least...	[ "S1" ]	[ "S1-4", "S1-6" ]	[ "Love" ]	[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Love/Realistic & Complicated" ]
ef6edd370f13fab1	In the Bay	Algernon Charles Swinburne	I Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west, Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest, Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar To fold the fleet in of the winds from far That stir no plume now of the bland sea's breast: II Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay Southwest...	[ "S2", "S10" ]	[ "S2-6", "S2-9", "S10-6" ]	[ "Nature", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]
0a095d43ea152a8d	The Psychotropic Squalls	Will Alexander	To peer into the obverse into smoking cane field erratums as if haunted with the steamy colitis of whirling iridium cancellations as in the saliva of newts one sees the intestinal raging of deltas of blackened sea giraffes osmotically split into simultaneous alums above a judgemental sea glistening with Richters...	[ "S10" ]	[ "S10-2" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics" ]
f83ada3054d0d796	Tarragon, Are You a Wild Boar?	Vi Khi Nao	Tarrargon, are you a wild boar? My friend, lemon zest, has not been that Thyme, Cognac, falooda glass noodle These things prowl the night without cape Gooseberries or bacalao Tarragon, are you a wild boar? Each time I eat you, I stop breathing Little owl, where is your happiness? Wake up + make people believe ...	[ "S2", "S3", "S9" ]	[ "S2-5", "S3-4", "S9-1" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Activities" ]	[ "Nature/Animals", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
2434163eb25f9cf3	Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways	Elizabeth Barrett Browning	How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely...	[ "S1", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S1-7", "S1-8", "S8-7" ]	[ "Love", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Love/Romantic Love", "Love/Classic Love", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]
f2bc873a998b5571	Samba in the Sky	Tiffany Higgins	The poor have the best views,Views sloping down to sea.A green and yellow planet,A blue band, rung with stars.The poor have the best views.You have to walk to get there.Up three flights, narrow paths,Houses rising steeply side to side.No, no space for a car.When the flag lifts, you see the coast:Yellow curve of sand,Fr...	[ "S2", "S3" ]	[ "S2-7", "S3-2" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]	[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Social Commentaries/Class & Labor" ]
47dfc4973d870bf3	Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been	William Shakespeare	How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time remov'd was summer's time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like wid...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S2-2", "S2-3", "S2-4", "S8-1" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Nature/Summer", "Nature/Fall", "Nature/Winter", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]
e3c6323fa2a17eb9	Catch	Samiya Bashir	if this is a game then we have made it, unknowing, to the final four. unlikely underdogs. spectators turned to suspect sport. anti-athletes. out of shape beyond reason. at season’s height we fight for a limited audience. few dancers. fewer cheers. down by 30 and our coach m.i.a. we, foolish, dribble. each bounce-b...	[ "S9" ]	[ "S9-5" ]	[ "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]
bc7a2fa476b55a14	In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth	Anne Bradstreet	Proem. Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, The sound thereof raps every human sense That men account it no impiety To say thou we...	[ "S3", "S4", "S11" ]	[ "S3-4", "S11-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality" ]
0916eea5cb9d67a5	Planting a Dogwood	Roy Scheele	Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own. Put down your taproot with its probing hairs that sluice the darkness and create unseen the tree that mirrors you below the ground. For when we plant a tree, two trees take root: the one that lifts its leaves into the air, and the inverted one that cleaves the soil to fin...	[ "S2" ]	[ "S2-8" ]	[ "Nature" ]	[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi" ]
ec40815979360378	The So-called Singer of Nab	Sarah Lindsay	They have left behind the established cave with its well-worn floor. Scholarship impels them in hundreds, but generally one by one, to find an unknown passage or scrape out their own. Proto-Semitic linguistic theory, Hittite stratigraphic anomalies, microclimatic economics. "What do you see?" invisible followers ask in...	[ "S3", "S4", "S6", "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S9-6", "S10-6" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Activities/Study & Knowledge" ]
ee30143d4dd60bde	Perhaps the World Ends Here	Joy Harjo	The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children a...	[ "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S8-5" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Relationships/Home Life" ]
6ce282f8d995d359	BLK History Month	Nikki Giovanni	If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain: You’re As Good As Anybody Else You’ve Got A Place Here, Too	[ "S3" ]	[ "S3-8" ]	[ "Social Commentaries" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity" ]
a5cd9865cf2bc96d	Eating Together	Kim Addonizio	I know my friend is going, though she still sits there across from me in the restaurant, and leans over the table to dip her bread in the oil on my plate; I know how thick her hair used to be, and what it takes for her to discard her man’s cap partway through our meal, to look straight at the young waiter and ...	[ "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S8-4", "S9-1" ]	[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
30991d85335b090a	Amoretti LXX: Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king	Edmund Spenser	Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king, In whose cote armour richly are displayed All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayd: Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd, Yet in her winters bowre not well awake: Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid Unless she doe hi...	[ "S1" ]	[ "S1-1", "S1-7" ]	[ "Love" ]	[ "Love/Desire & Erotic Love", "Love/Romantic Love" ]
1d4e437f631845b5	I Am a Parcel of Vain Strivings Tied	Henry David Thoreau	I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather. A bunch of violets without their roots, And sorrel intermixed, Encircled by a wisp of straw ...	[ "S2" ]	[ "S2-8" ]	[ "Nature" ]	[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi" ]
d5087383729afa4d	Sex and Taxes	Kevin Cantwell	Plum black & the blush white of an apple shoulder, melon & cream, in tones to list the flesh; in light, washed colors off at last & textures sheer with damp I slowly pull from you with your quick help. Weekend's ample procrastinations to forget the least of what we want to do. April, half a blast of cold, half n...	[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S1-1", "S2-1" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Love/Desire & Erotic Love", "Nature/Spring" ]
50f888ba42fa0ead	Mobile-Buck	James Edwin Campbell	O, come erlong, come erlong, Wut’s de use er hol’in back; O, hit it strong, er hit it strong, Mek de ol’ flo’ ben’ an’ crack. O, hoop tee doo, uh, hoop tee doo! Dat’s de way ter knock it froo. Right erlong, right erlong, Slide de lef’ foot right erlong. Hoop tee doo, O,...	[ "S10" ]	[ "S10-10" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance" ]
021115545f39fe15	A Message from the Wanderer	William E. Stafford	Today outside your prison I stand and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen; you have relatives outside. And there are thousands of ways to escape. Years ago I bent my skill to keep my cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies, and shouted my plans to jailers; but always new plans occured to me, or th...	[ "S2", "S3" ]	[ "S2-9", "S3-6" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]	[ "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space", "Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice" ]
e31476eaa42b3bc6	Sarah Byng, Who Could Not Read and Was Tossed into a Thorny Hedge by a Bull	Hilaire Belloc	Some years ago you heard me sing My doubts on Alexander Byng. His sister Sarah now inspires My jaded Muse, my failing fires. Of Sarah Byng the tale is told How when the child was twelve years old She could not read or write a line. Her sister Jane, though barely nine, Could spout the Catechism through And parts...	[ "S6" ]	[ "S6-3" ]	[ "Living" ]	[ "Living/Coming of Age" ]
815c33beeebf0e5f	The Late Worm	Kay Ryan	The worms which had been thick are thin upon the ground now that it's gotten later. They stick against the path, their pink chapped and their inching labored. It's a matter of moisture isn't it? Time, a measure of wet, shrinking, the drier you get.	[ "S6", "S7" ]	[ "S6-1" ]	[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[ "Living/Aging" ]
e969ca298d51832d	"Loving you less than life, a little less"	Edna St. Vincent Millay	Loving you less than life, a little less Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess I cannot swear I love you not at all. For there is that about you in this light— A yellow darkness, sinister of rain— Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight To dwell on you, and dwell on you a...	[ "S1" ]	[ "S1-3", "S1-6" ]	[ "Love" ]	[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Love/Realistic & Complicated" ]
11048ad7d0a17a54	To the Rose upon the Rood of Time	William Butler Yeats	Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, S...	[ "S6", "S7" ]	[]	[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[]
af823c935ef6aefc	This Room	John Ashbery	The room I entered was a dream of this room. Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine. The oval portrait of a dog was me at an early age. Something shimmers, something is hushed up. We had macaroni for lunch every day except Sunday, when a small quail was induced to be served to us. Why do I tell you these th...	[ "S1", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S9-1" ]	[ "Love", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
95a7647732139b4a	The Jumblies	Edward Lear	I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’ They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big, But w...	[ "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S8-4", "S9-7" ]	[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
b8c63cc6643b6656	After-Glow	Ivor Gurney	(To F. W. Harvey) Out of the smoke and dust of the little room With tea-talk loud and laughter of happy boys, I passed into the dusk. Suddenly the noise Ceased with a shock, left me alone in the gloom, To wonder at the miracle hanging high Tangled in twigs, the silver crescent clear. Time passed from mind. Time d...	[ "S3", "S6", "S7", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S3-11", "S8-4", "S9-5" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]
19862faf1e67d896	Lullaby	Maggie Dietz	After Lyle Lovett If I had a ginko tree I'd climb it in the evening. If I had a marmoset He'd climb the tree with me. If we saw a falling star I'd wish I had a rocket. If I had a rocket I'd drag the star back home. If I went to space I'd pick up a satellite. If I had my own moon I wouldn't be so sad. If I ...	[ "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S6-5", "S8-3" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]
e2d7067d68215b4d	Our Side of the Creek	Yusef Komunyakaa	We piled planks, sheets of tin, & sandbags across the creek till the bright water rose & splayed both sides, swelling into our hoorah. Our hard work brought July thrashers & fat June bugs in decades of dead leaves. Water moccasins hid in holes at the brim of the clay bank as the creek eased up pelvic bones, ...	[ "S2", "S3", "S6" ]	[ "S2-2", "S2-5", "S2-6", "S3-8", "S6-8" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Living" ]	[ "Nature/Summer", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Living/Youth" ]
0d1377afecbfa04b	Written in her French Psalter	Queen Elizabeth I	No crooked leg, no bleared eye, No part deformed out of kind, Nor yet so ugly half can be As is the inward suspicious mind.	[ "S2", "S6", "S10" ]	[ "S10-5" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy" ]
56541e48bc4455fd	"When you, that at this moment are to me"	Edna St. Vincent Millay	When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more—what now you seem to be— The sun, from which all excellences start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered o...	[ "S1", "S2", "S6" ]	[ "S1-3", "S2-8", "S6-5" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Living" ]	[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Living/Mourning" ]
1d94692a30d0138b	To Arielle and the Moon	David Trinidad	The night reduced to a siren, a sigh: Beautiful boy on the treadmill Glimpsed sweating through sweating glass— My new moon. Sylvia’s moon: a smiling skull Snagged in witchy branches; fossil Brushed free of blackest earth. My last moon: an orange ball at rest, for an instant, On the grey lake. Wish list: dining...	[ "S1", "S2", "S8" ]	[ "S2-9" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Relationships" ]	[ "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]
3f5bb420b47b26b9	Some Sort of Truth	Dorothea Lasky	When my dad first started to die All my mom could remember Was the time he kicked her out After they first started dating So that he could go play golf It is the sort of thing we all remember When we feel death upon us I remember he died twice And once in my dream I just had to see him all nursed and swaddled ...	[ "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S6-3", "S6-4", "S6-5", "S8-3", "S8-4" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Living/Coming of Age", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors", "Relationships/Friendship" ]
648c04d83900e4cf	The Mower’s Song	Andrew Marvell	My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay, And in the greenness of the grass Did see its hopes as in a glass; When Juliana came, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. But these, while I with sorrow pine, Grew more luxuriant still and fi...	[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S1-4", "S1-7", "S1-8", "S2-7", "S6-5", "S9-4" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Love/Romantic Love", "Love/Classic Love", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Living/Mourning", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]
28d5494fea350b3e	Waterwings	Cathy Song	The mornings are his, blue and white like the tablecloth at breakfast. He’s happy in the house, a sweep of the spoon brings the birds under his chair. He sings and the dishes disappear. Or holding a crayon like a candle, he draws a circle. It is his hundredth dragonfly. Calling for more paper, this one is re...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S6-7", "S8-5", "S9-1", "S9-5" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Living/Parenthood", "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]
6f9aeff844deead9	Incident	Amiri Baraka	He came back and shot. He shot him. When he came back, he shot, and he fell, stumbling, past the shadow wood, down, shot, dying, dead, to full halt. At the bottom, bleeding, shot dead. He died then, there after the fall, the speeding bullet, tore his face and blood sprayed fine over the killer and the grey light. ...	[ "S3" ]	[ "S3-6" ]	[ "Social Commentaries" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice" ]
e312295f1eed9527	Channel Firing	Thomas Hardy	That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment-day And sat upright. While drearisome Arose the howl of wakened hounds: The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, The worms drew back into the mounds, The glebe cow drooled. Till...	[ "S3", "S4", "S5", "S6", "S10" ]	[ "S3-11", "S5-2", "S5-3", "S6-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion", "Living", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Religion/Christianity", "Religion/Faith & Doubt", "Living/Death & Dying" ]
7b050b9a0b359ecc	Things We Dreamt We Died For	Marvin Bell	Flags of all sorts. The literary life. Each time we dreamt we’d done the gentlemanly thing, covering our causes in closets full of bones to remove ourselves forever from dearest possibilities, the old weapons re-injured us, the old armies conscripted us, and we gave in to getting even, a little less like us ...	[ "S3", "S6", "S9", "S10", "S11" ]	[ "S6-4", "S9-6", "S10-8", "S11-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books", "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Living/Death & Dying", "Activities/Study & Knowledge" ]
c4392e021e426641	Now	Hilda Raz	Some problems of self-loathing, worry: the thumbnail blotched in a bank box door grows out, three-quarter moon marrow spot filled out with white bruise travels down my thumb at regular speed, so when I glance down it's what I see left of center, not the odd breast, the malformed scruff at head, the old thought l...	[ "S6" ]	[ "S6-1", "S6-6" ]	[ "Living" ]	[ "Living/Aging", "Living/Health & Illness" ]
5a3869e343bb9681	Dunt: a poem for a dried up river	Alice Oswald	Very small and damaged and quite dry, a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone very eroded faded her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone exhausted utterly worn down a Roman water nymph...	[ "S2", "S11" ]	[ "S2-5", "S2-6", "S11-3" ]	[ "Nature", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]
beb42311cc576a7d	The Great Palaces of Versailles	Rita Dove	Nothing nastier than a white person! She mutters as she irons alterations in the backroom of Charlotte’s Dress Shoppe. The steam rising from a cranberry wool comes alive with perspiration and stale Evening of Paris.Swamp she born from, swamp she swallow, swamp she got to sink again.	[ "S3", "S4", "S9" ]	[ "S9-3", "S9-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Indoor Activities", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]
ac5663d1b7c90f8f	Women in Labor	Mary Ruefle	Women who lie alone at midnightbecause there is no one else to lie toWomen who lie alone at midnightat noon in the laundromatdestroying their own socksWomen who lie alone at midnight:Hans Brinker, or The Silver SkatesWomen who lie alone at midnightas the first furl of starlightpearls the moon with nacreWomen who lie al...	[ "S3", "S6" ]	[ "S3-4", "S6-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Death & Dying" ]
8a1d33676bbd2dde	Stuff I probably did and didn't	Stephanie Gray	After Tim Dlugos' Things I Might Do I probably didn't tell you that the last Line of your poem left me on a plane of Movement somewhere between the best of pop Culture and the longest break in your favorite pop song I probably didn't tell you that the train is going to take Way longer than you think and you were ...	[ "S3", "S6", "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S3-1", "S9-7", "S10-6" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
59f4a49ce292f5a0	Cautionary Tales	Mark Vinz	Beyond the field of grazing, gazing cows the great bull has a pasture to himself, monumental, black flanks barely twitching from the swarming flies. Only a few strands of wire separate us—how could I forget my childhood terror, the grownups warning that the old bull near my uncle’s farm would love to chase me, stomp me...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10", "S11" ]	[ "S2-7", "S6-1", "S8-8", "S10-5" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Living/Aging", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]
6f0db923f1eb80ae	To Tell of Bodies Changed	Jana Prikryl	Having desired little more than the arrival of the little more that arrives, outside our window a cypress of model proportions. Its patience seems to widen the nights we sleep in Rome. Warm flags draw a tortoise, it scrapes too near. Our friends hurry over when they hear, exclaiming over its mute resolute ...	[ "S6" ]	[]	[ "Living" ]	[]
d9ad853d3595d8e7	Easter Week	Joyce Kilmer	(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett) ("Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.")	[ "S2", "S3", "S11" ]	[ "S2-7", "S11-4" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals" ]
3da580bd1cd84abf	Arrival at Santos	Elizabeth Bishop	Here is a coast; here is a harbor; here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery; impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains, sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery, with a little church on top of one. And warehouses, some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue, and some tall, unce...	[ "S9" ]	[ "S9-7" ]	[ "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
92e1b9e75339f1ff	Becune Point	Derek Walcott	Stunned heat of noon. In shade, tan, silken cows hide in the thorned acacias. A butterfly staggers. Stamping their hooves from thirst, small horses drowse or whinny for water. On parched, ochre headlands, daggers of agave bristle in primordial defense, like a cornered monster backed up against the sea. A mongoose...	[ "S2", "S5", "S8" ]	[ "S2-7", "S5-2", "S8-8" ]	[ "Nature", "Religion", "Relationships" ]	[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Religion/Christianity", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]
b02797eb1a2992e8	The Garden of Proserpine	Algernon Charles Swinburne	Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams; I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing, For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams. I am tired of tears and laughter, And men...	[ "S2", "S6" ]	[ "S2-7" ]	[ "Nature", "Living" ]	[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals" ]
c9c9e3fd0944a7a3	Small Kingdom	Samuel Menashe	In their doorways women sit sewing By the good light of afternoon And nothing is beyond knowing Though the sun shall go down soon A shepherdess near a bramble ditch And the Princess in the Alcazar Keep the same precise stitch And they both can see far And when the knell tolls All are wondering who— If it is a...	[ "S3", "S4" ]	[ "S3-2" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Class & Labor" ]
3446e6f978fae12c	Death Is a Hysterical Dynasty	Steve Kistulentz	Tonight we shall read from my personal book of lamentations, sit shiva in a room lit with those overly perfumed candles as thick as the aluminum bat I used just last week to flip away the possum carcass I'd found collapsed against the house. Forensics tells us the backyard is Panama before quinine, an ecosystem un...	[ "S2", "S5", "S6" ]	[ "S2-5", "S5-8", "S6-4" ]	[ "Nature", "Religion", "Living" ]	[ "Nature/Animals", "Religion/The Spiritual", "Living/Death & Dying" ]
3d32731ec7944c54	Slowly: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman	Judy Grahn	am I not olden olden olden it is unwanted. wanting, wanting am I not broken stolen common am I not crinkled cranky poison am I not glinty-eyed and frozen am I not aged shaky glazing am I not hazy guarded craven am I not only stingy little am I not simple brittle spitting ...	[ "S3", "S6", "S7", "S8" ]	[ "S3-4", "S6-1", "S8-3", "S8-6" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity", "Relationships" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Aging", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors", "Relationships/LGBTQ+" ]
7c291da6f410b483	Hotel	Lorna Dee Cervantes	for John I couldn’t see in this light even if I wished. The black grillwork over black, cool upon coal, kisses me back in an icy press. Not wanting—anything—but to fall as the empty trash cans mingle below with the smell of feral cats. Flailing moon the color of suds over this factory of artifice, moored in t...	[ "S1", "S3", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S1-6", "S3-4", "S6-5", "S8-1" ]	[ "Love", "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Love/Realistic & Complicated", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]
0cefbbfe3160d3a8	Carnot Cycle	Samiya Bashir	Only sometimes does homegrown bedrock glow moneygreen. Sometimes rock whines mommy. Sometimes rock coos baby. Sometimes rock calls late with the mortgage. Sometimes rock knits shoulder blades right where you can’t pluck.Early mornings something doesn’t sit right over the sink. Sits crooked. Slumps askew...	[ "S6", "S9" ]	[ "S9-4" ]	[ "Living", "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]
14bd945a2cafa180	There was an Old Man of Thermopylæ	Edward Lear	There was an old man of Thermopylæ,Who never did anything properly;But they said, "If you choose, To boil eggs in your shoes,You shall never remain in Thermopylæ."	[ "S6", "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S6-1", "S9-1" ]	[ "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Living/Aging", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
0ba12c383e06d063	Several Errands	Brenda Hillman	The shoe repairman works behind the married shoes, his whole hand inside the boot he’s shining, everything cozy in the glass displays, laces paired on gravel he’s spread out in the window, shoes placed as though they’re walking, and beside them propped up, the wooden tongues of shoe horns, poised to serve the ina...	[ "S3", "S5", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S3-1", "S5-3", "S8-1", "S9-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Religion", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life", "Religion/Faith & Doubt", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]
ea65cffc5e492751	Swells	A. R. Ammons	The very longest swell in the ocean, I suspect, carries the deepest memory, the information of actions summarized (surface peaks and dibbles and local sharp slopes of windstorms) with a summary of the summaries and under other summaries a deeper summary: well, maybe deeper, longer for length here is the same as de...	[ "S2", "S6", "S7" ]	[ "S2-6" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[ "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]
589df310d0741595	The Table and the Chair	Edward Lear	ISaid the Table to the Chair,'You can hardly be aware,'How I suffer from the heat,'And from chilblains on my feet!'If we took a little walk,'We might have a little talk!'Pray let us take the air!'Said the Table to the Chair.IISaid the Chair unto the Table,'Now you know we are not able!'How foolishly you talk,'When you ...	[ "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S8-4", "S9-7" ]	[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
c09a812af63f7623	On an Acura Integra	Paul Violi	Please think of this as not merely a piece Of writing that anyone would fully Appreciate, but as plain and simple Words that attempt to arouse whatever Appetencies you, especially, depend Upon language to fulfill; that drench you In several levels of meaning at once, Rendering my presence superfluous. In other ...	[ "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S9-7", "S10-6" ]	[ "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
ac021e76a8188f0a	Faith, Dogma, and Heresy	Frank Stanford	It was Sunday, before dinner. My uncles were listening to the opera. O.Z. and I carried my brother in And laid him on the table. The women started screaming. My brother raised up on his side With dried blood on his hands, We killed those goddamn Canale brothers And nobody is ever going to touch us! The men shu...	[ "S3", "S8" ]	[ "S3-11", "S8-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Relationships" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Relationships/Friendship" ]
e8d4c64ccf6a2f9c	Thoreau	William Logan	That oily bale of rags, lostto the silent architectures of the wood—or so it seemed, as the fall’s chancelsdarkened, and rough earth gave and forgave.Forgave, I mean, the intrusion.	[ "S2" ]	[]	[ "Nature" ]	[]
c8745f364f621bc7	My name came from . . .	Emmett Tenorio Melendez	My name came from my great-great-great-grandfather. He was an Indian from the Choctaw tribe. His name was Dark Ant. When he went to get a job out in a city he changed it to Emmett. And his whole name was Emmett Perez Tenorio. And my name means: Ant; Strong; Carry twice its size.	[ "S8" ]	[ "S8-3" ]	[ "Relationships" ]	[ "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]
bd6751e21ac105a6	The Little White Hearse	Ella Wheeler Wilcox	Somebody’s baby was buried to-day— The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back, And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way, And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden track. Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest, White as a snowdr...	[ "S6" ]	[ "S6-2", "S6-4", "S6-5" ]	[ "Living" ]	[ "Living/Birth & Infancy", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning" ]
7d358c619513fc1f	Encounter	Czeslaw Milosz	We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his hand. That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive, Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture. O my love, where are they, where are they goi...	[ "S2", "S6", "S7" ]	[ "S6-4" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]	[ "Living/Death & Dying" ]
06650848094ed061	A Pastoral	Allen Grossman	At that time the sheep called to him From their wormy bellies, as they Lay bloating in the field. He was A pastoralist, The schoolhouse hardly handsize In a sky of flax. He began Then to keep the sayings of man (The left hand writing; the right hand Crossing out) farming the time b...	[ "S2", "S5", "S10" ]	[ "S2-7", "S5-8", "S10-6" ]	[ "Nature", "Religion", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Religion/The Spiritual" ]
fe61a4c4c3f11520	Flowers from a New Love after the Divorce	Paisley Rekdal	Cut back the stems an inch to keep in bloom. So instructs the florist’s note enclosed inside the flowers. Who knew what was cut could heal again, the green wounds close, stitching themselves together? It doesn’t matter. The flowers, red and white, will bloom awhile, then wither. You sit in an unlit room and wat...	[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8", "S11" ]	[ "S1-3", "S1-7", "S2-8", "S8-1", "S11-3" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Love/Romantic Love", "Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]
73c7980cde1b869b	Eyes Like Leeks	Linda Gregerson	It had almost nothing to do with sex. The boy in his corset and farthingale, his head- voice and his smooth-for-the-duration chin was not and never had been simply in our pay. Or was it some lost logic the regional accent ...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]	[ "S10-10" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance" ]
b324e500a9bf210b	Song (“The world is full of loss ... ”)	Muriel Rukeyser	The world is full of loss; bring, wind, my love, my home is where we make our meeting-place, and love whatever I shall touch and read within that face. Lift, wind, my exile from my eyes; peace to look, life to listen and confess, freedom to find to find to find ...	[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S1-7", "S8-7" ]	[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Love/Romantic Love", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]
24954883fd59851a	A Deserter	Charles Reznikoff	Their new landlord was a handsome man. On his rounds to collect rent she became friendly. Finally, she asked him in to have a cup of tea. After that he came often. Once his mouth jerked, and turning, she saw her husband in the doorway. She thought, One of the neighbors must have told him. She smiled ...	[ "S3", "S8" ]	[ "S3-4" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "Relationships" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality" ]
2cb93877c11a7690	What the Goose-Girl Said About the Dean	Edith Sitwell	Turn again, turn again,Goose Clothilda, Goosie Jane.Bright wooden waves of people creakFrom houses built with coloured strawsOf heat; Dean Pasppus’ long nose snoresHarsh as a hautbois, marshy-weak.The wooden waves of people creakThrough the fields all water-sleek.And in among the straws of lightThose bumpkin hautbois-s...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S2-5", "S8-8" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Nature/Animals", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]
fdf6bb8cf5515c22	On Receiving News of the War	Isaac Rosenberg	Snow is a strange white word; No ice or frost Have asked of bud or bird For Winter's cost. Yet ice and frost and snow From earth to sky This Summer land doth know, No man knows why. In all men's hearts it is. Some spirit old Hath turned with malign kiss Our lives to mould. Red fangs have torn His face. God...	[ "S2", "S3", "S4", "S5" ]	[ "S3-11", "S5-4" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Religion/God & the Divine" ]
385a6f92558fb6cd	Song of the Shore to the Sea	Robert Fanning	It's never enough being one. Why do I hopeto contain you: always undoing and undone;every place you touch me changes shape.It's not my way to just lie down;to sink, effaced and full. If you swallow me, you're drained, and halfof us is gone. Desire's fulfillment is two,not one, or our tidal meetings are through.So hurl ...	[ "S2" ]	[ "S2-6", "S2-9" ]	[ "Nature" ]	[ "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]
be5f7951b182d5db	The Lane	Edward Thomas	Some day, I think, there will be people enoughIn Froxfield to pick all the blackberries	[ "S2", "S9" ]	[ "S2-8", "S9-1", "S9-5" ]	[ "Nature", "Activities" ]	[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Activities/Eating & Drinking", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]
1a4439336e6bc906	Hungerpots	Hester Knibbe	Did an argument break out in the kitchen that morning?Was there smashing of pots and pans: youwant to eat somewhere else? Go on,get out! Or were they set outside, shrewd,	[ "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S8-5", "S9-1" ]	[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
bc7abcda2e5abc93	It’s Important I Remember That They Don’t Have the Tools to Critique Me—	Cortney Lamar Charleston	what she told me. What I honor. They, as unambiguous as Lyrae is: black, bard, badass; svelte with flourishing braids; a singularity and somehow all of them gathered as one like tributaries to the mouth of the river of God—Gwendolyn and Lucille and June and—and I can’t count all the ways I was saved that day, emerg...	[ "S3", "S4", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]	[ "S3-7", "S3-8", "S3-11", "S8-4", "S10-2", "S10-3", "S10-6" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics", "Arts & Sciences/Music", "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Social Commentaries/Popular Culture", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Relationships/Friendship" ]
ab2b76c81246ca4d	Romanticism	David Baker	It is to Emerson I have turned now, damp February, for he has written of the moral harmony of nature. The key to every man is his thought. But Emerson, half angel, suffers his dear Ellen’s dying only half-consoled that her lungs shall no more be torn nor her head scalded by her blood, nor her whole life suffer ...	[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10", "S11" ]	[ "S6-4", "S6-5", "S8-7", "S10-5", "S10-8" ]	[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]
002ca5d42bfeae60	LAMENTA: 423	Myung Mi Kim	“peacekeeping troops” “tanks beneath the windows” The inside of someone else’s dwelling visible — a table and some chairs. You start to count one, two, three, four . . . until the explosion is near your neighborhood. You can guess the position of mortar by this counting and try to find a safe place. If the windows...	[ "S3", "S4", "S6" ]	[ "S3-11", "S6-4", "S6-5" ]	[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living" ]	[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning" ]
1ed96a4b777743df	Gruel	Marilyn Chin	Your name is Diana Toy. And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel. You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial. You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none. You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found, and then you would be served cold, stale rice gruel. This is the...	[ "S6", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S6-8", "S8-5", "S9-1" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Living/Youth", "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]
3a9378a4a83dce26	We Have Trees Now	Prageeta Sharma	more so than we did before, but now we know what to do with them. We hang our troubles on them and wipe our shoes against them. We go lethargic on the porch, we tear the bark with spindly fingers. We soak up the sun with restless hunger.So much sky we say in unison, where does it go, do we follow it? Do we let it ge...	[ "S2", "S3" ]	[ "S2-8", "S3-9" ]	[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]	[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life" ]
3e51cb4b0b0b3285	How Much?	Carl Sandburg	How much do you love me, a million bushels?Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.And tomorrow maybe only half a bushel?Tomorrow maybe not even a half a bushel.And is this your heart arithmetic?This is the way the wind measures the weather.	[ "S1", "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S1-6", "S8-7" ]	[ "Love", "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Love/Realistic & Complicated", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]
df17b7b84eceff43	Black Map	Bei Dao	in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map I've come home—the way back longer than the wrong road long as a life bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market my father's life-spark small as a pea I ...	[ "S9" ]	[ "S9-7" ]	[ "Activities" ]	[ "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]
32a14f50d5e06a04	Doors	Carl Sandburg	An open door says, “Come in.”A shut door says, “Who are you?”Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it?If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it?Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.	[ "S6", "S11" ]	[ "S11-2" ]	[ "Living", "Mythology & Folklore" ]	[ "Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural" ]
ecaf77e36f816b5c	Milton	Henry Wadsworth Longfellow	I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and f...	[ "S2", "S10" ]	[ "S2-6", "S10-6" ]	[ "Nature", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]
e0f378f7506aaf55	Ode to the Gain	Matthew Nienow	gain — a bevel cut into plank ends in traditional lapstrake boat construction that allows otherwise lapped planks to lay flush at stem and transom. There’s the paring chisel’s purpose in the steamed cedar strake, its long warp laid strong against the bench,whose pocked surface is the book of what has already been made...	[ "S9", "S10" ]	[ "S9-3", "S10-1", "S10-4" ]	[ "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]	[ "Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design", "Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture", "Activities/Indoor Activities" ]
3bf04dfe4cb25136	Maybe It’s Only the Monotony	Gail Mazur	of these long scorching days but today my daughter is truly exasperating—Stop it! I shout—or I’ll— and I twist her little pinked arm slowly, calibrating my ferocity—You can’t hurt me you can’t hurt me! She’s so defiant, glowering, glaring at me— but frightened, her eyes bright with tears—See, I’m not even cryi...	[ "S6", "S8" ]	[ "S6-7", "S8-5" ]	[ "Living", "Relationships" ]	[ "Living/Parenthood", "Relationships/Home Life" ]
580772ee49faddb9	Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman	Edmund Spenser	Like as a huntsman after weary chase, Seeing the game from him escap'd away, Sits down to rest him in some shady place, With panting hounds beguiled of their prey: So after long pursuit and vain assay, When I all weary had the chase forsook, The gentle deer return'd the self-same way, Thinking to quench her thirst at t...	[ "S1", "S3", "S8", "S9" ]	[ "S1-4", "S3-4", "S9-5" ]	[ "Love", "Social Commentaries", "Relationships", "Activities" ]	[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]

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Insect

Annie Finch

That hour-glass-backed, orchard-legged, heavy-headed will, paper-folded, wedge-contorted, savage—dense to kill— pulls back on backward-moving, arching high legs still, lowered through a deep, knees-reaching, feathered down green will, antenna-honest, thread-descending, carpeted as if with skill, a focus-...

[ "S2", "S6" ]

[ "S2-5", "S6-4" ]

[ "Nature", "Living" ]

[ "Nature/Animals", "Living/Death & Dying" ]

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Special Orders

Edward Hirsch

Give me back my father walking the halls of Wertheimer Box and Paper Company with sawdust clinging to his shoes. Give me back his tape measure and his keys, his drafting pencil and his order forms; give me his daydreams on lined paper. I don't understand this uncontainable grief. ...

[ "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S6-5", "S8-3" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]

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The Descent

Fanny Howe

The descent has deepened the interior lengthened designated ending Blind pulled down inside and then shot up again to see east via the plateglass a moon a monsoon an ashram I used time almost wantonly in that bald but sensual sky to give me gusts and more measurement not to snap the stars shut but Joseph s...

[ "S6", "S7" ]

[ "S6-1" ]

[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[ "Living/Aging" ]

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The Lost Mistress

Robert Browning

All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter As one at first believes? Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter About your cottage eaves! And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, I noticed that, today; One day more bursts them open fully – You know the red turns grey. Tomorrow we meet the same then, deares...

[ "S1", "S8" ]

[ "S8-1" ]

[ "Love", "Relationships" ]

[ "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]

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To Autumn

John Keats

Highlight Actions Enable or disable annotations Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; ConspiringConspiring Working together; literally, to conspire is “to breathe together” (OED) with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-evesthatch-eves ...

[ "S2", "S9" ]

[ "S2-3", "S2-5", "S2-7", "S2-8", "S9-1" ]

[ "Nature", "Activities" ]

[ "Nature/Fall", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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Toy Boat

Ocean Vuong

For Tamir Rice yellow plastic black sea eye-shaped shard on a darkened map no shores now to arrive — or depart no wind but this waiting which moves you as if the seconds could be entered & never left toy boat — oarless each wave a green lamp outlasted toy boat toy leaf dropped from a toy tree wai...

[ "S3", "S6", "S7" ]

[ "S3-8", "S6-3", "S6-4", "S6-8" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Living/Coming of Age", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Youth" ]

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Against the Evidence

David Ignatow

As I reach to close each book lying open on my desk, it leaps up to snap at my fingers. My legs won’t hold me, I must sit down. My fingers pain me where the thick leaves snapped together at my touch. All my life I’ve held books in my hands like children, carefully turning their pages an...

[ "S10" ]

[ "S10-8" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books" ]

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from Epitaphs

Abraham Sutzkever

Written on a slat of a railway car: If some time someone should find pearls threaded on a blood-red string of silk which, near the throat, runs all the thinner like life’s own path until it’s gone somewhere in a fog and can’t be seen— If someone should find these pearls let him know how—cool, aloof—they lit up ...

[ "S3", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]

[ "S3-4", "S6-1", "S10-5" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Aging" ]

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Sometime During Eternity . . .

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Sometime during eternity some guys show up and one of them who shows up real late is a kind of carpenter from some square-type place ...

[ "S3", "S4", "S5" ]

[]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion" ]

[]

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Afrofuturism (Blanche says, “Meh”)

Douglas Kearney

After Lauren Halsey and Mike Demps

[ "S2", "S3", "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S2-9", "S3-8", "S9-7", "S10-3" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Music", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Mosaic

Linda Pastan

1. THE SACRIFICE On this tile the knife like a sickle-moon hangs in the painted air as if it had learned a dance of its own, the way the boy has among the vivid breakable flowers, the way Abraham has among the boulders, his two feet heavy as stones. 2. NEAR SINAI God's hand here is the size of a tiny cl...

[ "S5", "S9" ]

[ "S5-6", "S9-7" ]

[ "Religion", "Activities" ]

[ "Religion/Judaism", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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The Last Troubadour

David St. John

Standing at the glass-paneled wall of Liza’s kitchen at the old house half-hidden Over a mile up Canyon Road in Joshua’s gated compound I’m just smoking a joint & looking down at the dusk dusting the Malibu lights as they flare Along the coastline below & I can hear the ripped-up Buick fenders &...

[ "S10" ]

[ "S10-4" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture" ]

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April Snow

Matthew Zapruder

Today in El Paso all the planes are asleep on the runway. The world is in a delay. All the political consultants drinking whiskey keep their heads down, lifting them only to look at the beautiful scarred waitress who wears typewriter keys as a necklace. They jingle when she brings them drinks. Outside the giant pla...

[ "S2", "S3", "S6", "S9" ]

[ "S2-1", "S2-7", "S2-10", "S9-7" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities" ]

[ "Nature/Spring", "Nature/Weather", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Limbo: Altered States

Mary Karr

No sooner does the plane angle up than I cork off to dream a bomb blast: A fireball roiling through the cabin in slo-mo, seat blown loose from its bolts, I hang weightless a nanosecond in blue space then jerk awake to ordered rows. And there’s the silver liquor cart jangling its thousand bells, the per...

[ "S6", "S9" ]

[ "S6-6", "S9-7" ]

[ "Living", "Activities" ]

[ "Living/Health & Illness", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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john

Lucille Clifton

somebody coming in blackness like a star and the world be a great bush on his head and his eyes be fire in the city and his mouth be true as time he be calling the people brother even in the prison even in the jail i’m just only a baptist preacher somebody bigger than me coming in blackness like a star

[ "S3", "S5" ]

[ "S3-8", "S5-2" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Religion" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Religion/Christianity" ]

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Claustrophilia

Alice Fulton

It's just me throwing myself at you, romance as usual, us times us, not lust but moxibustion, a substance burning close to the body as possible withut risk of immolation. Nearness without contact causes numbness. Analgesia. Pins and needles. As the snugness of the surgeon's glove causes hand fatigue. At least...

[ "S1" ]

[ "S1-4", "S1-6" ]

[ "Love" ]

[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Love/Realistic & Complicated" ]

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In the Bay

Algernon Charles Swinburne

I Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west, Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest, Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar To fold the fleet in of the winds from far That stir no plume now of the bland sea's breast: II Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay Southwest...

[ "S2", "S10" ]

[ "S2-6", "S2-9", "S10-6" ]

[ "Nature", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]

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The Psychotropic Squalls

Will Alexander

To peer into the obverse into smoking cane field erratums as if haunted with the steamy colitis of whirling iridium cancellations as in the saliva of newts one sees the intestinal raging of deltas of blackened sea giraffes osmotically split into simultaneous alums above a judgemental sea glistening with Richters...

[ "S10" ]

[ "S10-2" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics" ]

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Tarragon, Are You a Wild Boar?

Vi Khi Nao

Tarrargon, are you a wild boar? My friend, lemon zest, has not been that Thyme, Cognac, falooda glass noodle These things prowl the night without cape Gooseberries or bacalao Tarragon, are you a wild boar? Each time I eat you, I stop breathing Little owl, where is your happiness? Wake up + make people believe ...

[ "S2", "S3", "S9" ]

[ "S2-5", "S3-4", "S9-1" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Activities" ]

[ "Nature/Animals", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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Sonnets from the Portuguese 43: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of being and ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day’s Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for right; I love thee purely...

[ "S1", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S1-7", "S1-8", "S8-7" ]

[ "Love", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Love/Romantic Love", "Love/Classic Love", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]

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Samba in the Sky

Tiffany Higgins

The poor have the best views,Views sloping down to sea.A green and yellow planet,A blue band, rung with stars.The poor have the best views.You have to walk to get there.Up three flights, narrow paths,Houses rising steeply side to side.No, no space for a car.When the flag lifts, you see the coast:Yellow curve of sand,Fr...

[ "S2", "S3" ]

[ "S2-7", "S3-2" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]

[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Social Commentaries/Class & Labor" ]

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Sonnet 97: How like a winter hath my absence been

William Shakespeare

How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year! What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen! What old December's bareness everywhere! And yet this time remov'd was summer's time, The teeming autumn, big with rich increase, Bearing the wanton burthen of the prime, Like wid...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S2-2", "S2-3", "S2-4", "S8-1" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Nature/Summer", "Nature/Fall", "Nature/Winter", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]

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Catch

Samiya Bashir

if this is a game then we have made it, unknowing, to the final four. unlikely underdogs. spectators turned to suspect sport. anti-athletes. out of shape beyond reason. at season’s height we fight for a limited audience. few dancers. fewer cheers. down by 30 and our coach m.i.a. we, foolish, dribble. each bounce-b...

[ "S9" ]

[ "S9-5" ]

[ "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]

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In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth

Anne Bradstreet

Proem. Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie, Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime, And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time. So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence, The sound thereof raps every human sense That men account it no impiety To say thou we...

[ "S3", "S4", "S11" ]

[ "S3-4", "S11-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality" ]

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Planting a Dogwood

Roy Scheele

Tree, we take leave of you; you’re on your own. Put down your taproot with its probing hairs that sluice the darkness and create unseen the tree that mirrors you below the ground. For when we plant a tree, two trees take root: the one that lifts its leaves into the air, and the inverted one that cleaves the soil to fin...

[ "S2" ]

[ "S2-8" ]

[ "Nature" ]

[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi" ]

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The So-called Singer of Nab

Sarah Lindsay

They have left behind the established cave with its well-worn floor. Scholarship impels them in hundreds, but generally one by one, to find an unknown passage or scrape out their own. Proto-Semitic linguistic theory, Hittite stratigraphic anomalies, microclimatic economics. "What do you see?" invisible followers ask in...

[ "S3", "S4", "S6", "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S9-6", "S10-6" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Activities/Study & Knowledge" ]

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Perhaps the World Ends Here

Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children a...

[ "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S8-5" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Relationships/Home Life" ]

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BLK History Month

Nikki Giovanni

If Black History Month is not viable then wind does not carry the seeds and drop them on fertile ground rain does not dampen the land and encourage the seeds to root sun does not warm the earth and kiss the seedlings and tell them plain: You’re As Good As Anybody Else You’ve Got A Place Here, Too

[ "S3" ]

[ "S3-8" ]

[ "Social Commentaries" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity" ]

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Eating Together

Kim Addonizio

I know my friend is going, though she still sits there across from me in the restaurant, and leans over the table to dip her bread in the oil on my plate; I know how thick her hair used to be, and what it takes for her to discard her man’s cap partway through our meal, to look straight at the young waiter and ...

[ "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S8-4", "S9-1" ]

[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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Amoretti LXX: Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king

Edmund Spenser

Fresh spring the herald of loves mighty king, In whose cote armour richly are displayed All sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring In goodly colours gloriously arrayd: Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd, Yet in her winters bowre not well awake: Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid Unless she doe hi...

[ "S1" ]

[ "S1-1", "S1-7" ]

[ "Love" ]

[ "Love/Desire & Erotic Love", "Love/Romantic Love" ]

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I Am a Parcel of Vain Strivings Tied

Henry David Thoreau

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied By a chance bond together, Dangling this way and that, their links Were made so loose and wide, Methinks, For milder weather. A bunch of violets without their roots, And sorrel intermixed, Encircled by a wisp of straw ...

[ "S2" ]

[ "S2-8" ]

[ "Nature" ]

[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi" ]

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Sex and Taxes

Kevin Cantwell

Plum black & the blush white of an apple shoulder, melon & cream, in tones to list the flesh; in light, washed colors off at last & textures sheer with damp I slowly pull from you with your quick help. Weekend's ample procrastinations to forget the least of what we want to do. April, half a blast of cold, half n...

[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S1-1", "S2-1" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Love/Desire & Erotic Love", "Nature/Spring" ]

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Mobile-Buck

James Edwin Campbell

O, come erlong, come erlong, Wut’s de use er hol’in back; O, hit it strong, er hit it strong, Mek de ol’ flo’ ben’ an’ crack. O, hoop tee doo, uh, hoop tee doo! Dat’s de way ter knock it froo. Right erlong, right erlong, Slide de lef’ foot right erlong. Hoop tee doo, O,...

[ "S10" ]

[ "S10-10" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance" ]

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A Message from the Wanderer

William E. Stafford

Today outside your prison I stand and rattle my walking stick: Prisoners, listen; you have relatives outside. And there are thousands of ways to escape. Years ago I bent my skill to keep my cell locked, had chains smuggled to me in pies, and shouted my plans to jailers; but always new plans occured to me, or th...

[ "S2", "S3" ]

[ "S2-9", "S3-6" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]

[ "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space", "Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice" ]

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Sarah Byng, Who Could Not Read and Was Tossed into a Thorny Hedge by a Bull

Hilaire Belloc

Some years ago you heard me sing My doubts on Alexander Byng. His sister Sarah now inspires My jaded Muse, my failing fires. Of Sarah Byng the tale is told How when the child was twelve years old She could not read or write a line. Her sister Jane, though barely nine, Could spout the Catechism through And parts...

[ "S6" ]

[ "S6-3" ]

[ "Living" ]

[ "Living/Coming of Age" ]

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The Late Worm

Kay Ryan

The worms which had been thick are thin upon the ground now that it's gotten later. They stick against the path, their pink chapped and their inching labored. It's a matter of moisture isn't it? Time, a measure of wet, shrinking, the drier you get.

[ "S6", "S7" ]

[ "S6-1" ]

[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[ "Living/Aging" ]

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"Loving you less than life, a little less"

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Loving you less than life, a little less Than bitter-sweet upon a broken wall Or brush-wood smoke in autumn, I confess I cannot swear I love you not at all. For there is that about you in this light— A yellow darkness, sinister of rain— Which sturdily recalls my stubborn sight To dwell on you, and dwell on you a...

[ "S1" ]

[ "S1-3", "S1-6" ]

[ "Love" ]

[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Love/Realistic & Complicated" ]

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To the Rose upon the Rood of Time

William Butler Yeats

Red Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days! Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways: Cuchulain battling with the bitter tide; The Druid, grey, wood-nurtured, quiet-eyed, Who cast round Fergus dreams, and ruin untold; And thine own sadness, whereof stars, grown old In dancing silver-sandalled on the sea, S...

[ "S6", "S7" ]

[]

[ "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[]

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This Room

John Ashbery

The room I entered was a dream of this room. Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine. The oval portrait of a dog was me at an early age. Something shimmers, something is hushed up. We had macaroni for lunch every day except Sunday, when a small quail was induced to be served to us. Why do I tell you these th...

[ "S1", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S9-1" ]

[ "Love", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

95a7647732139b4a

The Jumblies

Edward Lear

I They went to sea in a Sieve, they did, In a Sieve they went to sea: In spite of all their friends could say, On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day, In a Sieve they went to sea! And when the Sieve turned round and round, And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’ They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big, But w...

[ "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S8-4", "S9-7" ]

[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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After-Glow

Ivor Gurney

(To F. W. Harvey) Out of the smoke and dust of the little room With tea-talk loud and laughter of happy boys, I passed into the dusk. Suddenly the noise Ceased with a shock, left me alone in the gloom, To wonder at the miracle hanging high Tangled in twigs, the silver crescent clear. Time passed from mind. Time d...

[ "S3", "S6", "S7", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S3-11", "S8-4", "S9-5" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]

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Lullaby

Maggie Dietz

After Lyle Lovett If I had a ginko tree I'd climb it in the evening. If I had a marmoset He'd climb the tree with me. If we saw a falling star I'd wish I had a rocket. If I had a rocket I'd drag the star back home. If I went to space I'd pick up a satellite. If I had my own moon I wouldn't be so sad. If I ...

[ "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S6-5", "S8-3" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]

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Our Side of the Creek

Yusef Komunyakaa

We piled planks, sheets of tin, & sandbags across the creek till the bright water rose & splayed both sides, swelling into our hoorah. Our hard work brought July thrashers & fat June bugs in decades of dead leaves. Water moccasins hid in holes at the brim of the clay bank as the creek eased up pelvic bones, ...

[ "S2", "S3", "S6" ]

[ "S2-2", "S2-5", "S2-6", "S3-8", "S6-8" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Living" ]

[ "Nature/Summer", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Living/Youth" ]

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Written in her French Psalter

Queen Elizabeth I

No crooked leg, no bleared eye, No part deformed out of kind, Nor yet so ugly half can be As is the inward suspicious mind.

[ "S2", "S6", "S10" ]

[ "S10-5" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy" ]

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"When you, that at this moment are to me"

Edna St. Vincent Millay

When you, that at this moment are to me Dearer than words on paper, shall depart, And be no more the warder of my heart, Whereof again myself shall hold the key; And be no more—what now you seem to be— The sun, from which all excellences start In a round nimbus, nor a broken dart Of moonlight, even, splintered o...

[ "S1", "S2", "S6" ]

[ "S1-3", "S2-8", "S6-5" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Living" ]

[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Living/Mourning" ]

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To Arielle and the Moon

David Trinidad

The night reduced to a siren, a sigh: Beautiful boy on the treadmill Glimpsed sweating through sweating glass— My new moon. Sylvia’s moon: a smiling skull Snagged in witchy branches; fossil Brushed free of blackest earth. My last moon: an orange ball at rest, for an instant, On the grey lake. Wish list: dining...

[ "S1", "S2", "S8" ]

[ "S2-9" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Relationships" ]

[ "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]

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Some Sort of Truth

Dorothea Lasky

When my dad first started to die All my mom could remember Was the time he kicked her out After they first started dating So that he could go play golf It is the sort of thing we all remember When we feel death upon us I remember he died twice And once in my dream I just had to see him all nursed and swaddled ...

[ "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S6-3", "S6-4", "S6-5", "S8-3", "S8-4" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Living/Coming of Age", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors", "Relationships/Friendship" ]

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The Mower’s Song

Andrew Marvell

My mind was once the true survey Of all these meadows fresh and gay, And in the greenness of the grass Did see its hopes as in a glass; When Juliana came, and she What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. But these, while I with sorrow pine, Grew more luxuriant still and fi...

[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S1-4", "S1-7", "S1-8", "S2-7", "S6-5", "S9-4" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Love/Romantic Love", "Love/Classic Love", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Living/Mourning", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]

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Waterwings

Cathy Song

The mornings are his, blue and white like the tablecloth at breakfast. He’s happy in the house, a sweep of the spoon brings the birds under his chair. He sings and the dishes disappear. Or holding a crayon like a candle, he draws a circle. It is his hundredth dragonfly. Calling for more paper, this one is re...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S6-7", "S8-5", "S9-1", "S9-5" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Living/Parenthood", "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]

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Incident

Amiri Baraka

He came back and shot. He shot him. When he came back, he shot, and he fell, stumbling, past the shadow wood, down, shot, dying, dead, to full halt. At the bottom, bleeding, shot dead. He died then, there after the fall, the speeding bullet, tore his face and blood sprayed fine over the killer and the grey light. ...

[ "S3" ]

[ "S3-6" ]

[ "Social Commentaries" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice" ]

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Channel Firing

Thomas Hardy

That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay, And broke the chancel window-squares, We thought it was the Judgment-day And sat upright. While drearisome Arose the howl of wakened hounds: The mouse let fall the altar-crumb, The worms drew back into the mounds, The glebe cow drooled. Till...

[ "S3", "S4", "S5", "S6", "S10" ]

[ "S3-11", "S5-2", "S5-3", "S6-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion", "Living", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Religion/Christianity", "Religion/Faith & Doubt", "Living/Death & Dying" ]

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Things We Dreamt We Died For

Marvin Bell

Flags of all sorts. The literary life. Each time we dreamt we’d done the gentlemanly thing, covering our causes in closets full of bones to remove ourselves forever from dearest possibilities, the old weapons re-injured us, the old armies conscripted us, and we gave in to getting even, a little less like us ...

[ "S3", "S6", "S9", "S10", "S11" ]

[ "S6-4", "S9-6", "S10-8", "S11-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books", "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Living/Death & Dying", "Activities/Study & Knowledge" ]

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Now

Hilda Raz

Some problems of self-loathing, worry: the thumbnail blotched in a bank box door grows out, three-quarter moon marrow spot filled out with white bruise travels down my thumb at regular speed, so when I glance down it's what I see left of center, not the odd breast, the malformed scruff at head, the old thought l...

[ "S6" ]

[ "S6-1", "S6-6" ]

[ "Living" ]

[ "Living/Aging", "Living/Health & Illness" ]

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Dunt: a poem for a dried up river

Alice Oswald

Very small and damaged and quite dry, a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone very eroded faded her left arm missing and both legs from the knee down a Roman water nymph made of bone tries to summon a river out of limestone exhausted utterly worn down a Roman water nymph...

[ "S2", "S11" ]

[ "S2-5", "S2-6", "S11-3" ]

[ "Nature", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology", "Nature/Animals", "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]

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The Great Palaces of Versailles

Rita Dove

Nothing nastier than a white person! She mutters as she irons alterations in the backroom of Charlotte’s Dress Shoppe. The steam rising from a cranberry wool comes alive with perspiration and stale Evening of Paris.Swamp she born from, swamp she swallow, swamp she got to sink again.

[ "S3", "S4", "S9" ]

[ "S9-3", "S9-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Indoor Activities", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]

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Women in Labor

Mary Ruefle

Women who lie alone at midnightbecause there is no one else to lie toWomen who lie alone at midnightat noon in the laundromatdestroying their own socksWomen who lie alone at midnight:Hans Brinker, or The Silver SkatesWomen who lie alone at midnightas the first furl of starlightpearls the moon with nacreWomen who lie al...

[ "S3", "S6" ]

[ "S3-4", "S6-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Death & Dying" ]

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Stuff I probably did and didn't

Stephanie Gray

After Tim Dlugos' Things I Might Do I probably didn't tell you that the last Line of your poem left me on a plane of Movement somewhere between the best of pop Culture and the longest break in your favorite pop song I probably didn't tell you that the train is going to take Way longer than you think and you were ...

[ "S3", "S6", "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S3-1", "S9-7", "S10-6" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Cautionary Tales

Mark Vinz

Beyond the field of grazing, gazing cows the great bull has a pasture to himself, monumental, black flanks barely twitching from the swarming flies. Only a few strands of wire separate us—how could I forget my childhood terror, the grownups warning that the old bull near my uncle’s farm would love to chase me, stomp me...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10", "S11" ]

[ "S2-7", "S6-1", "S8-8", "S10-5" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Living/Aging", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]

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To Tell of Bodies Changed

Jana Prikryl

Having desired little more than the arrival of the little more that arrives, outside our window a cypress of model proportions. Its patience seems to widen the nights we sleep in Rome. Warm flags draw a tortoise, it scrapes too near. Our friends hurry over when they hear, exclaiming over its mute resolute ...

[ "S6" ]

[]

[ "Living" ]

[]

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Easter Week

Joyce Kilmer

(In memory of Joseph Mary Plunkett) ("Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.")

[ "S2", "S3", "S11" ]

[ "S2-7", "S11-4" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals" ]

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Arrival at Santos

Elizabeth Bishop

Here is a coast; here is a harbor; here, after a meager diet of horizon, is some scenery; impractically shaped and—who knows?—self-pitying mountains, sad and harsh beneath their frivolous greenery, with a little church on top of one. And warehouses, some of them painted a feeble pink, or blue, and some tall, unce...

[ "S9" ]

[ "S9-7" ]

[ "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Becune Point

Derek Walcott

Stunned heat of noon. In shade, tan, silken cows hide in the thorned acacias. A butterfly staggers. Stamping their hooves from thirst, small horses drowse or whinny for water. On parched, ochre headlands, daggers of agave bristle in primordial defense, like a cornered monster backed up against the sea. A mongoose...

[ "S2", "S5", "S8" ]

[ "S2-7", "S5-2", "S8-8" ]

[ "Nature", "Religion", "Relationships" ]

[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Religion/Christianity", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]

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The Garden of Proserpine

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams; I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing, For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams. I am tired of tears and laughter, And men...

[ "S2", "S6" ]

[ "S2-7" ]

[ "Nature", "Living" ]

[ "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals" ]

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Small Kingdom

Samuel Menashe

In their doorways women sit sewing By the good light of afternoon And nothing is beyond knowing Though the sun shall go down soon A shepherdess near a bramble ditch And the Princess in the Alcazar Keep the same precise stitch And they both can see far And when the knell tolls All are wondering who— If it is a...

[ "S3", "S4" ]

[ "S3-2" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Class & Labor" ]

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Death Is a Hysterical Dynasty

Steve Kistulentz

Tonight we shall read from my personal book of lamentations, sit shiva in a room lit with those overly perfumed candles as thick as the aluminum bat I used just last week to flip away the possum carcass I'd found collapsed against the house. Forensics tells us the backyard is Panama before quinine, an ecosystem un...

[ "S2", "S5", "S6" ]

[ "S2-5", "S5-8", "S6-4" ]

[ "Nature", "Religion", "Living" ]

[ "Nature/Animals", "Religion/The Spiritual", "Living/Death & Dying" ]

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Slowly: a plainsong from an older woman to a younger woman

Judy Grahn

am I not olden olden olden it is unwanted. wanting, wanting am I not broken stolen common am I not crinkled cranky poison am I not glinty-eyed and frozen am I not aged shaky glazing am I not hazy guarded craven am I not only stingy little am I not simple brittle spitting ...

[ "S3", "S6", "S7", "S8" ]

[ "S3-4", "S6-1", "S8-3", "S8-6" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Time & Brevity", "Relationships" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Aging", "Relationships/Family & Ancestors", "Relationships/LGBTQ+" ]

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Hotel

Lorna Dee Cervantes

for John I couldn’t see in this light even if I wished. The black grillwork over black, cool upon coal, kisses me back in an icy press. Not wanting—anything—but to fall as the empty trash cans mingle below with the smell of feral cats. Flailing moon the color of suds over this factory of artifice, moored in t...

[ "S1", "S3", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S1-6", "S3-4", "S6-5", "S8-1" ]

[ "Love", "Social Commentaries", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Love/Realistic & Complicated", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]

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Carnot Cycle

Samiya Bashir

Only sometimes does homegrown bedrock glow moneygreen. Sometimes rock whines mommy. Sometimes rock coos baby. Sometimes rock calls late with the mortgage. Sometimes rock knits shoulder blades right where you can’t pluck.Early mornings something doesn’t sit right over the sink. Sits crooked. Slumps askew...

[ "S6", "S9" ]

[ "S9-4" ]

[ "Living", "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]

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There was an Old Man of Thermopylæ

Edward Lear

There was an old man of Thermopylæ,Who never did anything properly;But they said, "If you choose, To boil eggs in your shoes,You shall never remain in Thermopylæ."

[ "S6", "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S6-1", "S9-1" ]

[ "Living", "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Living/Aging", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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Several Errands

Brenda Hillman

The shoe repairman works behind the married shoes, his whole hand inside the boot he’s shining, everything cozy in the glass displays, laces paired on gravel he’s spread out in the window, shoes placed as though they’re walking, and beside them propped up, the wooden tongues of shoe horns, poised to serve the ina...

[ "S3", "S5", "S6", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S3-1", "S5-3", "S8-1", "S9-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Religion", "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life", "Religion/Faith & Doubt", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation", "Activities/Jobs & Working" ]

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Swells

A. R. Ammons

The very longest swell in the ocean, I suspect, carries the deepest memory, the information of actions summarized (surface peaks and dibbles and local sharp slopes of windstorms) with a summary of the summaries and under other summaries a deeper summary: well, maybe deeper, longer for length here is the same as de...

[ "S2", "S6", "S7" ]

[ "S2-6" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[ "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]

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The Table and the Chair

Edward Lear

ISaid the Table to the Chair,'You can hardly be aware,'How I suffer from the heat,'And from chilblains on my feet!'If we took a little walk,'We might have a little talk!'Pray let us take the air!'Said the Table to the Chair.IISaid the Chair unto the Table,'Now you know we are not able!'How foolishly you talk,'When you ...

[ "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S8-4", "S9-7" ]

[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Relationships/Friendship", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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On an Acura Integra

Paul Violi

Please think of this as not merely a piece Of writing that anyone would fully Appreciate, but as plain and simple Words that attempt to arouse whatever Appetencies you, especially, depend Upon language to fulfill; that drench you In several levels of meaning at once, Rendering my presence superfluous. In other ...

[ "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S9-7", "S10-6" ]

[ "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Faith, Dogma, and Heresy

Frank Stanford

It was Sunday, before dinner. My uncles were listening to the opera. O.Z. and I carried my brother in And laid him on the table. The women started screaming. My brother raised up on his side With dried blood on his hands, We killed those goddamn Canale brothers And nobody is ever going to touch us! The men shu...

[ "S3", "S8" ]

[ "S3-11", "S8-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Relationships" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Relationships/Friendship" ]

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Thoreau

William Logan

That oily bale of rags, lostto the silent architectures of the wood—or so it seemed, as the fall’s chancelsdarkened, and rough earth gave and forgave.Forgave, I mean, the intrusion.

[ "S2" ]

[]

[ "Nature" ]

[]

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My name came from . . .

Emmett Tenorio Melendez

My name came from my great-great-great-grandfather. He was an Indian from the Choctaw tribe. His name was Dark Ant. When he went to get a job out in a city he changed it to Emmett. And his whole name was Emmett Perez Tenorio. And my name means: Ant; Strong; Carry twice its size.

[ "S8" ]

[ "S8-3" ]

[ "Relationships" ]

[ "Relationships/Family & Ancestors" ]

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The Little White Hearse

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Somebody’s baby was buried to-day— The empty white hearse from the grave rumbled back, And the morning somehow seemed less smiling and gay As I paused on the walk while it crossed on its way, And a shadow seemed drawn o’er the sun’s golden track. Somebody’s baby was laid out to rest, White as a snowdr...

[ "S6" ]

[ "S6-2", "S6-4", "S6-5" ]

[ "Living" ]

[ "Living/Birth & Infancy", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning" ]

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Encounter

Czeslaw Milosz

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn. A red wing rose in the darkness. And suddenly a hare ran across the road. One of us pointed to it with his hand. That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive, Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture. O my love, where are they, where are they goi...

[ "S2", "S6", "S7" ]

[ "S6-4" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Time & Brevity" ]

[ "Living/Death & Dying" ]

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A Pastoral

Allen Grossman

At that time the sheep called to him From their wormy bellies, as they Lay bloating in the field. He was A pastoralist, The schoolhouse hardly handsize In a sky of flax. He began Then to keep the sayings of man (The left hand writing; the right hand Crossing out) farming the time b...

[ "S2", "S5", "S10" ]

[ "S2-7", "S5-8", "S10-6" ]

[ "Nature", "Religion", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals", "Religion/The Spiritual" ]

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Flowers from a New Love after the Divorce

Paisley Rekdal

Cut back the stems an inch to keep in bloom. So instructs the florist’s note enclosed inside the flowers. Who knew what was cut could heal again, the green wounds close, stitching themselves together? It doesn’t matter. The flowers, red and white, will bloom awhile, then wither. You sit in an unlit room and wat...

[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8", "S11" ]

[ "S1-3", "S1-7", "S2-8", "S8-1", "S11-3" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Love/Heartache & Loss", "Love/Romantic Love", "Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology", "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Relationships/Breakups & Separation" ]

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Eyes Like Leeks

Linda Gregerson

It had almost nothing to do with sex. The boy in his corset and farthingale, his head- voice and his smooth-for-the-duration chin was not and never had been simply in our pay. Or was it some lost logic the regional accent ...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]

[ "S10-10" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance" ]

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Song (“The world is full of loss ... ”)

Muriel Rukeyser

The world is full of loss; bring, wind, my love, my home is where we make our meeting-place, and love whatever I shall touch and read within that face. Lift, wind, my exile from my eyes; peace to look, life to listen and confess, freedom to find to find to find ...

[ "S1", "S2", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S1-7", "S8-7" ]

[ "Love", "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Love/Romantic Love", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]

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A Deserter

Charles Reznikoff

Their new landlord was a handsome man. On his rounds to collect rent she became friendly. Finally, she asked him in to have a cup of tea. After that he came often. Once his mouth jerked, and turning, she saw her husband in the doorway. She thought, One of the neighbors must have told him. She smiled ...

[ "S3", "S8" ]

[ "S3-4" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "Relationships" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality" ]

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What the Goose-Girl Said About the Dean

Edith Sitwell

Turn again, turn again,Goose Clothilda, Goosie Jane.Bright wooden waves of people creakFrom houses built with coloured strawsOf heat; Dean Pasppus’ long nose snoresHarsh as a hautbois, marshy-weak.The wooden waves of people creakThrough the fields all water-sleek.And in among the straws of lightThose bumpkin hautbois-s...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S2-5", "S8-8" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Nature/Animals", "Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals" ]

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On Receiving News of the War

Isaac Rosenberg

Snow is a strange white word; No ice or frost Have asked of bud or bird For Winter's cost. Yet ice and frost and snow From earth to sky This Summer land doth know, No man knows why. In all men's hearts it is. Some spirit old Hath turned with malign kiss Our lives to mould. Red fangs have torn His face. God...

[ "S2", "S3", "S4", "S5" ]

[ "S3-11", "S5-4" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Religion" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Religion/God & the Divine" ]

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Song of the Shore to the Sea

Robert Fanning

It's never enough being one. Why do I hopeto contain you: always undoing and undone;every place you touch me changes shape.It's not my way to just lie down;to sink, effaced and full. If you swallow me, you're drained, and halfof us is gone. Desire's fulfillment is two,not one, or our tidal meetings are through.So hurl ...

[ "S2" ]

[ "S2-6", "S2-9" ]

[ "Nature" ]

[ "Nature/Bodies of Water", "Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space" ]

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The Lane

Edward Thomas

Some day, I think, there will be people enoughIn Froxfield to pick all the blackberries

[ "S2", "S9" ]

[ "S2-8", "S9-1", "S9-5" ]

[ "Nature", "Activities" ]

[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Activities/Eating & Drinking", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]

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Hungerpots

Hester Knibbe

Did an argument break out in the kitchen that morning?Was there smashing of pots and pans: youwant to eat somewhere else? Go on,get out! Or were they set outside, shrewd,

[ "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S8-5", "S9-1" ]

[ "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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It’s Important I Remember That They Don’t Have the Tools to Critique Me—

Cortney Lamar Charleston

what she told me. What I honor. They, as unambiguous as Lyrae is: black, bard, badass; svelte with flourishing braids; a singularity and somehow all of them gathered as one like tributaries to the mouth of the river of God—Gwendolyn and Lucille and June and—and I can’t count all the ways I was saved that day, emerg...

[ "S3", "S4", "S6", "S8", "S10" ]

[ "S3-7", "S3-8", "S3-11", "S8-4", "S10-2", "S10-3", "S10-6" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics", "Arts & Sciences/Music", "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Social Commentaries/Popular Culture", "Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity", "Relationships/Friendship" ]

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Romanticism

David Baker

It is to Emerson I have turned now, damp February, for he has written of the moral harmony of nature. The key to every man is his thought. But Emerson, half angel, suffers his dear Ellen’s dying only half-consoled that her lungs shall no more be torn nor her head scalded by her blood, nor her whole life suffer ...

[ "S2", "S6", "S8", "S10", "S11" ]

[ "S6-4", "S6-5", "S8-7", "S10-5", "S10-8" ]

[ "Nature", "Living", "Relationships", "Arts & Sciences", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Philosophy", "Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]

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LAMENTA: 423

Myung Mi Kim

“peacekeeping troops” “tanks beneath the windows” The inside of someone else’s dwelling visible — a table and some chairs. You start to count one, two, three, four . . . until the explosion is near your neighborhood. You can guess the position of mortar by this counting and try to find a safe place. If the windows...

[ "S3", "S4", "S6" ]

[ "S3-11", "S6-4", "S6-5" ]

[ "Social Commentaries", "History & Politics", "Living" ]

[ "Social Commentaries/War & Conflict", "Living/Death & Dying", "Living/Mourning" ]

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Gruel

Marilyn Chin

Your name is Diana Toy. And all you may have for breakfast is rice gruel. You can't spit it back into the cauldron for it would be unfilial. You can't ask for yam gruel for there is none. You can't hide it in the corner for it would surely be found, and then you would be served cold, stale rice gruel. This is the...

[ "S6", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S6-8", "S8-5", "S9-1" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Living/Youth", "Relationships/Home Life", "Activities/Eating & Drinking" ]

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We Have Trees Now

Prageeta Sharma

more so than we did before, but now we know what to do with them. We hang our troubles on them and wipe our shoes against them. We go lethargic on the porch, we tear the bark with spindly fingers. We soak up the sun with restless hunger.So much sky we say in unison, where does it go, do we follow it? Do we let it ge...

[ "S2", "S3" ]

[ "S2-8", "S3-9" ]

[ "Nature", "Social Commentaries" ]

[ "Nature/Plants & Fungi", "Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life" ]

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How Much?

Carl Sandburg

How much do you love me, a million bushels?Oh, a lot more than that, Oh, a lot more.And tomorrow maybe only half a bushel?Tomorrow maybe not even a half a bushel.And is this your heart arithmetic?This is the way the wind measures the weather.

[ "S1", "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S1-6", "S8-7" ]

[ "Love", "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Love/Realistic & Complicated", "Relationships/Marriage & Companionship" ]

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Black Map

Bei Dao

in the end, cold crows piece together the night: a black map I've come home—the way back longer than the wrong road long as a life bring the heart of winter when spring water and horse pills become the words of night when memory barks a rainbow haunts the black market my father's life-spark small as a pea I ...

[ "S9" ]

[ "S9-7" ]

[ "Activities" ]

[ "Activities/Travels & Journeys" ]

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Doors

Carl Sandburg

An open door says, “Come in.”A shut door says, “Who are you?”Shadows and ghosts go through shut doors.If a door is shut and you want it shut, why open it?If a door is open and you want it open, why shut it?Doors forget but only doors know what it is doors forget.

[ "S6", "S11" ]

[ "S11-2" ]

[ "Living", "Mythology & Folklore" ]

[ "Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural" ]

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Milton

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I pace the sounding sea-beach and behold How the voluminous billows roll and run, Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled, And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold All its loose-flowing garments into one, Plunges upon the shore, and f...

[ "S2", "S10" ]

[ "S2-6", "S10-6" ]

[ "Nature", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets", "Nature/Bodies of Water" ]

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Ode to the Gain

Matthew Nienow

gain — a bevel cut into plank ends in traditional lapstrake boat construction that allows otherwise lapped planks to lay flush at stem and transom. There’s the paring chisel’s purpose in the steamed cedar strake, its long warp laid strong against the bench,whose pocked surface is the book of what has already been made...

[ "S9", "S10" ]

[ "S9-3", "S10-1", "S10-4" ]

[ "Activities", "Arts & Sciences" ]

[ "Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design", "Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture", "Activities/Indoor Activities" ]

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Maybe It’s Only the Monotony

Gail Mazur

of these long scorching days but today my daughter is truly exasperating—Stop it! I shout—or I’ll— and I twist her little pinked arm slowly, calibrating my ferocity—You can’t hurt me you can’t hurt me! She’s so defiant, glowering, glaring at me— but frightened, her eyes bright with tears—See, I’m not even cryi...

[ "S6", "S8" ]

[ "S6-7", "S8-5" ]

[ "Living", "Relationships" ]

[ "Living/Parenthood", "Relationships/Home Life" ]

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Amoretti LXVII: Like as a Huntsman

Edmund Spenser

Like as a huntsman after weary chase, Seeing the game from him escap'd away, Sits down to rest him in some shady place, With panting hounds beguiled of their prey: So after long pursuit and vain assay, When I all weary had the chase forsook, The gentle deer return'd the self-same way, Thinking to quench her thirst at t...

[ "S1", "S3", "S8", "S9" ]

[ "S1-4", "S3-4", "S9-5" ]

[ "Love", "Social Commentaries", "Relationships", "Activities" ]

[ "Love/Infatuation & Crushes", "Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality", "Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities" ]