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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
b634b2fb769279bd | London Crossfigured | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | London
crossfigured
creeping with trams
and the artists on sundays
in the summer
all ‘tracking Nature’
in the suburbs
It
could have been anyplace
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
7b157c08210bb5ae | Bean Spasms | Ted Berrigan | for George Schneeman
New York’s lovely weather
hurts my forehead
in praise of thee
the? white dead
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S8-4",
"S10-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
52e3a13c34d07847 | Marching | Jim Harrison | At dawn I heard among bird calls the billions of marching feet in the churn and squeak of gravel, even tiny feet still wet from the mother's amniotic fluid, and very old halting feet, the feet of the very light and very heavy, all marching but not together, criss-crossing at every angle with sincere attempts not to tou... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
9ab981bebc343c69 | En Eski Aşk Şiiri | Jessica Jopp | The Oldest Love Poem(For Susan)
Back from Istanbul, she gives to methe photograph she took insidethe Archaeological Museum’sblue tiled hush, of a tabletcarved in terra cotta from Nippur,written in Sumerian.Delicate etches, a lift of riverbedwhere the summer waters ranglistened on this piece of earththe earnest working... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
0fb667d6686a58a9 | In the Reading Room | David Ferry | Alone in the library room, even when others
Are there in the room, alone, except for themselves:
There is the illusion of peace; the air in the room
Is stilled; there are reading lights on the tables,
Looking as if they're reading, looking as if
They're studying the text, and understanding,
Shedding light on what... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S9-3",
"S10-8",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
2f8f5c19c014d167 | Vampires Today | Kristen Tracy | Once, there was a year where every romance
had fangs. It was hard to open up a novel
without a vampire bearing down on a young, virgin neck.
Soon, they were on the television. Later, the sidewalks.
Teenagers. They owned us with their hackneyed plots.
Platinum fleur-de-lis emblazoned on their jeans.How do t... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-7",
"S6-3",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth"
] |
e7a431cf2a63dce5 | from Odes, Book Three, 15 | Horace | I A Tower of Brass, one would have said, And Locks, and Bolts, and Iron Bars, Might have preserv’d one innocent Maiden-head. The jealous Father thought he well might spare All further jealous Care. And, as he walk’d, t’himself alone he smiled, To think how Venus’ Arts he had beguil’d; And when he slept, his ... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
9295c40fa741174b | All the Dead Boys Look Like Me | Christopher Soto | Last time I saw myself die is when police killed Jessie Hernandez
A 17 year old brown queer // who was sleeping in their car
Yesterday I saw myself die again // Fifty times I died in Orlando // &
I remember reading // Dr. José Esteban Muñoz before he pass... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
bf49261c99949832 | Elegy | David St. John | If there is any dwelling place
for the spirits of the just;
as the wise believe, noble souls
do not perish with the body,
rest thou in peace ...
—Tacitus
Who keeps the owl’s breath? Whose eyes desire?
Why do the stars rhyme? Where does
The flush cargo sail? Why does the daybook close?So sleep and do not sleep.
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
12a214d5c82468cf | Salvage | Kay Ryan | The wreck is a fact. The worst has happened. The salvage trucks back in and the salvage men begin to sort and stack, whistling as they work. Thanks be to god—again— for extractable elements which are not carriers of pain, for this periodic table at which the self-taught salvagers disassemble the unt... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
eb77763a5e906e2a | Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota | James Wright | Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year’s horses
Blaze... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
cd7bccb91e103f82 | Count Gismond—Aix in Provence | Robert Browning | Christ God who savest man, save most
Of men Count Gismond who saved me!
Count Gauthier, when he chose his post,
Chose time and place and company
To suit it; when he struck at length
My honour, 't was with all his strength.
And doubtlessly, ere he could draw
All points to one, he must have schemed!
That mise... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-4",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
e264d36ea81f7098 | I knew something was wrong | Dorothea Grossman | I knew something was wrong the day I tried to pick up a small piece of sunlight and it slithered through my fingers, not wanting to take shape. Everything else stayed the same—the chairs and the carpet and all the corners where the waiting continued. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
96ed48bd7f466d4b | Stranger at the Ashwood Threshold | Sherod Santos | I.
Did he think that disguise would fool me? Gathering about
His balding head those filthy rags, poor-mouthing
His way beside my fire, then gazing into the looking glass
Of my bride’s-mind to summon up the legend
I’d seen last at the ashwood threshold twenty years ago,
The husband who’d upped and sailed away on a... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
724af84de62a6ccb | The Mad Man from Macon | Maceo J. Whitaker | Sestina Jackson met Text-Deft James on 09/09/09.A Red Hook, BK dock party celebrated Otis Redding’sBirthday. Sestina mouthed along to “The Happy Song,”And TDJ smiled, baring his Cornel West-esqueTeeth. Text-Deft’s chops whiter, but same gap.Cigs and java, then shake, as Battery ParkGleamed across the East River. Text-D... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
f8770e4a0b909473 | A Dream Within a Dream | Edgar Allan Poe | Take this kiss upon the brow!And, in parting from you now,Thus much let me avow —You are not wrong, who deemThat my days have been a dream;Yet if hope has flown awayIn a night, or in a day,In a vision, or in none,Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seemIs but a dream within a dream.I stand amid the roarO... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
0fc62b777db37c7e | Dear Gaybashers | Jill McDonough | The night we got bashed we told Rusty how
they drove up, yelled QUEER, threw a hot dog, sped off.
Rusty: Now, is that gaybashing? Orare they just calling you queer? Good point.
Josey pitied the fools: who buys a perfectly good pack of wieners
and drives around San Francisco chucking them at gays?
And who speeds of... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
2a2a8d9c2acae3c6 | Pourriture Noble | Marie Ponsot | A moral tale, for Sauternes, the fungus cenaria, and the wild old
Never prophesy.You can’t. So don’t try.Lust, pride, and lethargymay cause us miseryor bliss.The meanest mistakehas a point to make.Hear this — what his vintner d’Eyquem saidonce the lord d’Eyquem was dead: “The wine that year promised bad or non... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Living/Aging"
] |
6b12cb8b849b9594 | Object Permanence | Alison C. Rollins | For the time being
an ampersand is a boy
clutching his knees
to his chest as art.
On high, the god of form
wears a face on each wrist.
Only a god can take and give
time, but the one in front of
the gun lasts forever | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-8",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Youth"
] |
a0c05aef70cc5c6e | How did you meet your wife? | Richard Jones | Swimming the English Channel, struggling to make it to Calais, I swam into Laura halfway across.
My body oiled for warmth,
black rubber cap on my head,
eyes hidden behind goggles,
I was exhausted, ready to drown,
when I saw her coming toward me,
bobbing up and down between waves,
effortlessly doing a breaststrok... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-6",
"S8-7",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
dd488f629a3cbb57 | I Dreamed That I Was Old | Stanley Kunitz | I dreamed that I was old: in stale declension
Fallen from my prime, when company
Was mine, cat-nimbleness, and green invention,
Before time took my leafy hours away.
My wisdom, ripe with body’s ruin, found
Itself tart recompense for what was lost
In false exchange: since wisdom in the ground
Has no apocalypse or... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
f2c604d9307b17dc | What To Do | W. S. Di Piero | Places we leave slick our bodies with silky air or foam we feel faithful and tickly (even somehow taste) but can't clearly see. We wear its weight like atmosphere— runs, blots of what we've done in and with each place —what to do with it now?— and what it does to us still. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
8d68dd7ea316d3a8 | Sonnet 146 | R.A. Villanueva | The maggot dreams of the ear and
the wound, that welcome dark between
gauze and knee, cheek and skull, and
any open moment in the
body that will have it. The child-
fly wants a mouth to grow into,
a burn to salve, a heart to feed
on. It calls for sugar and Job
and marrow. The maggot loves St.
Lazarus, though h... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
08c2879f851e7916 | Love among the Ruins | Robert Browning | Where the quiet-coloured end of evening smiles,
Miles and miles
On the solitary pastures where our sheep
Half-asleep
Tinkle homeward thro' the twilight, stray or stop
As they crop—
Was the site once of a city great and gay,
(So they say)
Of our country's very capital, its prince
Ages since... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S2-7",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
b89edcfcb75b2b30 | Dead | Sarah C. Harwell | for Hannah
The way my daughter sleeps it’s as if she’s talking
to the dead. Now she is one. I watch her eyes roll
backwards in her head, her senses fold
one by one, and then her breathing quiets to a beat.
Every night she fights this silent way of being
with all the whining ammunition that she has.
She wins a ti... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
a804b2f371ec4a98 | The Boat Merchant’s Wife | Khaled Mattawa | Sabratha
He started out making feluccas;
an Egyptian taught him how.
Then he opened a shop by the beach,
sold ice cream, parasols and chairs.
He asked for my hand when I was
in teacher college, first year.
Time passes like the Ghibli here.
I was 7 months with my third baby
when someone sought him
for a Zodiac... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
ff2ddc4dcb76f134 | Heat | Jane Hirshfield | My mare, when she was in heat,
would travel the fenceline for hours,
wearing the impatience
in her feet into the ground.
Not a stallion for miles, I’d assure her,
give it up.
She’d widen her nostrils,
sieve the wind for news, be moving again,
her underbelly darkening with sweat,
then stop at the gate a moment,... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
88d292fa96dfd833 | The Supplicant | Stuart Dybek | prays for birds before an ancient icon— a stray cat. The inbred need to pray is what makes God necessary, and not, she says, the other way around; beyond that it’s all mystery, so don’t question why Man creates gods that demand sacrifice, condemning mortals to spend their lives trying to praise godhead into mercy. Bett... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
a561d2d90b2ac737 | "Many in aftertimes will say of you" | Christina Rossetti | Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
ad57526380257298 | Resolution and Independence | William Wordsworth | There was a roaring in the wind all night; The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright; The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the Stock-dove broods; The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-4",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e0f9c42679d560ce | Not Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening | Jennifer Michael Hecht | IPromises to keep was a lie, he had nothing. Through
the woods. Over the river and into the pain. It is an addict's
talk of quitting as she's smacking at a vein. He was always
going into the woods. It was he who wrote, The best wayout is always through. You'd think a shrink, but no, a poet.
He saw the woods and kne... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
6b12d5fde06d9898 | Dawn | Louise Glück | 1 Child waking up in a dark room screaming I want my duck back, I want my duck back in a language nobody understands in the least — There is no duck. But the dog, all upholstered in white plush — the dog is right there in the crib next to him. Years and years — that’s how much time passes. All in a dream. But the du... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
dce560bdb2117a81 | A Knock | Debra Nystrom | Vinnie Two Crow from the trailer at the school crossroads
has walked up through the snow, bringing a loaf
of pumpkin bread. Takes her big boots off
and sits for coffee. Clem’s always treated us good.—You up here had too much trouble. I open the bread,
and she asks about the quilt in my hoop. Stray
lightning quilt,... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
75c7f76a506afc92 | The Packards | Lewis Warsh | The heretic’s papers were spread out on the armchair
*
At the window, fruit of
spring,
you can bite again
against the weather
weapons I let fall outside
pharmacies, drowsy and bright
*
Air comes to the confused bends in the rail where
in a mirror lush food puts you
out for 1 night. Then it is the weather
at... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
483e0e02d15d119f | from Beachy Head | Charlotte Smith | On thy stupendous summit, rock sublime! That o’er the channel reared, half way at sea The mariner at early morning hails, I would recline; while Fancy should go forth, And represent the strange and awful hour Of vast concussion; when the Omnipotent Stretched forth his arm, and rent the solid hills, Bidding the impetuou... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
ec8527eff69e5e20 | [Lying in bed I think about you] | Joshua Beckman | Lying in bed I think about you,
your ugly empty airless apartment
and your eyes. It’s noon, and tired
I look into the rest of the awake day
incapable of even awe, just
a presence of particle and wave,
just that closed and deliberate
human observance. Your thin fingers
and the dissolution of all ability. Lay
op... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
21d280d600e77fac | White | J. Michael Martinez | as the meat
within the shell
as the shell before the caw
a bleached weed
a fig
dusted to sweet the skin
egg albumen of peacock
butterfly
held to the ivory of oxen hoof
pulling
the space
between sins I am
as I am so
t... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
40665b73a1307c5e | Yellow Goblins | Fanny Howe | Yellow goblinsand a god I can swallow:Eyes in the evergreensunder ice.Interior monologueand some voice.Weary fears, theusual trials anda place to surmiseblessedness. | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
317acd2b93b5df44 | Craw | Atsuro Riley | Split the boy —his thorax, throatPierce-peel the craw:A jag-crystalled crust —his black scoria, slag(not Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled)What no gizzard ground (could hope to grind)What would not meshWhat would not smeltEmbedded undigested there in meat | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
90cc09dbbd5ec339 | Politics | William Butler Yeats | 'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms.'
THOMAS MANN.
How can I, that girl standing there,My attention fixOn Roman or on RussianOr on Spanish politics,Yet here's a travelled man that kno... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
282019a8caf2a02d | Tiger Butter | Diane Glancy | Is it only when you’re little
you know tigers live in your closet—
one with your shoes on his two ears,
another with your umbrella tied to his tail;
the rest wearing your red coat
and blue trousers with the red buttons?
Is it only when you’re little
the dustballs have mountainous shadows
in the crack of light u... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
42019ccaf3e394fb | Speak to Us | Katie Ford | For all of my years, I’ve read only living signs—bodies in jealousy, bodies in battle, bodies growing disease like mushroom coral.It is tiresome, tiresome, describing fir cones waiting for fires to catch their human ribs into some slow, future forest.My beloved, he tires of me, and he should—my complaints the same, his... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S5-3",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
668bc1ecbd5771c5 | Cruelty and Love | D. H. Lawrence | What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping the golden light
Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves
To my heart's delight?
Ah, only the leaves! But in the west,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast —
— 'Tis the wound of love goes home!
The... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S2-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
31707f62db19b066 | Falling Water | John Koethe | I drove to Oak Park, took two tours,
And looked at some of the houses.
I took the long way back along the lake.
The place that I came home to—a cavernous
Apartment on the East Side of Milwaukee—
Seems basically a part of that tradition,
With the same admixture of expansion and restraint:
The space takes off, yet... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-1",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
0975c6b0e3ffeae6 | Your Mileage May Vary | Andrew Shields | 1
Our last night in the house was not our last.With two cats in the yard. Our movers took
the furniture in the morning. A country where
they turned back time. | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f9de78ea39689de4 | Body and Soul | Sharon Bryan | They grow up together
but they aren't even fraternal
twins, they quarrel a lot
about where to go and what
to do, the body complains
about having to carry
the soul everywhere as if
it were some helpless cripple,
and the soul snipes that it can go
places the body never dreamed of,
then they quarrel over which one of them... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
fb452c940df016a6 | Oh Sweethearts | Liz Berry | And slowly we’m sweethearts
atween the wet grass all river-licked,
lime dust in our hair
and both of us so frightened,
blind as moles. But wanting
something. Wanting.
We’m side-by-side on the grass,
me barefeet in the water,
bowing our heads, gentle
as osses at the water trough.
I can feel his shoulder ashive... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
38a9f0ec4c8e0f94 | Man In Boat, 1998 | Vi Khi Nao | It’s unbearable to shadowdrift along the
seabed. It’s unbearable to grieve when
sleeping is more important.
The boat is a hammock without strings.
As the body is a sleeve not strung to the
soul. The boat is chained to the shadow;
when the shadow drifts, the boat drifts
too.
Is it at sea? Or is it just in air? C... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
61fa48f5bb928767 | Tras Os Montes | L. E. Sissman | I. Mother (1892-1973)
My mother, with a skin of crêpe de Chine,
Predominantly yellow-colored, sheer
Enough to let the venous blue show through
The secondarily bluish carapace,
Coughs, rasps, and rattles in her terminal
Dream, interrupted by lucidities,
When, suctioned out and listening with hard
Ears almost wan... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
70ced8859a1a3476 | Cure and Curry | Natalie Rose Richardson | My father is a nod, a jilt. Bop.
Insists that 90s music is the jams they
will drop when I have children. Cancel
the station with rap-crap, the cure
for stiff-skin is the blunk of funk and
lilt of lips that pickles like sound-curry. | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7ab81d163a50eae7 | Ovid in America | Averill Curdy | George Sandys (1578–1644), translator of Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished, Mythologized, and Represented in Figures, and resident treasurer of the Virginia Company for its settlement at Jamestown (1621–1624).
i. a long voyage, 1621 I left you where you are:A humming late summer afternoon& mottled by shade a man readi... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
00bf0533e4823a55 | Rail | Clare Jones | The Inaccessible Island Rail lives in Atlantis,
with two black feet on the black plateau.
It might be slight, it might be shabby,
but it knows what it knows.
Rain falls from the sky.
The sun shines, within limits.
Wind blows in from the furthest west.
There is nothing beyond the cliffs.
Island Cape Myrtle is no... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
63f81aaaa200269c | Where Do You Come From? | Meena Alexander | I come from the nether regions
They serve me pomegranate seeds with morsels of flying fish
From time to time I wear a crown of blood streaked grass.
Mama beat me when I was a child for stealing honey from a honey pot
It swung from the rafters of the kitchen.
Why I stuffed my mouth with golden stuff, no one could t... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
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"S10-2"
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4c3d6fe865113247 | Day Bump | John Ashbery | Whether the harborline or the east shoreline
consummated it was nobody’s biz until you got there,
eyelids ashimmer, content with one more dispensation
from blue above. And just like we were saying,
the people began to show some interest
in the mud-choked harbor. It could be summer again
for all anyone in our clas... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
9b7d2bc4446f16f0 | Little Father | Li-Young Lee | I buried my father
in the sky.
Since then, the birds
clean and comb him every morning
and pull the blanket up to his chin
every night.
I buried my father underground.
Since then, my ladders
only climb down,
and all the earth has become a house
whose rooms are the hours, whose doors
stand open at evening, rec... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
218f49426e3264b2 | To Ireland, To Bethlehem | Connie Voisine | The plane is packed and over sweaty heads,
rumpled hair, the movie glows in the transatlantic nighttime
murmur of priests and nuns and Riverdancers returning
home—a baby is cooed by an older mother, a boy feels
for his seat in the dark. I’ve read my boo... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-6",
"S5-2",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f269a5336623ea0b | Thunderbride | Mark Bibbins | My throat is full of sparklers making me a lighthouse for a loveship that can flyOur mother monarchy sweet land paternityI’ll eat their offspring’s money and let you have a bite In wilder col... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
9d294b59052b856a | Adam Waking | Katie Peterson | We chose this animal to be our pet.
His indifference allowed us to sleep.
Cat, who made your ears bend back,
who made you lazy as quick?
Who made you work?
It is a wonder any sun is left.
Still it is always so abrupt.
Sleep like an umbrella going up,
clumsy like a broken umbrella coming down,
this waking, and ... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
bfe5e20a397482bc | Trimmings | Frances Leviston | frangelico It slops from coppery
glass Dominican cassocks thicker than water,
thinned syrup crackling and smoking over ice,
pale as hearts of hazelnuts half-caramelized
or relics lit in cabinets. Angelic alcoholic for kids,
all quickening sweetness without the burnt palate,
it’s praline, gilt, milk chocolate. Do... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S9-1",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
387342a3c86e948b | The Sailor's Grave at Clo-oose, V.I. | Marjorie Pickthall | Out of the winds' and the waves' riot,
Out of the loud foam,
He has put in to a great quiet
And a still home.
Here he may lie at ease and wonder
Why the old ship waits,
And hark for the surge and the strong thunder
Of the full Straits,
And look for the fishing fleet at morning,
Shadows like lost souls,
Slide through th... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8c80848d2749deda | My Star | Robert Browning | All that I know
Of a certain star,
Is, it can throw
(Like the angled spar)
Now a dart of red,
Now a dart of blue,
Till my friends have said
They would fain see, too,
My star that dartles the red and the blue!
Then it stops like a bird; like a flower, hangs furled:... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
5f895c560c6a4bcf | Walking, Blues | Jane Mead | Rain so dark Ican’t get through—train going by in a hurry. The voicesaid walk or die, Iwalked,—the trainand the voice all blurry. I walked with my bones and my heartof chalk, not evena splintered notion:days of thought, nightsof worry,—lonesome train in a hurry. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S6-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c2460b734b3f5ce4 | Postmodern Rez Edge Inhalation: Paint Thinner Sublime | Gordon Henry Jr. | Chemical angels ride into this vacant room
as walls and windows drip away
into western fronts, post depression farm
boundaries barely barb-wired together, enclosed
stone pile pastures a gray horse standing still,
facing north, a snort of breath drifting
to a rail car passing horizon
the wind hinting the spirit o... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
eeb765781ec2c009 | Postpartum Blues | Elton Glaser | Soon the glass angel must be
Wrapped and packed and put away,
And this hard year swept out
Like tinsel from the Christmas tree—
The end of December, aromatic
In its homely smoke, and the thin limbs
Of maple and ash, the pipecleaner pines,
Brushing themselves against
The cold carbons of evening.
I've watched the ice tur... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
2b00b4629715125c | Gräber/Graves | Joachim Sartorius | From here into the north, the ways are dry. Yellow grass, thirst in the roots. In the hearts. It's all simple, but false. When I try to think history, the enormous vertebrae of the dinosaur behind the purple beeches in Invalidenstrasse, Bismarck in marble, and Benn, a nameplate on Bozener, lifeless. In the de... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
8fe9594d90165b01 | Flan | Martín Espada | For Jack Agüeros (1934–2014)
I was eight when the blackout struck and the lights died all across the city
like a massacre of fireflies. In the projects of Brooklyn, I steered myself
to 14F, fingers spread against the cool tiles of the hallway, past the concrete
and chicken-wire terrace where I once burnt ants with... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
c4699982ccee9fc6 | The Lady's Yes | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | " Yes !" I answered you last night ;
" No !" this morning, Sir, I say !
Colours, seen by candle-light,
Will not look the same by day.
When the tabors played their best,
Lamps above, and laughs below —
Love me sounded like a jest,
Fit for Yes or fit for No ! Call me false, or call me free —
Vow, whatever ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
6e40bfa879879658 | Amoretti XXII: This Holy Season | Edmund Spenser | This holy season, fit to fast and pray,
Men to devotion ought to be inclin'd:
Therefore I likewise on so holy day,
For my sweet saint some service fit will find.
Her temple fair is built within my mind,
In which her glorious image placed is,
On which my thoughts do day and night attend,
Like sacred priests that never t... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
13e35b3bc08b8ce3 | ICU | Spencer Reece | For A.J. Verdelle
Those mornings I traveled north on I91,passing below the basalt cliff of East Rockwhere the elms discussed their genealogies.I was a chaplain at Hartford Hospital,took the Myers-Briggs with Sister Margaret,learned I was an I drawn to Es.In small group I said, “I do not like it—the way so many young b... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
8cc426a90c124759 | from “Late” | Gottfried Benn | Feel it—but remember, millennia have felt it—the sea and the beasts and the mindless starswrestle it down today as ever | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
196bce00142c1d4a | The God Called Poetry | Robert Graves | Now I begin to know at last, These nights when I sit down to rhyme, The form and measure of that vast God we call Poetry, he who stoops And leaps me through his paper hoops A little higher every time. Tempts me to think I’ll grow a proper Singing cricket or grass-hopper Making prodigious jumps in air While shaken cro... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
810d06da1981a169 | da s | Jennifer Scappettone | I was pre-Pandoran once, clear & amok, scarlet free where scarcely
orange or purple romed: all
font, Greek, drunk, then, then Tyred, vinegar aspect for breakfast. How I seam
now in video
footage of national folding where only arson lives lives. Its source is valid because Google
calls it 100% r... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
0477ef77cef0a691 | jasper texas 1998 | Lucille Clifton | for j. byrd
i am a man's head hunched in the road.
i was chosen to speak by the members
of my body. the arm as it pulled away
pointed toward me, the hand opened once
and was gone.
why and why and why
should i call a white man brother?
who is the human in this place,
the thing that is dragged or the dragger?
w... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
57b765bee874acdd | A Slow Fuse | Theodore Weiss | Some seventy years later
your father, sitting at your table
over wine he savors, last rays mellow-
ing in it, recalls his favorite aunt,
Rifka.
“Just naming her shoots
rifles off again inside the morning
square, rifles she aimed into the air
for certain customers, the pigeons
erupting.”
... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
66007b80e8fc201f | Harlem Sweeties | Langston Hughes | Have you dug the spill
Of Sugar Hill?
Cast your gims
On this sepia thrill:
Brown sugar lassie,
Caramel treat,
Honey-gold baby
Sweet enough to eat.
Peach-skinned girlie,
Coffee and cream,
Chocolate darling
Out of a dream.
Walnut tinted
Or cocoa brown,
Pomegranate-lipped
Pride of the town.
Rich cream-colo... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S3-1",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
505562a688c86cc5 | Orange Blood | David Trinidad | The streets of San Francisco
are littered with bodies
of bank robbers & mobsters
prostitutes & pimps
Bullet holes in foreheads
Clothes covered
with that fake orange blood
they used in the seventies
Just pretend dead
No sirens (those will be dubbed in later)
Camera pans
an immaculate city
Mid-morning weekday... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-6",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
d89bc66dd555e29d | Child of a Day | Walter Savage Landor | Child of a day, thou knowest not
The tears that overflow thy urn,
The gushing eyes that read thy lot,
Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return!
And why the wish! the pure and blest
Watch like thy mother o'er thy sleep.
O peaceful night! O envied rest!
Thou wilt not ever see her weep. | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b7351aa34bbd595d | Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore | William Shakespeare | Like as the waves make towards the pebbl'd shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil all forwards do contend.
Nativity, once in the main of light,
Crawls to maturity, wherewith being crown'd,
Crooked eclipses 'gainst his glory fight,
And Time t... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-2",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
b4084722632176a5 | rice & rain | Robin Gow | all the rain came down at once like a dropped bag
of aquarium pebbles. too much for the street to swallow:
all gravel & grit. i feel the saltwater rushing
in my mouth as i hit the shore — sand becoming rice.
the pot on the stove — put on the lid. we read the
back of the bag — bring the water to a boil — it
protes... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-10",
"S9-1",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
f701caf85068bbd9 | Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form | Matthea Harvey | 1.
Pity the bathtub that belongs to the queen its feet
Are bronze casts of the former queen’s feet its sheen
A sign of fretting is that an inferior stone shows through
Where the marble is worn away with industrious
Polishing the tub does not take long it is tiny some say
Because the queen does not want room for s... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design"
] |
9a0a071848ed670c | Brownies of the Southwest: Troop 704 | Laurie Ann Guerrero | Humanscape 62, 1970, by Melesio Casas
Three years before I’d hear the word / beaner /
from the / white boys / who’d spit first in my broccoli,
then in my hair, / my mother / dressed me
each Wednesday in that / brown / sheath: I was seven.
It’d be the only time I’d wear a sash —
Miss / America, / she said.
Twent... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S6-3",
"S6-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
49d9659277767d69 | The Adventures of a Turtle | Russell Edson | The turtle carries his house on his back. He is both the house and the person of that house.
But actually, under the shell is a little room where the true turtle, wearing long underwear, sits at a little table. At one end of the room a series of levers sticks out of slots in the floor, like the controls of a ... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
cbf65303ef74f7ab | After Vallejo | Tom Sleigh | intensity and height I want to write, but only foam comes out,I want to say so much but it’s all crap — there aren’t any numbers left that can’t be added up,nobody writes down pyramids without meaning it.I want to write, but I’ve got a puma’s brains;I want to crown myself with laurel, but it stinks of onions.There’s no... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
06ce5f09338a3f02 | March | Richard Kenney | Sky a shook poncho.Roof wrung. Mind a luna mothCaught in a banjo. This weather’s wittyPeek-a-boo. A study inInsincerity. Blues! Blooms! The yodelOf the chimney in night wind.That flat daffodil.With absurd hauteurNew tulips dab their shadowsIn water-mutter.Boys are such oxen.Girls! — sepal-shudder, shadow-Waver. Equ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-4",
"S2-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
09ce75126f71d4a4 | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 99 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Risest thou thus, dim dawn, again, So loud with voices of the birds, So thick with lowings of the herds, Day, when I lost the flower of men; Who tremblest thro' thy darkling red On yon swoll'n brook that bubbles fast By meadows breathing of the past, And woodlands holy to the dead; W... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
db64f4f67cae7ae8 | The Rain | Robert Creeley | All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.
What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it
that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me
something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Weather"
] |
b4669ae755e86312 | To tonsured monks and dreadlocked Rastas | Kabir | To tonsured monks and dreadlocked Rastas,
To idol worshippers and idol smashers,
To fasting Jains and feasting Shaivites,
To Vedic pundits and Faber poets,
The weaver Kabir sends one message:
The noose of death hangs over all.
Only Rama’s name can save you.
Say it now. | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-7",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5d1218634e19e627 | In Golden Gate Park That Day . . . | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | In Golden Gate Park that day
a man and his wife were coming along
thru the enormous meadow
which was the meadow of the world
He was wearing green suspenders
and carrying an old beat-up flute
... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
35cd7b7f9933cdca | Embalming | Scott Cairns | You’ll need a corpse, your own or someone else’s.
You’ll need a certain distance; the less you care about
your corpse the better. Light should be
unforgiving, so as to lend a literal
aspect to your project. Flesh should be putty,
each hair of the brows, each lash, a pencil mark.
If the skeleton is intact, its sha... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4fa754a062aea776 | Love Song | Maggie Dietz | The ancients would lift
a clay spout to your lips—
water and honey and wine.
I give you milk, softened
with wine, and swear
you'll never hunger, never
thirst while I'm alive.
What suffering I can't preclude
I'll soothe with singing:
My future, for you
not the gre... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
942efdf35f908e5b | Small Acts | Thomas Centolella | Whitman thought he could live with animals, they were
so placid and self-contained, not one of them dissatisfied.
I have lived with animals. They kept me up all night.
Not only tom cats on the prowl, and neurotic rats
behind my baseboards, scratching out a slim existence.
There were cattle next door in the butcher... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
493ce8f48f702be8 | During the War | Philip Levine | When my brother came home from war
he carried his left arm in a black sling
but assured us most of it was still there.
Spring was late, the trees forgot to leaf out.
I stood in a long line waiting for bread.
The woman behind me said it was shameless,
someone as strong as I still home, still intact
while her Mich... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
96c59d0c1f021c93 | The bottoms of my shoes | Jack Kerouac | The bottoms of my shoes
are clean
From walking in the rain | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
bc0214fe8b1bc514 | In the Grass | Chard DeNiord | He lowered his head and darted through
the grass, flushing a hen from off her nest,
then zeroing in on the day-old chicks
instead of the mother whose decoy trick
had failed to lure him away. In the time
it took for me to notice this, he'd broken
the necks of two of the chicks and torn
the skin from off their bac... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-11",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
8399cbd000f3ab0c | To a Young Lady, Netting | Thomas Love Peacock | While those bewitching hands combine, With matchless grace, the silken line, They also weave, with gentle art, Those stronger nets that bind the heart. But soon all earthly things decay: That net in time must wear away: E’en Beauty’s silken meshes gay No lasting hold can take: But Beauty, Virtue, Sense, combi... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
d46dfa58fcb281a7 | from The Lady of the Lake: Boat Song | Sir Walter Scott | Hail to the Chief who in triumph advances! Honored and blessed be the ever-green Pine! Long may the tree, in his banner that glances, Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line! Heaven sent it happy dew, Earth lend it sap anew, Gayly to bourgeon and broadly to grow, While every Highland glen... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
3a1901e9d962d63e | The Smell of Rat Rubs Off | J. Allyn Rosser | Once again you’ve fallen for the lure
of his deferral, his quick eyes’ brightness
slinking from the pantry of the righteous.
Nothing half so sleek as self-licked fur.
Not that he forgot your boots, or left
A single high-aimed compliment unturned.
He’ll double back, affect to be concerned
when he’s the secret reason you... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
0fb96c72126de00d | Over the Course of Several Decades Following the Korean War, South Korea Became the World’s Largest Supplier of Children to Developed Countries | Sun Yung Shin | Some(where a) woman wears
the face once given. Possessions
scarce we go halves on slant
of eye & span of palm with cousin & other
ghosts. Where is the man with the face lent
mother? Fathers rare; infant found
at Shinkyo police station box—official
shoes careened around fortune of Name
& birth, pin &
note. E... | [
"S4"
] | [] | [
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
82cbbb578a5e0f13 | Sonnets from the Portuguese 1: I thought once how Theocritus had sung | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years, Those of my own lif... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
722b74a370faf201 | University | Karl Shapiro | To hurt the Negro and avoid the Jew
Is the curriculum. In mid-September
The entering boys, identified by hats,
Wander in a maze of mannered brick
Where boxwood and magnolia brood
And columns with imperious stance
Like rows of ante-bellum girls
Eye them, outlanders.
In whited cells, on lawns equipped for peace,
... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
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