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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ff5c3db69011d9e2 | I Sing the Body Electric | Walt Whitman | 1 I sing the body electric, The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them, They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul. Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile t... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
ef17cfd14eb67176 | Ichabod | John Greenleaf Whittier | So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
Revile him not, the Tempter hath
A snare for all;
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath,
Befit his fall!
Oh, dumb be passion’s stormy rage,
When he who might
Have lighted up and led his age,
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
91c40a639c4a78e5 | Summer | Cynthia Zarin | for Max Ritvo
I
Three weeks until summer and then—what?
Midsummer’s gravity makes our heads spin
each hour a gilt thread spool, winding through
the second hand, gossamer fin de semaine,fin de siècle, fin slicing the water
of the too-cold-to-breathe bay, molten silver,
then receding as if we hadn’t seen it,
sult... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
736f8c79bf153a36 | The Blessing of the Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog | Alicia Ostriker | To be blessed said the old woman is to live and work so hard God’s love washes right through you like milk through a cowTo be blessed said the dark red tulip is to knock their eyes out with the slug of lust implied by your up-ended skirtTo be blessed said the dog is to have a pinch of God inside you and all the other d... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
dee481c1d97fa6cd | No Children, No Pets | Sue Ellen Thompson | I bring the cat’s body home from the vet’s in a running-shoe box held shut with elastic bands. Then I clean the corners where she has eaten and slept, scrubbing the hard bits of food from the baseboard, dumping the litter and blasting the pan with a hose. The plastic dishes I hide in the basement, the pee- soaked towel... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
a0631f7270a91604 | Astrophil and Stella 15: You that do search for every purling spring | Sir Philip Sidney | You that do search for every purling spring Which from the ribs of old Parnassus flows, And every flower, not sweet perhaps, which grows Near thereabouts, into your poesy wring; Ye that do dictionary's method bring Into your rimes, running in rattling rows; You that poor Petrarch's long-deceased woes With new-born sigh... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
f1f52b22a14258ac | Zazen on Ching-t’ing Mountain | Li Po | The birds have vanished down the sky.
Now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me,
until only the mountain remains. | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-1",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Buddhism",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e4d652e2cd363e4b | Wind | Mike White | Not a remarkable wind. So when the bistro’s patio umbrella blew suddenly free and pitched into the middle of the road, it put a stop to the afternoon. Something white and amazing was blocking the way. A waiter in a clean apron appeared, not quite certain, shielding his eyes, wary of our rumbling engines. He knelt in th... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
b23f944a97316115 | Big City Speech | W. S. Di Piero | Use meAbuse me Turn wheels of fire on manhole hotheadsSing meSour me Secrete dark matter’s sheen on our smarting skinRise and shineIn puddle shallows under every Meryl Cheryl Caleb Syd somnambulists and sleepyheadsWake usSpeak to us Bless what you’ve nurture... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
003abc017c2776d7 | A Lyric of the Dawn | Edwin Markham | Alone I list
In the leafy tryst;
Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep—
Silent the phantom wood in waters deep:
No footfall of a wind along the pass
Startles a harebell—stirs a blade of grass.
Yonder the wandering weeds,
Enchanted in the light,
Stand in the gusty hollows, still and white;
Yond... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
0549586a390f7b9c | The Living Teaching | Dana Levin | You wanted to be a butcherbut they made you be a lawyer.You brought home presentswhen it was nobody’s birthday.Smashed platters of meatshe cut against the grain.Were a kind
of portable shrine — I was supposed to cultivate a field of bliss, then return to my ordinary mind. You burned the filesand moved the office.M... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
6f6f8e41c911e52e | Lares and Penates | Caki Wilkinson | The suburbs? Well, for heaven’s sake who wouldn’t choose the absolute convenience? Cheap, a quick commute, and close to Lowe’s, a Steak ’n Shake, our own police and DMV, a library, a lake. Esteemed domestic diplomats, we trump conundrums (His and Hers) and smother any fuss... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
248ebb6ac1f96952 | You Can't Buy Shoes in a Painting | Jill Osier | You can't even buy a soda. You can only
see these things, see a mother steer
her son to the car, his head cocked
licking his ice cream.
Earlier, driving, trying to keep
between two cornfields, I couldn't see myself
into a map, couldn't be anywhere in it,
though I knew all the patient states
between us.
Pigeons... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
ff67e424c9c1ddcd | Maggid | Marge Piercy | The courage to let go of the door, the handle.
The courage to shed the familiar walls whose very
stains and leaks are comfortable as the little moles
of the upper arm; stains that recall a feast,
a child’s naughtiness, a loud blattering storm
that slapped the roof hard, pouring through.
The courage to abandon the... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-6",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
1fcec031355e2a01 | Sloughing Off the Gentlemanly Sports | Julian Talamantez Brolaski | What makes that fox so grabby for the stars,
Begging like boys do? I meant to fully
Gild that lily, till less like virile Mars
It’s clepd the pansiest of pansy,
The caducous calyx of a poppy.
Cuz, step into these arms where you belong
A coup at the prospect of this lording,
A gleam in the gloom with serpentine s... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
93203a48e30b40ac | Thompson’s Lunch Room—Grand Central Station | Amy Lowell | STUDY IN WHITES
Wax-white—
Floor, ceiling, walls.
Ivory shadows
Over the pavement
Polished to cream surfaces
By constant sweeping.
The big room is coloured like the petals
Of a great magnolia,
And has a patina
Of flower bloom
Which makes it shine dimly
Under the electric lamps.
Chairs are ranged in rows
L... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
eefe3ed5f4a5ce42 | Penumbra | Amy Lowell | As I sit here in the quiet Summer night,
Suddenly, from the distant road, there comes
The grind and rush of an electric car.
And, from still farther off,
An engine puffs sharply,
Followed by the drawn-out shunting scrape of a freight train.
These are the sounds that men make
In the long business of living.
They... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
dc2691cc6b0aab86 | Standing on the Bridge at Dolceacqua | Martín Espada | My only love sprung from my only hate!
— Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene v
At forty, I studied the mirror. I poked my mouth to free a trapped grain
of hamburger, and a tooth broke off between my fingers. I felt nothing.
The dentist said: The tooth is dead. The root is dead. The X-rays show signs
of trauma to the ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-8",
"S8-4",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
83cda67781babb10 | Grass | Joyce Sidman | I grow in places others can’t, where wind is high and water scant. I drink the rain, I eat the sun; before the prairie winds I run. I see, I sprout, I grow, I creep, and in the ice and snow, I sleep. On steppe or veld or pampas dry, beneath the grand, enormous sky, I make my humble, bladed bed. And wh... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
98b08fd606b1b610 | That Magnificent Part the Chorus Does about Tragedy | Lisa Olstein | There is a theory of crying that tears are the body’s way of
releasing excess elements from the brain. There is a theory of
dreaming that each one serves to mend something torn, like
cells of new skin lining up to cover a hole. I’m not one to have
dreams about flying, but last week we were thirty feet above the
ba... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging"
] |
e9e2d15432211956 | Winter | Timothy Liu | How long will the bed that we made together
hold us there? Your stubbled cheeks grazed my skin
from evening to dawn, a cloud of scattered
particles now, islands of shaving foam
slowly spiraling down the drain, blood drops
stippling the water pink as I kiss
the back of your neck, our faces framed inside
a medic... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
66e5cece5f3ba1c3 | The Test of Fantasy | Joanne Kyger | 1.
It unfolds and ripples like a banner, downward. All the stories
come folding out. The smells and flowers begin to come back, as
the tapestry is brightly colored and brocaded. Rabbits and violets.
Who asked you to come over? She got her foot in the door and
would not remove it, elbowing and talking swiftly. ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
32706302c520d9ed | Songs from The Beggar’s Opera: Air IV-Cotillion | John Gay | Act II, Scene iv, Air IV—Cotillion | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-5"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/New Love"
] |
975015171c0e8749 | The Green Man | W. S. Di Piero | rumdumb from last night’s shrubbery trystexhales soot, fernseed, shoots and vines,brings his hot breath from the city park’s wood,saying a song we don’t understandthrough the briar and bay leaves of his beard.And in Philadelphia, 1954,out of late autumn’s darkening he came,a junkman lugging a Penn Fruit cart,straw bris... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
61e7fd3adc69d488 | Quinceañera | Judith Ortiz Cofer | My dolls have been put away like deadchildren in a chest I will carrywith me when I marry.I reach under my skirt to feela satin slip bought for this day. It is softas the inside of my thighs. My hairhas been nailed back with my mother’sblack hairpins to my skull. Her handsstretched my eyes open as she twistedbraids int... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e363516a44cbfdea | Hustle | Jericho Brown | They lie like stones and dare not shift. Even asleep, everyone hears in prison.Dwayne Betts deserves more than this dry ink for his teenage years in prison.In the film we keep watching, Nina takes Darius to a steppers ball. Lovers hustle, slide, and dip as if none of them has a brother in prison.I eat with humans who t... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
422d9e6d1320522d | Chicken Little In Love | Eliza Griswold | I’m through! I’m through!she says and resays.The years pass.Her feathers gray.Her eggs lay themselvesless frequently. The sky falls. | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Aging"
] |
3f1f75a000364fd1 | Four Portraits of Fire | Lorna Dee Cervantes | 1
I find a strange knowledge of wind,
an open door in the mountain
pass where everything intersects.
Believe me. This will not pass.
This is a world where flags
contain themselves, and are still,
marked by their unfurled edges.
Lean stuff sways on the boughs
of pitch pine: silver, almost tinsel,
all light gon... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
2ee24fa3d280cac4 | Taking to the Hills | Rachel Wetzsteon | If walking, like wine, only abets a sad mood
let’s try it, I said, and I did:
over these hills that have never known sorrow
no thoughtful moon passes. Dig until a hill is level, and unearth
only earth. Take pride in knowing the chemical makeup
of rain, the sum total of harmful vapors in any sunset.
For if you mus... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-9",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0a1c81ef6bc16a24 | Doubled Mirrors | Kenneth Rexroth | It is the dark of the moon.
Late at night, the end of summer,
The autumn constellations
Glow in the arid heaven.
The air smells of cattle, hay,
And dust. In the old orchard
The pears are ripe. The trees
Have sprouted from old rootstocks
And the fruit is inedible.
As I pass them I hear something
Rustling and g... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
a46d55af0cc6357b | In the Grand Manner | Richard Emil Braun | They have shown her facing, from a range of barley
at times and from the patio. She wrings a sprig
of mint in a walled garden; behold, the dimple that
none reckoned on, careless burdens of plums, of parsley.
I thank those gentlemen: many an old master
is needed if there shall be love. I thank Velasquez
more: for ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
f23c3f6595c75904 | Canto XVI | Ezra Pound | And before hell mouth; dry plain
and two mountains;
On the one mountain, a running form,
and another
In the turn of the hill; in hard steel
The road like a slow screw’s thread,
The angle almost imperceptible,
so that the circuit seemed hardly to rise;
And the running f... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S9-7",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
ad91193b5c25d72e | The Order In Which Things Are Broken | Desirée Alvarez | Ancients threw the masks down the cenote—the faces smashed first in little ways before the long drop, an eye or an ear broken, a mouth snapped in half. Then, lifted from the well, two thousand years later, still grinning and golden. The loose spooling of two people fast unravels—how we let go of time spent, how heat fa... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5b722c6423bc8549 | Unholy Sonnet 11 | Mark Jarman | Half asleep in prayer I said the right thing
And felt a sudden pleasure come into
The room or my own body. In the dark,
Charged with a change of atmosphere, at first
I couldn’t tell my body from the room.
And I was wide awake, full of this feeling,
Alert as though I’d heard a doorknob twist,
A drawer pulled, and... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
575b7c612bca5799 | The Gaffe | C. K. Williams | 1.
If that someone who’s me yet not me yet who judges me is always with me,
as he is, shouldn’t he have been there when I said so long ago that thing I said?
If he who rakes me with such not trivial shame for minor sins now were there then,
shouldn’t he have warned me he’d even now devastate me for my unpardonable ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
11cbf6b73aca7b63 | The Market-Place | Walter de La Mare | My mind is like a clamorous market-place. All day in wind, rain, sun, its babel wells; Voice answering to voice in tumult swells. Chaffering and laughing, pushing for a place, My thoughts haste on, gay, strange, poor, simple, base; This one buys dust, and that a bauble sells: But none to any scrutiny hint... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
25bb4d2536321dab | On Rebellion | Prageeta Sharma | It was not a romantic sentiment, nor self-determined; rather, it was embarrassing.
My love of spearheading, from introvert to extrovert,
from cowardice to consequence, from the enjambment to the unspecified dunce.
It was a sabotage, a reckless moment: a purulent, tawny decree.
All temptation puzzled me and drew me ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
81cecf470682a49f | “Feuerzauber” | Louis Untermeyer | I never knew the earth had so much gold—
The fields run over with it, and this hill
Hoary and old,
Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill.
Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good
This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God!
This fringe of wood,
Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod.
You too, be... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S2-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Spring"
] |
ec31b49e0090eae3 | High Windows | Philip Larkin | When I see a couple of kids
And guess he’s fucking her and she’s
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise
Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives—
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide
To happiness, endlessl... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
01e57ef97ae6710a | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 39 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Old warder of these buried bones,
And answering now my random stroke
With fruitful cloud and living smoke,
Dark yew, that graspest at the stones
And dippest toward the dreamless head,
To thee too comes the golden hour
When flower is feeling after flower;
But Sorrow—fixt upon t... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
dc3a48b79b05e860 | Chanson Philosophique | Timothy Steele | The nominalist in me invents
A life devoid of precedents.
The realist takes a different view:
He claims that all I feel and do
Billions of others felt and did
In history’s Pre-me period.
Arguing thus, both voices speak
A partial truth. I am unique,
Yet the unceasing self-distress
Of desire buffets me no less
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
ed7045724cb82338 | Balakirev's Dream (1905) | Tomas Tranströmer | Milij Balakirev
1837-1910, Russian Composer
The black grand piano, the gleaming spider
stood trembling in the midst of its music-net.
In the concert hall a land was emerging
where the stones were no heavier than dew.
But Balakirev fell asleep during the music
and dreamed a dream about the tsar's carriage.
It ro... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
1e83bfd84d8c99fb | A New Year's Eve in War Time | Thomas Hardy | 1915-1916
I Phantasmal fears, And the flap of the flame, And the throb of the clock, And a loosened slate, And the blind night's drone, Which tiredly the spectral pines intone! II And the blood i... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
590bec9188afcc26 | Epithalamion | Robert Fernandez | At once this dragnet of cousins
Whips its way into your presence saying None of them among us. They are
Oracles on the court of midnight,
The tight filigree of a mind or your
Splashing around in, your pandemonium
Of copper graffiti inexpertly put up.
They make weapons of furled hands.
“We will walk, but our bone... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
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"S8-7",
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
169408f75489340e | stop bath | Kirby Knowlton | most of my regrets have to do with water, light filtered through shower curtain, your skin like yellowed paper. i sat on bathroom tiles cold like clammy hands i didn’t want to hold and waited for you. i didn’t think to be embarrassed then. neither of us co... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-1",
"S10-5",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
fec8a01f8febc22e | Bat | D. H. Lawrence | At evening, sitting on this terrace,
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ...
When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing
Brown hills surrounding ...
When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio
A green light enter... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
1168605fd6da86e8 | From “The Wife, Ezekiel & God” | Petra White | So I spake unto the people in the morning: and at even my wife died; and I did in the morning as I was commanded.
— Ezekiel 24:18
She is approaching him, God, he sees her
in his eye-edge, a tiny gold speck
getting bigger, scintillating. Her beauty
lashes him with its sword —
but she has heard all this before.
Sh... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-2",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
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"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
6b67ab8769ad3545 | May | Karen Volkman | In May’s gaud gown and ruby reckoning
the old saw wind repeats a colder thing.
Says, you are the bluest body I ever seen.
Says, dance that skeletal startle the way I might.
Radius, ulna, a catalogue of flex.
What do you think you’re grabbing
with those gray hands? What do you think
you’re hunting, cat-mouth cree... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Spring"
] |
c00287dd01cb0395 | Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse | Matthew Arnold | Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused With rain, where thick the crocus blows, Past the dark forges long disused, The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride, Through forest, up the mountain-side. The autumnal evening darkens round, The wind is up, and drives the rain; While, hark! fa... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-11",
"S10-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
d18845d688d2eb60 | The Feed | M.L. Smoker | Several of my cousins lean up against the house, taking long drags
from the pack of Marlboros we share. We have always been this way
—addicted and generous. A pow wow tape plays from inside the open
garage where two old uncles are thinking to themselves in the safety
of its shadows. Our aunties are in the kitchen, ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
f8b6b582d4f83659 | Baseball | Gail Mazur | for John Limon
The game of baseball is not a metaphor
and I know it’s not really life.
The chalky green diamond, the lovely
dusty brown lanes I see from airplanes
multiplying around the cities
are only neat playing fields.
Their structure is not the frame
of history carved out of forest,
that is not what I see... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
322791dd692dc6c9 | From Space | Katharine Coles | You are smaller than I rememberAnd so is the house, set downhillAfloat in a sea of scrub oak. From up hereIt’s an ordinary box with gravelSpread over its lid, weighting it, butInside it’s full of shadows and sky.Clouds pull themselves over dryGrass, which, if I’m not mistaken, will eruptAny minute in flame. Only A spa... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
863171c380b00bb0 | Youth and Calm | Matthew Arnold | 'Tis death! and peace, indeed, is here,And ease from shame, and rest from fear.There's nothing can dismarble nowThe smoothness of that limpid brow.But is a calm like this, in truth,The crowning end of life and youth,And when this boon rewards the dead,Are all debts paid, has all been said?And is the heart of youth so l... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Aging"
] |
bb3764678b63a0f8 | Lone Star Clattering | Denise Riley | What got done to me stains
through my hopes of passing
as fully human — though my
“bad blood” won’t gloss that;
to canter around its crimson
rosette would tart up a harm
more my postwar bad luck
than a told shame’s mother.
Still, the pose: Say yellow rose
go hard & plain to Amarillo | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
c37035385727c8ea | Woman Watches Ocean on a Reef through a Glass-Bottomed Boat | Angela Jackson | In the ocean one fish
swallows the other:
a geometric progression of
loss.
You are bigger than I.
The calamity of love
swelling out larger than us.
And what destiny partakes of
our dilemma?
Swallows the cause and effect:
eyes and kissing mouths and enlarged
parts wanting to breathe and wanting.
There is no ... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
b8eab566b6c66095 | Love Poem for an Enemy | Richard Katrovas | I, as sinned against as sinning,
take small pleasure from the winning
of our decades-long guerrilla war.
For from my job I've wanted more
than victory over one who'd tried
to punish me before he died,
and now, neither of us dead,
we haunt these halls in constant dread
of drifting past the other's life
while long-term m... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
eb5d79f541cc43f0 | 1 January 1965 | Joseph Brodsky | The Wise Men will unlearn your name.
Above your head no star will flame.
One weary sound will be the same—
the hoarse roar of the gale.
The shadows fall from your tired eyes
as your lone bedside candle dies,
for here the calendar breeds nights
till stores of candles fail.
What prompts this melancholy key?
A lo... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5837ac6469b897ad | Beaded Baby Moccasins | Joanne Dominique Dwyer | If love is like a doll’s shoe —the color of nascent snowthat laces over the ankle or the polychromatic beaded baby moccasins we saw lying in the museum drawerthat belonged to an infant from a sea tribe of seal hunters.Or the rutilant pink blossoms of the locust tree that bloomed in the dark while I slept dreaming of ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
6f71bdcbdc350ff8 | Rope-a-Dope | Declan Ryan | Nothing for days, then a message:“I want to see a fight. An old one,”so I bring a fight to you.You know nothing of these men;even the most famousget to slink in their youth again —for you Foreman is Leviathan, unstoppable;Ali just past his primeflown “home” to muscle back his title.Not sure how you’ll react to violence... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
37ad06db2d7ce18f | The Statue | Ella Higginson | That I might chisel a statue, line on line, Out of a marble’s chaste severities! Angular, harsh; no softened curves to please; Set tears within the eyes to make them shine, And furrows on the brow, deep, stern, yet fine; Gaunt, awkward, tall; no courtier of ease; The trousers bulging at the bony knees; Long... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
f24dd6ffb7928092 | As from a Quiver of Arrows | Carl Phillips | What do we do with the body, do we
burn it, do we set it in dirt or in
stone, do we wrap it in balm, honey,
oil, and then gauze and tip it onto
and trust it to a raft and to water?
What will happen to the memory of his
body, if one of us doesn't hurry now
and write it down fast? Will it be
salt or late light th... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
facab8bbc8800d22 | Wanted | Frank Stanford | Luis Buñuel
A white bull, a cassock, an antique mirror
The famous ones have passed hours in front of,
A midnight blue tuxedo, a fainting couch, a key
To a box of lewd photographs, a swastika,
Twelve bales of hay, three grave plots, a statue
Of Christ holding a heart pierced by a dagger,
A black patch, all kinds ... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film"
] |
0510ec4d071cbf47 | What Kind of Mistress He would Have | Robert Herrick | Be the mistress of my choice,
Clean in manners, clear in voice;
Be she witty, more than wise,
Pure enough, though not precise;
Be she showing in her dress,
Like a civil wilderness,
That the curious may detect
Order in a sweet neglect;
Be she rolling in her eye,
Tempting all the passers by;
And each ringlet of her hair,... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
6dba8f91e83c87ae | yasmeen | Safia Elhillo | i was born
at the rupture the root where
i split from my parallel self i split from
the girl i also could have been
& her name / easy / i know the story
all her life / my mother wanted
a girl named for a flower
whose oil scents all
our mothers /
petals wrung
for their perfume
i was planted
land became ocea... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
973112282ba10e85 | Said the Toad | J. Patrick Lewis | I was really in a muddle
looking over a mud puddle
'cause I didn't have a paddle
or a twig to ride the reef.
But I said, Oh, fiddle-faddle,
this is just a little piddle
of a second fiddle puddle
so I saddled up a leaf.
I set sail on the puddle,
but I reached the muddy middle
and I rocked the leaf a little,
t... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
c23dc1a5b873699e | Very Strong February | Bernadette Mayer | A man and a woman pretend to be white ice
Three men at the lavender door are closed in by the storm
With strong prejudice and money to buy the green pines
One weekend fisherman and blue painters watch
The vivid violet winds blow visibility from the mountain
Beyond the black valley. That means or then you know
You... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
3d066c559c2aeb80 | The New Year | Emma Lazarus | Rosh-Hashanah, 5643
Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled,
And naked branches point to frozen skies.—
When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold,
The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn
A sea of beauty and abundance lies,
Then the new year is born.
Look where the mother of th... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
5b2ac338c3948570 | The Mower | Andrew Marvell | Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use,
Did after him the world seduce;
And from the fields the flow’rs and plants allure,
Where nature was most plain and pure.
He first enclos’d within the garden’s square
A dead and standing pool of air;
And a more luscious earth for them did knead,
Which stup... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S9-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
497e8cd5677e88be | Northern Farmer: Old Style | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Wheer 'asta beän saw long and meä liggin' 'ere aloän?
Noorse? thoort nowt o' a noorse: whoy, Doctor's abeän an' agoän;
Says that I moänt 'a naw moor aäle; but I beänt a fool;
Git ma my aäle, fur I beänt a-gawin' to breäk my rule.
Doctors, they knaws nowt, fur a says what 's nawways true;
Naw soort o' koind o' use to ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
012ec421563412c4 | Alcaic | Tomas Tranströmer | This forest in May. It haunts my whole life:
the invisible moving van. Singing birds.
In silent pools, mosquito larvae's
furiously dancing question marks.
I escape to the same places and same words.
Cold breeze from the sea, the ice-dragon's licking
the back of my neck while the sun gl... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
842f3ddf37cdd80c | loose strife [Listen closely as I sing this] | Quan Barry | Listen closely as I sing this. The man standing at the gate
tottering on his remaining limb is a kind of metronome, his one
leg planted firmly on the earth. Yes, I have made him beautiful
because I aim to lay all my cards on the table. In the book review
the critic writes, “Barry seeks not to judge but to understan... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
f0b6d4dceeffd320 | Moonshine | Yusef Komunyakaa | Drunken laughter escapes
Behind the fence woven
With honeysuckle, up to where
I stand. Daddy’s running-buddy,
Carson, is beside him. In the time
It takes to turn & watch a woman
Tiptoe & pull a sheer blouse off
The clothesline, to see her sun-lit
Dress ride up peasant legs
Like the last image of mercy, three
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
f3f20795194378ea | For Christmas Day | Charles Wesley | Hark, how all the welkin rings,
“Glory to the King of kings;
Peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconcil’d!”
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Universal nature say,
“Christ the Lord is born to-day!”
Christ, by highest Heaven ador’d,
Christ, the everlasting Lord:
Late in time beho... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
613f6ba8b6b93006 | Mysteries of Afternoon and Evening | Rachel Sherwood | The wind is fitful now:soot piles in the corners
of new buildings,
gulls stumble out of place
in ragged branches
to skim against a rise
of pond water. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
e662c8edd85719de | Under the Dome | Elise Paschen | At times they will fly under. The dome
contains jungles. Invent a sky under the dome.
Creatures awake, asleep, at play, aglow:
they float – unbottled genii – under the dome.
Southern Belle, a splash of black, dusted with gold,
dissembles, assembling, acts shy under the dome.
Cattleheart, Giant Swallowtail, Clippe... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
58acd88095b500db | An Ode to Ben Jonson | Robert Herrick | Ah Ben! Say how, or when Shall we thy guests Meet at those lyric feasts Made at the Sun, The Dog, the Triple Tun? Where we such clusters had As made us nobly wild, not mad; An... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
440406a54e17eba5 | Mrs. Benjamin Pantier | Edgar Lee Masters | I know that he told that I snared his soul With a snare which bled him to death. And all the men loved him, And most of the women pitied him. But suppose you are really a lady, and have delicate tastes, And loathe the smell of whiskey and onions. And the rhythm of Wordsworth's "Ode" runs in your ears, While he goes abo... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
98a4dde800b2725c | Introduction to the Songs of Innocence | William Blake | Piping down the valleys wild Piping songs of pleasant glee On a cloud I saw a child. And he laughing said to me. Pipe a song about a Lamb; So I piped with merry chear, Piper pipe that song again— So I piped, he wept to hear. Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe Sing thy songs of happy chear, So I sung the same again While he w... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
f741d6668e832ffd | Conversation with Slugs and Sarah | Jennifer Chang | Up late watching slug porn, you confessyou had a boyfriend who could spin you like that, slug grace and slug ballet—we don’ttouch the topic of slime—and those eyes dangling from tentacle tips must be akind of love or lust, sighting farther andnearer all at once. (But are those eyes?) Slug sublimity suggests love’s a d... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
288cbabf91502d74 | Fancy and the Poet | Susanna Moodie | Poet— Enchanting spirit!—at thy votive shrine I lowly bend a simple wreath to twine; O Come from the ideal world and fling Thy airy fingers o’er my rugged string; Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth The thrilling song that tells thy heavenly birth— Fancy— Happiness when from earth she fled I passed... | [
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
50ba20b04cc58b94 | The Ballad of the Harp-Weaver | Edna St. Vincent Millay | “Son,” said my mother,
When I was knee-high,
“You’ve need of clothes to cover you,
And not a rag have I.
“There’s nothing in the house
To make a boy breeches,
Nor shears to cut a cloth with
Nor thread to take stitches.
“There’s nothing in the house
But a loaf-end of rye,
And a harp with a woma... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-2",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
67b5d16d8caf9c56 | Problems of Knowledge | Joshua Edwards | Translation broadens language
as divorce and remarriage extend family.
Born to fade and break, facts
huddle inside black brackets.
Work means inquisition as a child
separates a cricket’s wings from thorax.
Ideas come apart as monads, metastasizing
rhapsody on the edge of delicate dusk.
Thunder sounds in the dis... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
d16182af49c16ae9 | from You, part I | Ron Silliman | for Pat Silliman
I
Hard dreams. The moment at which you recognize that your own death lies
in wait somewhere within your body. A lone ship defines the horizon. The
rain is not safe to drink.
In Grozny, in Bihac, the idea of history shudders with each new explosion.
The rose lies unattended, wild thorns at the edg... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bde215d53182735c | Your Voice | Francisco Aragón | Amazing the mood it's put me in.
And the sky's tint at this hour—out
on my own, occasional hum or zip
of a car, August the summer month
half the city splashes about
the Mediterranean, or north:
the beach at Donostia a jewel
—its Paseo the lip of a shell to walk.
It's hearing you what really pulls
me in, soft t... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-6",
"S9-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
8269a0ddcca4c6ef | On Mother’s Day | Grace Paley | I went out walking
in the old neighborhood
Look! more trees on the block
forget-me-nots all around them
ivy lantana shining
and geraniums in the window
Twenty years ago
it was believed that the roots of trees
would insert themselves into gas lines
then fall poisoned on houses and children
or tap the cit... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
3808690c03376201 | The Burning Kite | Ouyang Jianghe | What a thing it would be, if we all could fly.
But to rise on air does not make you a bird.
I’m sick of the hiss of champagne bubbles.
It’s spring, and everyone’s got something to puke.
The things we puke: flights of stairs,
a skyscraper soaring from the gut,
the bills blow by on the April breeze
followed by flu... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring"
] |
9029065180623fc1 | Talk to Strangers | D. A. Powell | don’t talk to stranglers
when yr wasted do
talk to swingers don’t
talk to swindlers if
you can tell them apart
from the strangers who
are just strangers no
stranger than you alone
and afraid to be alone
cuz they might want
to touch your throat | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
5a5adb0b034181cb | The Labor of Stagger Lee: Boar | Douglas Kearney | pigs prey to piggishnesses. get ate from the rooter to the tooter. I’m a hog for you baby, I can’t get enough go the wolfish crooner. the gust buffeted porker roll in the hay or laid down in twig rapine. let me in, let me in. no drum-gut, Stagger’s stomach a tenement: his deadeye bigger than... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-9",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
d8b1fddc5fbc8647 | Canary | Rita Dove | for Michael S. Harper
Billie Holiday’s burned voice
had as many shadows as lights,
a mournful candelabra against a sleek piano,
the gardenia her signature under that ruined face.
(Now you’re cooking, drummer to bass,
magic spoon, magic needle.
Take all day if you have to
with your mirror and your bracelet of so... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
40e85aea92a02932 | Amidwives: Two Portraits | Todd Boss | i. a wife will wean | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
5a84d9faaf831d46 | The Breath-Holding Contest | Rick Noguchi | That boy, the champion breath holder,
Kenji Takezo, lost his title
This year to Mack Stanton
A retired truck driver
New to the area.
Held in the town swimming pool
Thirty-five participants inhaled
Deeply all at once
Submerged the depth.
The contest went on into twilight.
One by one each person
Came up suckin... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-5"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
3a6a1e434569d1af | The Forms of Resistance | Emily Berry | Is this mountain all rock, or are there any villages on it?These are some of the things I said to her.We bake because it is a way of overcoming.In the journey of zest, I see myself.On the news every day people are standing up screamingor lying down screaming while others remain calm.She pointed out that I had not made ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
7cc7e0294d969aeb | “How well do I recall that walk in state” | Frederick Goddard Tuckerman | from Sonnets, Third Series
V
How well do I recall that walk in state
Across the Common, by the paths we knew:
Myself in silver badge and riband blue,
My little sister with her book and slate;
The elm tree by the Pond, the fence of wood,
The burial place that at the corner stood
Where once ... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
780f1ff5b9312fa6 | Hold Still, Lion | C. D. Wright | In post—World War II America there were several loosely affiliated, overlapping
strands of poets who began publishing—poets rejecting the epistemological and
anglophile models of W.H. Auden and T.S. Eliot. They were known variously as
the New York School, the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beats, and the Black
Moun... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
1867a9bb288f1570 | Pastorals in the Atrium | Sadiqa de Meijer | The tour has only started whenI’m ambushed by that flat-lined verdigris I’d know evenas a stumbling sleepwalker: landschapwith tin river, cleaver of sodden pastures — marvelous for painters, says the docent, was the enormityof the sky, rarely cloudless, and she’s already turning to an Italian hillscape when I say wait!... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
b1a91eaac773343e | God’s Promises | Paul Hoover | I, the Lord, will make barrenyour fields and your fairways.Your refrigerators will be empty,no steaks and no leg bones,no butter and no cornbread.And I will remove your screen doors, force the mosquitoes indoorswhere you lie on the bed undead.For my house you have not readied,no flat screen and no broadband.My habitati... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
d0c85cdef04b2a5a | Hexameter | Brian Culhane | Hold, memory, a vision out of Greece:
The west wind breathes a ripening breath
As each pear, pendant and golden, brushes
Another, where four tilled acres glisten
Winter and summer: fig, olive, currant,
And the heavy succulent pomegranate
—Sunstruck for the plucker’s hand.
All this a stranger sees, palm on lintel... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
da2c51f65904f97e | The Long Dry | Amanda Joy | Madness “hath builded her house in the high places of the city.”
— Guy Debord
Men are hanging themselves unaccompanied
by sound in the dark hours before the bottle shop opens
Rope snaking a branch of pepper tree
at the lodging house
Empty tenement. Dark windows bruised by sky
lighting rookeries of collapse and f... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
15bb5a38f1adea1b | An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell’s Return from Ireland | Andrew Marvell | The forward youth that would appear
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
’Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil th’ unused armour’s rust,
Removing from the wall
The corslet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious art... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
6c8bc18f0088bd84 | Rapture | Galway Kinnell | I can feel she has got out of bed.
That means it is seven a.m.
I have been lying with eyes shut,
thinking, or possibly dreaming,
of how she might look if, at breakfast,
I spoke about the hidden place in her
which, to me, is like a soprano’s tremolo,
and right then, over toast and bramble jelly,
if such things a... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
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