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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
75ddf895c4472f63 | Diluvian Dream | Wilmer Mills | All afternoon I walk behind the mower,Imagining, though paradoxically,That even though the grass is getting lower,What I have cut is like a rising sea;The parts I haven’t cut, with every pass,Resemble real geography, a map,A shrinking island continent of grassWhere shoreline vanishes with every lap.At last, the noise a... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Gardening & Farming",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
48cd260a8cad27d7 | The Child on the Cliffs | Edward Thomas | Mother, the root of this little yellow flowerAmong the stones has the taste of quinine.Things are strange to-day on the cliff. The sun shines so bright,And the grasshopper works at his sewing-machineSo hard. Here’s one on my hand, mother, look;I lie so still. There’s one on your book.But I have something to tell more s... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
716902082deb6a7a | Watermark | Michael McKimm | From a microlight, the Owens River,cut and siphoned to an aqueduct:a corridor through banks of trees, into scuffed desert dunes, mountainsscaling to the right, to the left dry veinsin the valley, saline and pink, the waterchanneled slowly through scatch grass,under dirt tracks and fences, twenty miles,thirty — black li... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-6",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
4fc7de4393ab572d | Revenge | Letitia Elizabeth Landon | Ay, gaze upon her rose-wreathed hair,
And gaze upon her smile;
Seem as you drank the very air
Her breath perfumed the while:
And wake for her the gifted line,
That wild and witching lay,
And swear your heart is as a shrine,
That only owns her sway.
’Tis well: I am revenged at last,—
Mark you that scornful chee... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-9",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
9243c53d0f618f42 | You May Visit the Cosmos but You May Not Speak of It (or on the Tackiness of Elegy). | Ken Chen | If you can command these elements to silence …
origin: No soul could have spoken of the universe’s origin since no one could have existed to witness it. Origin is ellipsis. We believe the universe began, because we exist and because we can hear the sounds of its origin. Activating radio telescopes, gazing at the far c... | [
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"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
6dec4923986ffd96 | Military Mind | Charlie Smith | I wanted to go to military school and march, I wanted to grow up and be composed and expert with a rifle, with tactics and fighting, to be safe and courageous among men in barracks and on the battlefield. I wanted to see my arms hairy and corded with muscle at the end of rolled up khaki sleeves. I wanted to fle... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
26c5ed6f5122c8e2 | Twenty Five Haiku | Marilyn Chin | ❖
A hundred red fire ants scouring, scouring the white peony
❖
Fallen plum blossoms return to the branch, you sleep, then
harden again
❖
Cuttlefish in my palm stiffens with rigor mortis, boy toys can't
love
❖
Neighbor's barn: grass mat, crickets, Blue Boy, trowel handle,
... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e1f5d25b1196c687 | On Buying and Selling | Kahlil Gibran | And a merchant said, Speak to us of
Buying and Selling.
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you
shall not want if you but know how to fill
your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth
that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchan... | [
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"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
3f95816f5123c8a7 | In Little Rock | Jake Adam York | Perhaps, this morning, we’re there,
normal and soon forgotten, as news is
when it’s passed over breakfast, like love,
something that’s always cast, too
heavy to hold for long. We breathe it in,
the bacon, the coffee. We listen to the little
quavers as the local tongues, water over rock,
rise and fall, like stone... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
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"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
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"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
c5499d760571d924 | The Reservoir | Mei-mei Berssenbrugge | 1
The reservoir is trying to freeze over
with an expanding map shaped like an angel
Separated lovers on a coast keep walking
toward each other. Low sun reddens
their faces without heat
They are weary of always moving
so seldom touching, but never think
to move inland, massive and stable
Imagoes hatched on thin... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
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"S1-6",
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"Love",
"Nature",
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"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
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"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
f539fa31f0273e4f | Difference | Stephen Vincent Benét | My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs.
“Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.”
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
451883b230163643 | Ignatz Domesticus | Monica Youn | Then one day she noticed the forest had begun to bleed into her waking life.
There were curved metal plates on the trees to see around corners.
She thought to brush her hand against his thigh.
She thought to trace the seam of his jeans with her thumbnail.
The supersaturated blues were beginning to pixillate around ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-7",
"S10-8"
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"Nature",
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"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
d630c07dbf0faafd | Cullen in the Afterlife | P. K. Page | He found it strange at first. A new dimension. One he had never guessed. The fourth? The fifth? How could he tell, who’d only known the third?Something to do with eyesight, depth of field.Perspective quite beyond him. Everything flator nearly flat. The vanishing point they’d tried to teach at school was out of sightand out... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
d396bdd1536fe6b1 | House | Sandy Florian | A building for habitation and habit. Or. Headquarters of a domicile. A dwelling
place of a family. Or. A structure that serves as shelter. As. A burrow or nest or
cave. A shack in a series of shacks. With nooks and garrets and stairs. This is
your corner of the world. Thick with suspicious walls. Or. I am backpedali... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design"
] |
941d69395a2b4897 | Alone with the Goddess | Linda Gregg | The young men ride their horses fast
on the wet sand of Parangtritis.
Back and forth, with the water sliding
up to them and away.
This is the sea where the goddess lives,
angry, her lover taken away.
Don’t wear red, don’t wear green here,
the people say. Do not swim in the sea.
Give her an offering.
I give a c... | [
"S5",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f1407cdb89e3c673 | “So many gods!” | Álvaro de Campos | So many gods! They’re like books—you can’t read everything, you never know anything. Happy the man who knows but one god, and keeps him a secret. Every day I have different beliefs— Sometimes in the same day I have different beliefs— And I wish I were the child now crossing The view from my window of the street... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
533b60e800ad4b1a | A Daughter of Eve | Christina Rossetti | A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
T... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
bc9fee191e727231 | For Tourists & Armies | Amanda Calderon | One way to draw France is in scallops:Dunkirk to Brest,Brest to Saint-Jean-de-Luz,The imperceptible stone sagof certain dolmensover the Pyrenees between Saint-Jean& Banyuls-sur-MerThen, to NiceNice, skirting the Alps to LauterbourgFrom Lauterbourg backto where you beganFor the meticulous, the additions of Cherbourg, To... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
15f5bda0dd80774c | In a Disused Graveyard | Robert Frost | The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never any more the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
‘The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.’
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can’t ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
b9d269a4cc161e1e | Our Literary Heritage | L. E. Sissman | I. Riverside Drive, 1929
“ ‘Good-by, Ralph. It should end some other way.
Not this,’ Corinna said. ‘Now go away.’
No. Rhymes. It’s ludicrous. Try ‘Dear, good-by.’
No. Repetitious. Maybe ‘Dear, farewell.’
No. Stagy. Out of character. Oh, hell.
Time for a drink.” The Smith-Corona heaves
As he retracts his knickerb... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
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"S3-7",
"S6-3",
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
b0c8b8d84bebdcc4 | Dedication | Czeslaw Milosz | You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.
What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new o... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
a60dc977bc775965 | For Weeks After the Funeral | Andrea Hollander | The house felt like the opera, the audience in their seats, hushed, ready, but the cast not yet arrived. And if I said anything to try to appease the anxious air, my words would hang alone like the single chandelier waiting to dim the auditorium, but still too huge, too prominent, too bright, its light announcing only ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
c9c86e83b6dcbc2f | A Song: Strephon, your breach of faith and trust | Laetitia Pilkington | Strephon, your breach of faith and trust Affords me no surprise; A man who grateful was, or just, Might make my wonder rise. That heart to you so fondly tied, With pleasure wore its chain, But from your cold neglectful pride, Found liberty again. For this no wrath inflames my mind, My thanks ar... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
cf05f2f18036be59 | Morning Song | Sylvia Plath | Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud t... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
743064c4bf091a95 | A hundred per cent | Eileen Myles | I would like
a century
a tree
grows slow
a crack
of light
hits my palm
while I’m
reading
I grab
to take
a picture
& the crack
is gone
branches
pouring
out of my
hands
days has made
its mark
I have
wind
swept
hair I think
of my step
brother
who I knew
more
like this
his face
a photo
graph
... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-6",
"S10-7",
"S10-8"
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"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c555d0ad3c6c4327 | Faith | Louis Untermeyer | What are we bound for? What’s the yield
Of all this energy and waste?
Why do we spend ourselves and build
With such an empty haste?
Wherefore the bravery we boast?
How can we spend one laughing breath
When at the end all things are lost
In ignorance and death? . . .
The stars have found a blazing course
In a v... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
8bdc9fbf7eee33e6 | From a Window | Christian Wiman | Incurable and unbelieving
in any truth but the truth of grieving,
I saw a tree inside a tree
rise kaleidoscopically
as if the leaves had livelier ghosts.
I pressed my face as close
to the pane as I could get
to watch that fitful, fluent spirit
that seemed a single being undefined
or countless beings of one min... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Aging"
] |
4258d590ae3daf3c | The Dipper | Kathleen Jamie | It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.
It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.
It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of t... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
d0d24fee71ae44e3 | My Life’s Delight | Thomas Campion | Come, O come, my life’s delight,
Let me not in languor pine!
Love loves no delay; thy sight,
The more enjoyed, the more divine:
O come, and take from me
The pain of being deprived of thee!
Thou all sweetness dost enclose,
Like a little world of bliss.
Beauty guards thy looks: the rose
In them pure and eternal i... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
c28fb6238023c699 | The Lifeguard | James L. Dickey | In a stable of boats I lie still,
From all sleeping children hidden.
The leap of a fish from its shadow
Makes the whole lake instantly tremble.
With my foot on the water, I feel
The moon outside
Take on the utmost of its power.
I rise and go out through the boats.
I set my broad sole upon silver,
On the skin o... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
edb8a03bbdd3b375 | Know No Name | Kazim Ali | Know no name
Why this holy day honed
Hollow day haul
I lost wind when wooden
I can’t bear to be
Unaided in hunt unhanded
To haunt when strewn sound
Who will be held in hand
Brought sent
Mooring at the shore
Who’re you for
For what fewer who wore
Be called this wooer
More who are the ones
In horror to ligh... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-8",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
d2ee27e65bd6b53f | [I never wish to sing again as I used to . . .] | Karen Volkman | I never wish to sing again as I used to, when two new eyes could
always stain the sea, of tangent worlds, indolent as callows, and the clock
went backward for a skip, to rise, to set.
Some will twine grass to fit in a thimble, some will carve bread to
mend a craggy wall, some in the slantest midnight cry for ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
9e47c5e27e91a44a | from Jubilate Agno | Christopher Smart | let elizur rejoice with the partridge
Let Elizur rejoice with the Partridge, who is a prisoner of state and is proud of his keepers.
For I am not without authority in my jeopardy, which I derive inevitably from the glory of the name of the Lord.
Let Shedeur rejoice with Pyrausta, who dwelleth in a medium of fire, wh... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
c772ee8baaef777b | A Way | Rosanna Warren | The whole trick of this thing ... is to get out of your own light. — Marianne Faithfull
She said she sang very close to the miketo change the space. And I changed the spaceby striding down the Boulevard Raspail at dusk in tight jeansuntil an Algerian engineer plucked the pen from my back po... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
d07571ca73e28d7e | Never give all the Heart | William Butler Yeats | Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy, kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips can say, Have given th... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
eb886c5d587728ca | Deconstructing New England | Alexandria Peary | Toss in some wavy lines, an equal sign, and a squiggle,
then a lilac log, boulders with faces, a few phrases
like rock walls, twin marks from wagon wheels on granite.
The tell-tale lilacs give away the cellar hole:
magnetic lilacs, like nineteenth-century girls
in pinafores and blossom sprays, stationed
beside th... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
328db687849a7838 | Canto IV | Ezra Pound | Palace in smoky light,
Troy but a heap of smouldering boundary stones,
ANAXIFORMINGES! Aurunculeia!
Hear me. Cadmus of Golden Prows!
The silver mirrors catch the bright stones and flare,
Dawn, to our waking, drifts in the green cool light;
Dew-haze blurs, in the grass, pale ankles moving.
Beat, beat, whirr, t... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-7",
"S3-4",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
522c499924e40216 | Air | Don Bogen | Air as lost time
Voice of a cloud, of a ghost crowned with nimbus
Smack-thin, it lingers forty years
I thought it came from the jeweled world we’d seen
Everything stuffed, urgent, glittering alive
But it was just pleasure, blank and sure
Now what is there to sing
From speakers, the tune folds and fades in waves
... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
b416a6fb58ad59ab | Stethoscope | Tom Sleigh | i.m. Denis Johnson, 1949–2017
the unified field
It wasn’t that there was anything to say
that would stop him from feeling this way — the X
of himself splayed out in space
where gravity was weakest. He and his father
and talkative mother
suffering tiny strokes that took away
this syllable from this word, that sy... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S5-2",
"S5-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
78fe1f4f38d7cfd3 | Recollections of the Arabian Nights | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flow'd back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer-morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,
F... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/Islam"
] |
22c33bdf118cab40 | Philomela’s tongue says | Melissa Studdard | you could mistake grief for a diamond
the way it shines when cut into, like fish
eyes in a boat’s drain. The eyes fly
into death seeing everything: the cloud
of alcohol in Sagittarius B2, the ten
billion-trillion-trillion carat diamond
in Centaurus, the soul swimming through
air with its tie hanging silver benea... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-5",
"S10-2",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
6dac25afee036af7 | Frequently Asked Questions: 10 | Camille T. Dungy | Do you see current events differently because you were raised by a black father and are married to a black man?
I am surprised they haven’t left already — things have gotten downright frosty, nearly unbearable.A mob of them is apparently mouthing off outsidewhen I put down my newspaper and we all gatherto stand besid... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
d61162344e087bd9 | Moss | Bruce Guernsey | How must it be to be moss, that slipcover of rocks?— imagine, greening in the dark, longing for north, the silence of birds gone south. How does moss do it, all day in a dank place and never a cough?— a wet dust where light fails, where the chisel cut the name. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
157c3245982d5321 | You! Inez! | Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson | Orange gleams athwart a crimson soulLambent flames; purple passion lurksIn your dusk eyes.Red mouth; flower soft,Your soul leaps up—and flashesStar-like, white, flame-hot.Curving arms, encircling a world of love,You! Stirring the depths of passionate desire! | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
3839412527f1bc3a | St Vincent’s | W. S. Merwin | Thinking of rain clouds that rose over the city
on the first day of the year
in the same month
I consider that I have lived daily and with
eyes open and ears to hear
these years across from St Vincent’s Hospital
above whose roof those clouds rose
its bricks by day a French red under
cross facing south
blown-up... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
b969d7a606b1d273 | At the Executed Murderer's Grave | James Wright | for J. L. D.
Why should we do this? What good is it to us? Above all, how can we do such a thing? How can it possibly be done?
—Freud
1
My name is James A. Wright, and I was born
Twenty-five miles from this infected grave,
In Martins Ferry, Ohio, where one slave
To Hazel-Atlas Glass became my father.
He tried t... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
2c31daffb0abe8f8 | Lunar Shatters | Melissa Broder | I came into the world a young man
Then I broke me off
Still the sea and clouds are Pegasus colors
My heart is Pegasus colors but to get there I must go back
Back to the time before I was a woman
Before I broke me off to make a flattened lap
And placed thereon a young man
Where I myself could have dangled
And ho... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
6996de38d09bdae9 | The seder's order | Marge Piercy | The songs we join in
are beeswax candles
burning with no smoke
a clean fire licking at the evening
our voices small flames quivering.
The songs string us like beads
on the hour. The ritual is
its own melody that leads us
where we have gone before
and hope to go again, the comfort
of year after year. Order:
w... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
0abd62c934282a08 | Mine | Shail D. Patel | Pain trains an undisciplined mind. I will end yours if you end mine. Little feet, little feet are playing Hopscotch among the landmines. Hope has worked miracles before. If yours didn't, how can mine? I could have learned to welcome night, If only you had been mine. How dare you put words in God's mouth, Shail? Why... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-4",
"S5-7",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
1d864ef2897c5d2e | Wake Me in South Galway | Richard Tillinghast | Wake me in South Galway, or better yet
In Clare. You'll know the pub I have in mind.
Improvise a hearse—one of those decrepit
Postal vans would suit me down to the ground—
A rust-addled Renault, Kelly green with a splash
Of Oscar Wilde yellow stirred in to clash
With the dazzling perfect meadows and limestone
On the co... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S9-1",
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
a56a81d95658a558 | The Sleigh-Bells | Susanna Moodie | ’Tis merry to hear, at evening time,
By the blazing hearth the sleigh-bells chime;
To know the bounding steeds bring near
The loved one to our bosoms dear.
Ah, lightly we spring the fire to raise,
Till the rafters glow with the ruddy blaze;
Those merry sleigh-bells, our hearts keep time
Responsive to their fairy chime.... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S8-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fae81eb477067d8b | Song of Myself: 36 | Walt Whitman | Stretch’d and still lies the midnight,
Two great hulls motionless on the breast of the darkness,
Our vessel riddled and slowly sinking, preparations to pass to the one we have conquer’d,
The captain on the quarter-deck coldly giving his orders through a countenance white as a sheet,
Near by the corpse of the child that... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
21e81a9e6dae0035 | Easter | Jill Alexander Essbaum | is my seasonof defeat.Though allis green and death is done, I feel alone.As if the stonerolled offfrom the headof the tombis lodgedin the doorframeof my room,and everyoneI’ve ever lovedlives happilyjust pastmy able reach.And each time Jesus risesI’m remindedof this marblefact:they are notcoming back. | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ffe44780d6d4efa1 | Bees, so many bees. | Anna Jackson | After twenty years of marriage, we walked out
of the bush and on to a rough dirt road
we followed till we saw a pond
we might be able to get to.
The ground was boggy and buzzing.
The pond was thick with weed
and slime. It was not
the sort of pond anyone would
swim in, but we did — picking and sliding
into the ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
3c5d263d4f36db43 | The Final Morbidity of the Interior Embezzler | Henry Taylor | It may seem morbid of an embezzler to keep a memorandum, yet many of them do. It may be mere neatness. -Wallace Stevens, "Surety and Fidelity Claims"
I've made a little sluice-gate in the flow
of cash across the spreadsheet on my screen.
Amid torrential chaos and foreseen
disasters it maintains its small and ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
ee64c5e097ad1899 | Language Lesson 1976 | Heather McHugh | When Americans say a man
takes liberties, they mean
he’s gone too far. In Philadelphia today I saw
a kid on a leash look mom-ward
and announce his fondest wish: one
bicentennial burger, hold
the relish. Hold is forget,
in American.
On the courts of Philadelphia
the rich prepare
to serve, to fault. The languag... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
126e852fb09f779a | Late Melt | Melissa Broder | I had not vomited in so long
Someone put the hex on my true-to-selfness
Some sorcerer kept me far from my guts
The guts I feared would choke me
And make me ashamed of having no wings
And drown my own heart
I know how to survive a feeling
But I forgot that I knew it
A manic forgetter froze my meats
I kept askin... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
6d2ed2bb82d9ee5d | Thoughts While Walking | Rachel Wetzsteon | I hate the travel logs that tell you
more about the pain than the place,
yet here I am again, narrating
the same old story to myself
time after time. The papers circling
in an alley, watched by a hunchback,
mimic my plans and their preventer;
when an old man treats the drycleaner
to a lengthy sermon on spotting... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fb6df58c2a6f03a4 | I won’t come | Kabir | I won’t come
I won’t go
I won’t live
I won’t die
I’ll keep uttering
The name
And lose myself
In it
I’m bowl
And I’m platter
I’m man
And I’m woman
I’m grapefruit
And I’m sweet lime
I’m Hindu
And I’m Muslim
I’m fish
And I’m net
I’m fisherman
And I’m time
I’m nothing
Says Kabir
I’m not among the livi... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
9fd9ff517c580c0b | Biographer | Samuel Menashe | Authorized, booked By my steadfast prose The dead I ghost write Shed shadows that shine With hindsight, hearsay— The last word is mine | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
001b2f41116dcf2d | Lullaby | John Fuller | Sleep little baby, clean as a nut,
Your fingers uncurl and your eyes are shut.
Your life was ours, which is with you.
Go on your journey. We go too.
The bat is flying round the house
Like an umbrella turned into a mouse.
The moon is astonished and so are the sheep:
Their bells have come to send you to sleep.
Oh... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
3b64f81492c7483a | In this short Life that only lasts an hour (1292) | Emily Dickinson | In this short Life that only lasts an hour
How much - how little - is within our power | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0dc5d5fb040b0447 | What You Pray Toward | Patricia Smith | “The orgasm has replaced the cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.”
—Malcolm Muggeridge, 1966
I.
Hubbie 1 used to get wholly pissed when I made
myself come. I’m right here!, he’d sputter, blood
popping to the surface of his fuzzed cheeks, goddamn it, I’m right here! By that time, I was
in ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
5bc817e558538187 | Eightfold Chant | Brian Komei Dempster | Church of broken toasters and singed fuses,
church of the dripping roof and chipped chimney stack,
of the flooded garage and its split door,
gas-hissing pipes and sibilant water heaters,
church of piss-poor light and shaky ladders
where I unchoke windows and dislodge chopsticks
from pipes, smooth curled up wallpa... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
29c13df675a75e80 | The Lake | Sophie Cabot Black | Day and night, the lake dreams of sky.
A privacy as old as the mountains
And her up there, stuck among peaks. The whole eye
Fastened on hawk, gatherings of cloud or stars,
So little trespass. An airplane once
Crossed her brow; she searched but could not find
A face. Having lived with such strict beauty
She comes... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
2e5b4f72ab3ff854 | Wingfoot Lake | Rita Dove | (Independence Day, 1964)
On her 36th birthday, Thomas had shown her
her first swimming pool. It had been
his favorite color, exactly—just
so much of it, the swimmers’ white arms jutting
into the chevrons of high society.
She had rolled up her window
and told him to drive on, fast.
Now this act of mercy: four da... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
fbbeab5338b35de6 | Against Epiphany | Fred Marchant | What god was it that would open
earth’s picture book and see the two
of us on a road, snowfields glittering
on every side and poplars bent like
the fingers of an old man clutching
what he loved about the sun?
Which one was it that would peer
into our thatched, white-washed
farmhouse, and see the fur, flies,
an... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
2470065b4c33d31f | Working Habits | George Starbuck | Federico Garcia Lorca
used to uncork a
bottle or two of wine
whenever the duende dwindled for a line.
James Joyce
would have preferred a choice
of brandies in decanters made by Tiffany’s,
but rotgut was the shortcut to epiphanies.
The Later Henry James
bet shots of rum against himself in games
of how much can... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
489df50466248ffa | The Buried Life | Matthew Arnold | Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
9efeee26f64e42c4 | Love at Thirty-Two Degrees | Katherine Larson | I Today I dissected a squid,
the late acacia tossing its pollen
across the black of the lab bench.
In a few months the maples
will be bleeding. That was the thing:
there was no blood
only textures of gills creased like satin,
suction cups as planets in rows. Be careful
not to cut your finger | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-7",
"S9-6",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
478916562bef2414 | Andrea del Sarto | Robert Browning | But do not let us quarrel any more, No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once: Sit down and all shall happen as you wish. You turn your face, but does it bring your heart? I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear, Treat his own subject after his own way, Fix his own time, accept too his own price, And shut the ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
d3810022b5b5ae36 | The Birth | Dorothea Lasky | The birth isn’t about poetry
It is about screaming pain on a Sunday
Hailing a cab and head racing
To the hospital, now so close to the new apartment
I had a baby inside of me
But no one expected it to happen so fast
Or then at least they said they didn’t
Maybe they expected it to happen so fast
All along
Alone... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
39c4db0239856239 | There Are Black | Jimmy Santiago Baca | There are black guards slamming cell gates
on black men,
And brown guards saying hello to brown men
with numbers on their backs,
And white guards laughing with white cons,
and red guards, few, say nothing
to red inmates as they walk by to ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
492947f76f41b5d5 | In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Has Been Condemned | James Wright | I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.
I saw, down river,
At Twenty-third and Water Streets
By the vinegar works,
The doors open in early evening.
Swinging their purses, the women
Poured d... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
2990f9bed0dd52ab | Self-Portrait with Crow | William Archila | As I punch the time-clock, I know
men will be gunned down at dawn
in a distant continent, someone
will dart into a café with a bomb nestled
in the belly, by the roadside a woman
will moan over the body of a man,
shrunken, stretched on the earth, that God
will finger the forehead of a dying country,
all of it fu... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
65e76b946224a7dd | Eden | Thomas Traherne | A learned and a happy ignorance Divided me From all the vanity, From all the sloth, care, pain, and sorrow that advance The madness and the misery Of men. No error, no distraction I Saw soil the earth, or overcloud the sky. I knew not that there was a serpent’s sting, Whose poison she... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
b01ac4cdd06e880c | All-American | David Hernandez | I’m this tiny, this statuesque, and everywherein between, and everywhere in betweenbony and overweight, my shadow cannot holdone shape in Omaha, in Tuscaloosa, in Aberdeen. My skin is mocha brown, two shades darkerthan taupe, your question is racist, nutmeg, beige,I’m not offended by your question at all.Penis or vagin... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
076d1ee847e1dbf4 | Fort Comfort | T.J. Jarrett | After “M. Degas Teaches Art & Science at Durfee Intermediate School, Detroit, 1942” by Philip Levine
The nun stood by the chalkboard and
wrote the word America, underlined
it twice and asked: What do you see here?
Elizabeth shot up her hand and said:It is home. My grandmother came
here so that we could live. | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S8-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
021f8c9092df8b03 | Sublimation Point | Jason Schneiderman | for M.B.
The answer is entropy—how smell works—
little bits of everything—always spinning
off from where they were—flying off at random
into the world—which is to say into air.
There are other ways of solid to gas—
they’re substance specific, like iodine,
or dry ice—how I felt when I saw you—
straight to a new ... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S8-6",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
49fb2c596920f656 | Psalm For My Faith | Jack Agüeros | Lord, it’s not true
That my faith is cooling.
It’s just that people
Are saying that candle smoke
Has caused cancer in church mice.
And I also worry that candle light
Is too weak to reach your cloud.
Do I need a hydrogen candle?
Are the Angels into lasers?
Lord, as I think about it,
Lately I haven’t had much t... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
801eedccaf6555c5 | from Stone: 98 | Osip Mandelstam | The clock-cricket singing,
that’s the fever rustling.
The dry stove hissing,
that’s the fire in red silk.
The teeth of mice milling
the thin supports of life,
that’s the swallow my daughter
who unmoored my boat.
Rain-mumble on the roof—
that’s the fire in black silk.
But even at the bottom of the sea
the bir... | [
"S2",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
177458391a8c3a65 | Letter from the Mountains | James K. Baxter | There was a message. I have forgotten it.
There was a journey to make. It did not come to anything.
But these nights, my friend, under the iron roof
Of this old rabbiters' hut where the traps
Are still hanging up on nails,
Lying in a dry bunk, I feel strangely at ease.
The true dreams, those longed-for strangers,... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
2f9c039b1d14bd59 | ‘One morn I left him in his bed’ | Elizabeth Drew Barstow Stoddard | One morn I left him in his bed; A moment after some one said, ‘Your child is dying – he is dead.’ We made him ready for his rest, Flowers in his hair, and on his breast His little hands together prest. We sailed by night across the sea; So, floating from the world were we, Apart from sympathy, we Three. The wild sea mo... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
81bcc49661e1403a | Dothead | Amit Majmudar | Well yes, I said, my mother wears a dot.
I know they said "third eye" in class, but it's not
an eye eye, not like that. It's not some freak
third eye that opens on your forehead like
on some Chernobyl baby. What it means
is, what it's showing is, there's this unseen
eye, on the inside. And she's marking it.
It's... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
ef306dbc068a80f4 | The Flowers | Stéphane Mallarmé | From golden showers of the ancient skies,
On the first day, and the eternal snow of stars,
You once unfastened giant calyxes
For the young earth still innocent of scars:
Young gladioli with the necks of swans,
Laurels divine, of exiled souls the dream,
Vermilion as the modesty of dawns
Trod by the footsteps of t... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-6",
"S2-8",
"S2-9",
"S10-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
b518a8a7cea29e5f | The Window | Robert Creeley | Position is where you put it, where it is, did you, for example, that large tank there, silvered, with the white church along- side, lift all that, to what purpose? How heavy the slow world is with everything put in place. Some man walks by, a car beside him on the dropped road, a leaf of yellow color... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
93defeef5861bfe9 | Brian Age Seven | Mark Doty | Grateful for their tour
of the pharmacy,
the first-grade class
has drawn these pictures,
each self-portrait taped
to the window-glass,
faces wide to the street,
round and available,
with parallel lines for hair.
I like this one best: Brian,
whose attenuated name
fills a quarter of the frame,
stretched besid... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
3b0519feaad1d196 | Yesterday | Edgar Albert Guest | I’ve trod the links with many a man, And played him club for club; ’Tis scarce a year since I began And I am still a dub. But this I’ve noticed as we strayed Along the bunkered way, No one with me has ever played As he did yesterday. It makes no difference what the drive, Together as we walk, Till w... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-5"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
3a3bcdc19c295843 | November Night | Adelaide Crapsey | Listen. . With faint dry sound, Like steps of passing ghosts, The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees And fall. | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-8",
"S2-10",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
f297a5f4b8233ec1 | Now the Slow Blood | Robert Fernandez | Slow the voice goes slower.Slow the slow rain down.Slow the narrow fellow in the grass stiffens.Now the slow blood stirs.Slow the voice goes slower:Soft lead, soft enough to eat.We dine on soft lead with lampreys.Slow the voice goes down to harden.Slow the silt reaches the bottom,And Davy Jones eatsHis slow meal of rub... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4045f9e1ee032770 | Sonnets for Five Seasons | Anne Stevenson | (i.m. Charles Leslie Stevenson, 1909-79)This House
Which represents you, as my bones do, waits,
all pores open, for the stun of snow. Which will come,
as it always does, between breaths, between nights
of no wind and days of the nulled sun.
And has to be welcome. All instinct wants to anticipate
faceless fields, ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
33c217c3c5a96489 | A Pot of Red Lentils | Peter Pereira | simmers on the kitchen stove. All afternoon dense kernels surrender to the fertile juices, their tender bellies swelling with delight. In the yard we plant rhubarb, cauliflower, and artichokes, cupping wet earth over tubers, our labor the germ of later sustenance and renewal. Across the field the sound of a baby crying... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
f23b316d4f6eaa6c | Falling Leaves and Early Snow | Kenneth Rexroth | In the years to come they will say,
“They fell like the leaves
In the autumn of nineteen thirty-nine.”
November has come to the forest,
To the meadows where we picked the cyclamen.
The year fades with the white frost
On the brown sedge in the hazy meadows,
Where the deer tracks were black in the morning.
Ice fo... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
bd25f7ba109509c2 | From Her Notes | Nomi Stone | My last Sabbath,
I follow the girls, who sneak into
the wedding
tent, scattered with sun
flower seeds and remnants of
celebration. They
each stand up on a
table. Take a crushed beer can
as a microphone,
sing and move their
fifteen-year-old hips. I watch,
clap for them, until
a small face peers in
the door.... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
30460a98df0054dd | Tides | Helen Hunt Jackson | O patient shore, that canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know’st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds the... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
21a8fe50c31b27e9 | Common Dust | Georgia Douglas Johnson | And who shall separate the dust
What later we shall be:
Whose keen discerning eye will scan
And solve the mystery?
The high, the low, the rich, the poor,
The black, the white, the red,
And all the chromatique between,
Of whom shall it be said:
Here lies the dust of Africa;
Here are the sons of Rome;
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
02e04ca0e4ee3904 | Another Road Home | Scott Cairns | After Stevens
It was when he said expansively There is no such thing as the truth | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
2029d7b904eb2455 | Three Sonnets | James Galvin | Where I live distance is the primal fact
The world is mostly far away and small
Drifting along through cause and effect like sleep
As when the distance unlikeliest of stems
Bears the unlikely blossom of the wind
Engendering our only weather dry
Except in winter pine trees live o... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S2-10",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
08f0d710e2f05d13 | Twilight Blues | Samuel Menashe | (Morton St. Pier)
Lying here
Flat on my back
I can almost see
Myself in the morgue
On a slab, tagged
I am the corpse
No one will have
Not stabbed, stored
No one takes my life
It goes by the board | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a7a66e4a7011eae5 | Family Reunion | Catherine Barnett | My father scolded us all for refusing his liquor. He kept buying tequila, and steak for the grill, until finally we joined him, making margaritas, cutting the fat off the bone. When he saw how we drank, my sister shredding the black labels into her glass while his remaining grandchildren dragged their thin bunk bed mat... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
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