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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cd2b9a8922f8ac69 | Marriage of Many Years | Dana Gioia | Most of what happens happens beyond words.
The lexicon of lip and fingertip
defies translation into common speech.
I recognize the musk of your dark hair.
It always thrills me, though I can't describe it.
My finger on your thigh does not touch skin—
it touches your skin warming to my touch.
You are a language I ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
d0756c30e1ecbc85 | Main Na Bhoolunga | Fatimah Asghar | Translation: “I won’t forget.”
my father: sideburns down the length of his face my age now & ripe my age now & alive his husky voice’s crackle like the night’s wind through corn fields of bell-bottoms fields of pomade my mother’s overlarge sunglasses crowded on her face crowded in the only english movie theater that p... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2da78cb78d238a17 | Didn't You Ever Search For Another Star? | Alfred Starr Hamilton | I.
did you say
August ponds
ought to have
been surrounded
by September fences?
but did you say
September fences
ought to have
been climbed over
by October peoples?
what did you say
for October padlocks
that ought never to have
been attached moreover
to November handcuffs?
II.
You'll remember us for our... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
95afe2d0bc129f6d | Cymothoa Exigua | Roger Reeves | cymothoa exigua*: the tongue as what it is not—blemish and parasite: gimp and glottal stop: what question can be answered with a truant mouth: can the lynched man hung from the sails of a windmill taste the lead pipe wedged between his lips: when the signifiers dangle, empty chum lines in a cold creek: when t... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
a2cc7fbcc4dbceeb | Lucky Day Still | David Rivard | Lucky day still spent wrestling the private problems
and obsessions encountered first in your youth
but played out now within the spectacle of public aging
(tho, strangely, as you age you feel less & less seen
by the young, a citizen active in frequencies of light waves
increasingly invisible—not even boring to 15... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
2c16ca1d9f430c5f | Work | Sherod Santos | Pushing off on her back out
Into the fishpond’s cold
Archaic glitter, my naked wife
Could not have guessed how
High she rode into the noon
Sky, a brightened polestar
Gliding out between nothing
And nothing, between a sun-
Lit vacancy and its ancient,
Reflected, weightless
Hour unrippling back
From the sedges... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
7aa08e92dd81ecf1 | The Violet | Jane Taylor | Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew,
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head,
As if to hide from view.
And yet it was a lovely flower,
Its colours bright and fair;
It might have graced a rosy bower,
Instead of hiding there,
Yet there it was content to bloom,
In modest tints arrayed;
And there dif... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
1a9d70ec40a2d38b | [A dreadful darkness closes in] | Anne Brontë | A dreadful darkness closes in
On my bewildered mind;
O let me suffer and not sin,
Be tortured yet resigned.
Through all this world of whelming mist Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist The Tempter till he flee.
Wea... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7e7d7988b84d81bc | You | Hayan Charara | 1
That’s right, I’m talking to you,
not him or her.
2
You have been randomly selected
for a security check.
It has nothing to do with you,
your physical features, or your name.
3
Do you now belong
or have you ever belonged
to a radical political organization?
Do you have weapon... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
cebdad82e38d4394 | Kef 24 | Henry Dumas | lay sixteen bales down in front on the plank
let me set and bay at the houndog moon
lay sixteen bales down of the cotton flank
pray with me brothers that the pink
boss dont sweat me too soon
beat my leg in a round nigger peg
lord have mercy on my black pole
lay sixteen bales in the even row
let me sweat and cus... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
c07585110d6d2ac1 | Agent Blue | Teresa Mei Chuc | To kill correctly
takes calculation.
Down to a science.
Arsenic
cacodylic acid.
Know water and rice
on a cellular level.
Make sure
no surviving
seed can be
collected
and planted.
Because even
a small seed
assures
survival.
Because
mortars,
grenades
and bombs
cannot destroy
a grain.
Because our
he... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
65be0be4704be7d2 | The Mower | Philip Larkin | The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the ne... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
8d0668869b739eb0 | What We Know of Death by Drowning | Nick Lantz | 1. Josef Mengele Drowns While Swimming at a Beach in Brazil, 1979
His name then: Wolfgang Gerhard.
How easy, slipping on another man’s
skin. Another country, too,
its sun’s heat and light
as insistent as a pair
of forceps.
His pants, left crumpled
on the beach, forged papers
and a few hard candies in t... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-7",
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
31a6776598ec59dd | If You Said You Would Come With Me | John Ashbery | In town it was very urban but in the country cows were covering the hills. The clouds were near and very moist. I was walking along the pavement with Anna, enjoying the scattered scenery. Suddenly a sound like a deep bell came from behind us. We both turned to look. “It’s the words you spoke in the past, coming back to... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
07add859dd62353b | alwaysendeavor | Bob Dahlquist | Bob Dahlquist is an artist whose work I first noticed in New York City's Bryant Park, where I saw staring down at me an imaginative logo for a sandwich shop. The logo demonstrated Dahlquist's grasp of what I call the printer's fist—an understanding of the visual and intellectual significance of typographic characters. ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
522825ab411c1247 | Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries | A. E. Housman | These, in the days when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling And took their wages and are dead.
Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and the earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay. | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
7925d11b09d4aea7 | Immortal Sails | Alfred Noyes | Now, in a breath, we’ll burst those gates of gold,
And ransack heaven before our moment fails.
Now, in a breath, before we, too, grow old,
We’ll mount and sing and spread immortal sails.
It is not time that makes eternity.
Love and an hour may quite out-span the years,
And give us more to hear and more t... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [] |
acd87a4c486f0e5b | The Village: Book I | George Crabbe | The village life, and every care that reigns
O'er youthful peasants and declining swains;
What labour yields, and what, that labour past,
Age, in its hour of languor, finds at last;
What forms the real picture of the poor,
Demands a song—the Muse can give no more.
Fled are those times, if e'er such times were seen,
Whe... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
d1245e79b29a5bea | from The Next Clause | Fleda Brown | FOR"I'm leaving you," she said, "for you make me sick." But
of course she didn't say that. She thought the "for"; she admired
its elegant distance, the way it's wedged like an iron strut
between result and cause, the way it's almost "far," and dire
as a raised eyebrow. She liked the way it sounds like speaking
through ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-1",
"S5-6",
"S8-1",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Religion/Buddhism",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8f01047887ff26b3 | Superfly | Lynn Crosbie | Make your mind what you want it to be.
—Curtis Mayfield
Tired of waiting for him, I think of a plan to stick it to the
Man—he waylaid me with promises: protection, his valuable keys.
Nights of seduction, I would glide to the curb in my customized Eldorado,
black finish and cool bubble top
and turn it over to a su... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
159dbc63a3deae19 | Not Another Anthem | Dara Wier | As soon as I step into the tunnel that will take me under the river I need to
cross to get to the city my brain shuts down. No signal gets through and the
question remains how do I know?
With a brain well emptied, and a head a vacuum of nothing,
everything I’ve ever known goes quietly absent. As still and
as qui... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
1ec28d0775141e2f | The Three-Legged Dog at the Heart of Our Home | Linda Gregerson | She dances to the wheeze of my lungs. Were she taller,
or had she both hind legs, she would lick my aching knees.
There’s nothing like practice I firmly believe. Practice
makes the heart grow fond. When the graft heals,
you’ve apples on a cherry tree, delicious domestic freaks.
I had a splendid grandmother, I migh... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
112351b836b07342 | Song | Muriel Rukeyser | Make and be eaten, the poet says,Lie in the arms of nightlong fire,To celebrate the waking, wake.Burn in the daylong light; and praiseEven the mother unappeased,Even the fathers of desire.Blind go the days, but joy will see Agreements of music; they will wind The shaking of your dance; no more Will the ambiguous arm-wa... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
ab6af7d04a0bff25 | The Sea Shell | Marin Sorescu | I have hidden inside a sea shell
but forgotten in which.
Now daily I dive,
filtering the sea through my fingers,
to find myself.
Sometimes I think
a giant fish has swallowed me.
Looking for it everywhere I want to make sure
it will get me completely.
The sea-bed attracts me, and
I’m repelled by millions
of s... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
f9ae2842099218a2 | The Morning-Watch | Henry Vaughan | O joys! infinite sweetness! with what flow’rs
And shoots of glory my soul breaks and buds!
All the long hours
Of night, and rest,
Through the still shrouds
Of sleep, and clouds,
This dew fell on my breast;
Oh, how it bloods
And spirits all my earth! Hark! In what rings
... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
4b3da5ed99907f08 | Unusually Warm March Day, Leading to Storms | Francesca Abbate | Everything is half here,
like the marble head
of the Roman emperor
and the lean torso
of his favorite.
The way the funnel cloud
which doesn't seem
to touch ground does—
flips a few cars, a semi—
we learn to walk miles
above our bodies.
The pig farms dissolve,
then the small hills.
As in dreams fraught
with irrevocable ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
e5dd6e241a528e19 | Lines Written Near San Francisco | Louis Simpson | I wake and feel the city trembling.
Yes, there is something unsettled in the air
And the earth is uncertain.
And so it was for the tenor Caruso.
He couldn’t sleep—you know how the ovation
Rings in your ears, and you re-sing your part.
And then the ceiling trembled
And the floor moved. He ran into the street.
Ne... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5c06e8f09dd86b00 | The Definitions | Fanny Howe | Monostich: a long sentence
Sternum: a little chest
Heart: upside down
Location of the unconscious:
Empty window seat
Horizon: gone at night
Thought: given
Prison: a perversion
—
Our earth can’t live without holy rites.
You can see this from the sky.
Lots of hills to climb up and down.
A straight ravine betw... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S6-1",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-2",
"S9-7",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming",
"A... |
3b0bc6ef696c2772 | Joseph Sleeps, | Linda Rodriguez | his eyelids like a moth’s fringed wings.
Arms flail against the Ninja Turtle sheet
and suddenly-long legs
race time.
Awake, he’s a water-leak detector, a recycling ranger
who bans Styrofoam and asks for beeswax
crayons, a renewable resource.
He wants to adopt the Missouri river,
write the president
to make fac... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
0b1b0d648b246c64 | Belief | Josephine Miles | Mother said to call her if the H-bomb exploded
And I said I would, and it about did
When Louis my brother robbed a service station
And lay cursing on the oily cement in handcuffs.
But by that time it was too late to tell Mother,
She was too sick to worry the life out of her
Over why why. Causation is sequence
An... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-11",
"S5-3",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
67255ecf91106617 | Boleros 14 | Jay Wright | (CALLIOPE ↔ SAHU)
Night enters the Plaza, step by step, in the singular
flaring of lamps on churro carts, taco stands,
benches set with deep bowls of pozole,
on rugs embroidered with relics, crosses, bones,
pamphlets, dream books.
Around this Cathedral, there is an order never shaken;
... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
aacf0737829a8a86 | Bindweed | James McKean | There is little I can do besides stoop to pluck them one by one from the ground, their roots all weak links, this hoard of Lazaruses popping up at night, not the Heavenly Blue so like silk handkerchiefs, nor the Giant White so timid in the face of the moon, but poor relations who visit then stay. They sleep in my garde... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
dd964373c51ec576 | Where We Live | Michael Dickman | For John Guare
I used to live in a mother now I livein a sunflowerBlinded by the silverwareBlinded by the refrigeratorI sit on a sidewalk in the sunflower and its yellow downpourThe light of the worldbeads up on one perfect green leafIt scribbles its name on every living thing then erases it so what’s left is more of... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
7d8586ac049a7b99 | Twickham Tweer | Jack Prelutsky | Shed a tear for Twickham Tweer
who ate uncommon meals,
who often peeled bananas
and then only ate the peels,
who emptied jars of marmalade
and only ate the jars,
and only ate the wrappers
off of chocolate candy bars.
When Twickham cooked a chicken
he would only eat the bones,
he discarded scoops of ice cream
... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
93442b103260944c | What I've Come to Discuss | Karen Volkman | What I’ve come to discuss is mostly about shadows
and the airs left behind in caring, discarding,
the long inhibitions of whereso and when.
Alabaster, a dark quire, in its many pages and premises
the maze, from which move
tendrilled purples and contusions, magnificent
fuchsia receivers of false content,
the spla... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
128a70ca210a111f | Dress Form | Brenda Shaughnessy | Myself I'm like a dress my mother made
me, a fabric self split open with a sigh
as I grew and—bewildered or proud
or full of rage—patched with nicer
material than we'd had before. I got
the sense it was all wasted on me.
But a needle's sharp to pierce, is itself
pierced—so as to sew like I was taught.
Like I le... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
66853a07fdf5f51d | Dunes | A. R. Ammons | Taking root in windy sand
is not an easy
way
to go about
finding a place to stay.
A ditchbank or wood's-edge
has firmer ground.
In a loose world though
something can be started—
a root touch water,
a tip break sand—
Mounds from that can rise
on held mounds,
a gesture of building, ke... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
164d3ed7bfc1c8e4 | Nightwatchman's Song | W. D. Snodgrass | After Heinrich I. F. Biber
I What’s unseen may not exist— Or so those secret powers insist That prowl past nightfall, Enabled by the brain’s blacklist To fester out of sight, So we streak from bad to worse, Through an expanding universe And see no evil. On my rounds ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
8bece102ff4ce3d8 | Mango hats stood out from the rest | Shira Dentz | Canary-yellow dice
aren’t what you think,
seller said in their shop
where they sold
all things
canary—
whistles,
sweets, frills, perfumes, with hints
of cherry chance,
a throw of canary.
Much hinges
on
canary,
Canary said
in
their
shop where they sol... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bb1abbe9784db66a | The Millihelen | Sinéad Morrissey | It never looks warm or properly daytime
in black-and-white photographs the sheer cliff-
face of the ship still enveloped in its scaffolding
backside against the launching cradle
ladies lining the quay in their layered drapery
touching their gloves to their lips and just asThey That Go Down to the Sea in Ships rise... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
332b933c5b6c55fb | KM4 | Tom Sleigh | 1/ THE MOUTH
Not English Somali Italian French the mouth
blown open in the Toyota battle wagon at KM4
speaks in a language never heard before.
Not the Absolute Speaker of the News,
not crisis chatter's famine/flame,
the mouth blown open at KM4
speaks in a language never heard before.
Speaks back to the dead at ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
0f7a8952eb0960dc | Passing away, Saith the World | Christina Rossetti | Passing away, saith the World, passing away:
Chances, beauty and youth, sapp'd day by day:
Thy life never continueth in one stay.
Is the eye waxen dim, is the dark hair changing to grey
That hath won neither laurel nor bay?
I shall clothe myself in Spring and bud in May:
Thou, root-stricken, shalt not rebuild thy decay... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-4",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
10a73548125cef58 | The Whip | Robert Creeley | I spent a night turning in bed,
my love was a feather, a flat
sleeping thing. She was
very white
and quiet, and above us on
the roof, there was another woman I
also loved, had
addressed myself to in
a fit she
returned. That
encompasses it. But now I was
lonely, I yelled,
but what is that? Ugh,
she said, be... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
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"Love",
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"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
ddba3dd6ba403813 | Li Hua's Messenger | Peter Bethanis | In a hut far from the village Li Hua bends over his canvas like an insect. He is so deliberate, each stroke is a spider's legs fighting the current. There is a war in his veins, a battle of desires. He is jealous of Li Po whose pictures glide like the moon over dark water. I do not wish to disturb him as h... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
37001e2ded2f8490 | ...Within, Into, Inside, Under, Within... | John Unterecker | I
Beginnings: a chrysalis improvisation
in the wings, roles
taking on flesh before a role begins…
as light begins in the elm,
pushing the long elm branches into night,
a ghost light pressing sky…
or actors, swollen with strange selves,
distended to the edges of tight skin,
a brightness under moth-wing fingerti... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
cddb04c5f091f88d | Twelve Twelve Twelve | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | a.) When I was twelve, I lived
on the grounds of a mental asylum.
b). My Filipino mother was a psychiatrist,
so that meant we lived
in the doctor’s quarters—
one of the three big brick houses
that edged the institute.
c). My younger sister and I practiced Herkies—
our favorite cheerleading jumps—
off the patie... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
9aa5cfada5435309 | Sustenance | Ronald Wallace | Australia. Phillip Island. The Tasman Sea. Dusk. The craggy coastline at low tide in fog. Two thousand tourists milling in the stands as one by one, and then in groups, the fairy penguins mass up on the sand like so much sea wrack and debris. And then, as on command, the improbable parade begins: all day they've been o... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
f06e2a9c150a5659 | On Cowee Ridge | Jonathan Williams | December 13, 1993
John Gordon Boyd
died on the birthday
of three remarkable, and remarkably different, writers:
Heinrich Heine, Kenneth Patchen, Ross McDonald
John, too, was just as remarkable, blessed with an inherent “graciousness”
and with extraordinary eyes & ears…
I think of two texts
on the grievous occ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
fb26b347298fae08 | The Wolves | Frank Stanford | at night while the dogs
were barking
Baby Gauge and I crawled under the fence
with knives
we made out like the rattlesnake melons
were men we didn’t like
the new moon ones were wolves
I would cut a belly this way
he would cut a belly that way
the flies
came around the sweet juice
it was blood to us
we taste... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
de6b96e46dc26674 | Declaration | Bei Dao | for Yu Luoke
Perhaps the final hour is come
I have left no testament
Only a pen, for my mother
I am no hero
In an age without heroes
I just want to be a man
The still horizon
Divides the ranks of the living and the dead
I can only choose the sky
I will not kneel on the ground
Allowing the executioners to loo... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a2b6a3f05d484691 | On Insomnia | Fran Lock | And contemplate this: the heat-treated hairdos of next-door
neighbors, the roseate nosebleeds of fuckboys in hoodies;
your own face, rinsed in the mirror, the sweet green sweat
you’re riddled with in mornings, a rock pool reflection under
algaecidal light. You are going nowhere. This poem yokes
you, to the pain yo... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
cb2dbc1f358e1c75 | Wisconsin | Nate Klug | By new namesand then no namesat all, their lawswill reach your land,Lorine, to feedon your much lovedmarshy spaceswhose occasional facesdiscern a strangerfrom far offbut like to takea break from wellor welding justto talk. We can-not extricatea place from thoseit’s made of, the sounds it makes. But nowfrom BlackhawkIsl... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
f805390f81e31289 | The Babies | Sabrina Orah Mark | Some thought it was because of all the babies I suddenly seemed to be having. Others, that I should pay for the damages. Fact is, I wasn’t getting any older, so I bought a small aquarium, and skipped town. Took up with a toy store owner until he left me for a more beautiful robot. Took up with a reader of instructional... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
6a7981c98f8d9324 | Rules for Captain Ahab’s Provincetown Poetry Workshop | Martín Espada | 1. Ye shall be free to write a poem on any subject, as long as it’s the White Whale.
2. A gold doubloon shall be granted to the first among ye who in a poem sights the White Whale.
3. The Call Me Ishmael Award shall be given to the best poem about the White Whale, with publication in The White Whale Review.
4.... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
8dadcb435ef5973a | Matins | Carol Frost | I
I’ve felt undeserving. I’ve made myself ill with the glory,
in the unleavened garden
disgorged the lies and scared away with a stick a snake.
What made me cover that which I could not have?
I’ve grieved and walked in catacombs,
I’ve felt undeserving. I’ve made myself ill with the glory.
Even the falling leaves... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
3dc5d1db3c6a0085 | From “Coleshill” | Fiona Sampson | The deer racing across a fieldof the same clay and tallowcolor they are—if they are:or are they tricks of the light?—must feel themselves being pouredand pouring through life. We’re not builtbut become: trembling columnsof apprehension that rippleand pass those ripples to and frowith the world that shakes around us—it ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
08b6ade7d8a158af | It’s That Time | W. S. Di Piero | The silence of night hoursis never really silent.You hear the air,even when it doesn’t stir.It’s a memory of the day.Nothing stirs. Memory lags.No traffic hushing upand down tricky hillsamong the camphor trees.No foghorns, no streetcars’shrilling phantoms beforethey emerge from tunnels.These absences keep us alert.No r... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
0d661f4bef63542e | Harness | Jane Hirshfield | Little soul,
you and I will become
the memory
of a memory of a memory.
A horse
released of the traces
forgets the weight of the wagon. | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
f14075e5104fe6f9 | Watching dan-/ cers on skates | Lorine Niedecker | Ten thousand women
and I
the only one
in boots
Life’s dance:
they meet
he holds her leg
up | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7",
"S9-5"
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
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] |
f90eee00273fd0ee | Twelve | Lynn Melnick | When I was your age I went to a banquet.
When I was your age I went to a barroom
and bought cigarettes with quarters
lifted from the laundry money. Last night
I did all your laundry. I don’t know why
I thought this love could be pure. It’s enough
that it’s infinite. I kiss your cheek when you sleep
and wonder if... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
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"Love",
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"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b4b609b3d9c73d13 | Proverbs from Purgatory | Lloyd Schwartz | It was déjà vu all over again.
I know this town like the back of my head.
People who live in glass houses are worth two in the bush.
One hand scratches the other.
A friend in need is worth two in the bush.
A bird in the hand makes waste.
Life isn’t all it’s crapped up to be.
It’s like finding a needle in the eye... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
16fbc6982a217504 | Plaint in a Major Key | Jorge Sánchez | Without even leaving one’s door, One can know the whole world.—Laozi
The rumble of the night sounds even in the bright daylight of morning. Life blooms amid the Ten Thousand Things, but does not bloom amid the Ten Thousand Things. Shrivel-eyed I wake up and tend to the One here and now, clamoring to be let out. Down w... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
baa6e6fc913094e5 | Think of the Unsatisfied Ones | Gottfried Benn | When despair—
you who enjoyed great triumphs
and walked with confidence and the memory
of many gifts of delirium and dawns
and unexpected
turns—
when despair wants you in its grip,
and threatens you from some unfathomable depth
with destruction
and the guttering out of your flame:
then think of the unsatisfie... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
6937677a058d7e8e | Little Wife | Marianne Boruch | At the Oriental Institute, Chicago
They redid King Tut splendid, once stone-huge as this yet his wife’s feet tiny, the only thing of her nowlow, next to him. A few toes, some of the rest, a bit of ankle, that’s itin the shade of her husband’s looming, massive looking straight ahead into the future where we live and ca... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
e372eb20993402e6 | The Hearing Aid | Richard Jones | My mother–half-deaf,
a small metal box
pinned to her blouse,
and beneath the gray locks
the hidden earphone,
the wire running across
her heart to its home
in her ear–can barely
hear me anymore. I’m
just someone’s voice
lost years ago, trying now
to make myself clear,
deliberately now,
so she will see how
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7b126e6a975ad113 | The Jaunt | Alfred Corn | In party outfits, two by two or one by one
(I was expected to go along as well),
They step up the steep gangplank, hands on
Metal railing. The river, youthful also
In midnight blue with sunset-tinted wavelets,
Lets them borrow its broad back
For an evening’s unhurried round trip,
Which won’t interrupt old river ... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0657d5024fbdecb3 | I Would Fain Die a Dry Death | Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman | The American public is patient,
The American public is slow,
The American public will stand as much
As any public I know.
We submit to be killed by our railroads,
We submit to be fooled by our press,
We can stand as much government scandal
As any folks going, I guess,
We can bear bad air in the subway,
We can... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
2e90a4f77c6cec26 | Blister | Francisco Aragón | the noun
A disease
of the peach tree
—a fungus
distorts leaves.
The first time
I was taken
to see him
I was five
or six. A vesicle
on the skin
containing
serum, caused
by friction,
a burn, or other
injury. He lived
on Alabama Street
next to Saint
Peter’s and wore
a white t-shirt,
starched and snug.
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-3",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
1756eb7bed35170c | Poem by Poem | Juan Felipe Herrera | —in memory of
Cynthia Hurd, Susie Jackson, Ethel Lance,
Rev. Depayne Middleton-Doctor,
Hon. Rev. Clementa Pinckney,
Tywanza Sanders, Rev. Daniel Simmons Sr.,
Rev. Sharonda Singleton, Myra Thompson
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
d2bbb1f23175c908 | Sea-Heroes | H. D. | Crash on crash of the sea,straining to wreck men; sea-boards, continents,raging against the world, furious,stay at last, for against your furyand your mad fight,the line of heroes stands, godlike:Akroneos, Oknolos, Elatreus,helm-of-boat, loosener-of-helm, dweller-by-sea,Nauteus, sea-man,Prumneos, stern-of-ship,Agchilal... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-11",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
b7cabd1ca7e03a2b | Breakfast | Mary Lamb | A dinner party, coffee, tea,
Sandwich, or supper, all may be
In their way pleasant. But to me
Not one of these deserves the praise
That welcomer of new-born days,A breakfast, merits; ever giving
Cheerful notice we are living
Another day refreshed by sleep,
When its festival we keep.
Now although I would not sli... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
b4740b28a5c1d89e | A Lament | Katharine Tynan | (For Holy Cross Day, 1914)
Clouds is under clouds and rain For there will not come again Two, the beloved sire and son Whom all gifts were rained upon. Kindness is all done, alas, Courtesy and grace must pass, Beauty, wit and charm lie dead, Love no more may wreathe the head. Now the branch that w... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
27d79ba640e816c7 | Motet | Michael Anania | I
“At odds again,”
hands moving out
of the shadows.
And now, now
everything seems
definite, discrete,
fingers webbed
with sunlight
the tree lets through,
arms still in their
own time, circling,
catch up, catch
hold at the wrists,
like cell chains
in a watchcrystal
completing themselves.
Together again.... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
b25f06fd25ffee71 | Anne Rutledge | Edgar Lee Masters | Out of me unworthy and unknown The vibrations of deathless music; “With malice toward none, with charity for all.” Out of me the forgiveness of millions toward millions, And the beneficent face of a nation Shining with justice and truth. I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, Beloved in life of Abraham Linco... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4e5574f238f3242b | I Knocked My Head against the Wall | Anna Swir | As a child
I put my finger in the fire
to become
a saint.
As a teenager
every day I would knock my head against the wall.
As a young girl
I went out through a window of a garret
to the roof
in order to jump.
As a woman
I had lice all over my body.
They cracked when I was ironing my sweater.
I waited sixty ... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
a7b186fb82ca4f8f | P R N D | Tyrone Williams | A downpour drumming on the rooftop,
engine running, car, idle, interior
bathed in the pungent intoxicating spices
radiating from the carry-out
in the passenger seat. Inside the Taj,
neon beacon in a strip mall
dark with the common sense of folks
long gone home, red lamps
glowered. A pair of headlights
glared b... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-1",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
cce76a6dc1b6efa8 | Piraeus | John Sakkis | "Mad—bad—and dangerous to know" bore George Gordon to the pageant
of his bleeding heart in Philhellenic pirated by radicals reaching further and
further to Cephalonia devoted to his fortune and the shaft that paid the
brigade a remedy of bleeding heroism on hearing the news the Carbonari
dreaming... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
23a08478c5e7f1c8 | Love Poem | Dorothea Grossman | In a lightning boltof memory,I see our statue of Buddha(a wedding gift from Uncle Gene)which always saton top of the speaker cabinet.When a visitor asked,“So, does Buddha like jazz?”you said, “I hope so.He’s been getting it up the assfor a long time.” | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
ddd3a075ca45ea53 | This Be The Verse | Philip Larkin | They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man ha... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
99ab2fbc0e361afd | Dear Big Gods | Mona Arshi | all you have to do
is show yourself
in case you hear us
we are so small
and fenceless in the shade
throw us a hook
when you can
... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
25f31dab79f6ad41 | Käthe Kollwitz | Muriel Rukeyser | 1
Held between wars
my lifetime
among wars, the big hands of the world of death
my lifetime
listens to yours.
The faces of the sufferers
in the street, in dailiness,
their lives showing
through their bodies
a look as of music
the revolutionary look
that says I am in the world
to change... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S8-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
ee86694a8d322fc7 | The Knight's Tomb | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Where is the grave of Sir Arthur O'Kellyn?Where may the grave of that good man be?—By the side of a spring, on the breast of Helvellyn,Under the twigs of a young birch tree!The oak that in summer was sweet to hear,And rustled its leaves in the fall of the year,And whistled and roared in the winter alone,Is gone,—and th... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S5-2",
"S6-4",
"S11-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
25aa966dc2506b11 | In Me as the Swans | Leslie Williams | Not embittered even while freezing to the ice of their own lakes. The night I was leaving for Madrid into the noisy party a dazzling friend-of-a-friend walked in: I want so much (as a couple of kids on the dance floor want) to slow the tempo, hold there longer, to feel that seedly longing to be presse... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
8399d7335688a16c | Coquette et Froide | Julia Ward Howe | What is thy thought of me?
What is thy feeling?
Lov'st thou the veil of sense,
Or its revealing?
Leav'st thou the maiden rose
Drooping and blushing,
Or rend'st its bosom with
Kissing and crushing?
I would be beautiful
That thou should'st woo me,
Gentle, delightsome, but
To draw thee to me.
Yet should thy longing eye
Ev... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/New Love"
] |
09b09ff0c52184f7 | Tal’-s-go Gal’-quo-gi Di-del’-qua-s-do-di Tsa-la-gi Di-go-whe-li/ Beginning Cherokee | Qwo-Li Driskill | I-gv-yi-i Tsa-la-gi Go-whe-lv-i: A-sgo-hni-ho-’i/
FIRST CHEROKEE LESSON: MOURNING
Find a flint blade
Use your teeth as a whetstone
Cut your hair
Talk to shadows and crows
Cry your red throat raw
Learn to translate the words you miss mo... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
4d4d92909dfd31af | Amor Fati | Sandra Lim | Inside every world there is another world trying to get out,
and there is something in you that would like to discount this world.
The stars could rise in darkness over heartbreaking coasts,
and you would not know if you were ruining your life or beginning a real one.
You could claim professional fondness for the w... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
0c04aca85d416f80 | The Beggars | Rainer Maria Rilke | You didn't know
what was in the heap. A visitor found
it to contain beggars. They sell the hollow
of their hands.
They show the sightseer
their mouths full of filth,
and let him (he can afford it) peer
at the mange eating away at them.
In their twisted vision
his stranger's face is skewed;
they are pleased wi... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
83cc46dfe545bf45 | crossing the South China Sea as analgesia | Quan Barry | One day we will all be like this—the boat’s sickening pitch, & the delicateness
needless, consumable.
How everything here naturally passes into night, a room
w/o walls.
Could mindlessness keep us alive? Could bright colors?
Tonight I am thinking of the young woman who dreams of her father
being sho... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
9e219564403066c9 | Royal | Joshua Clover | They moved across the screen like a computer simulation.
They moved across the screen like complex models & we learned
to call this a nature show.
Animals but set in gray shades for video capture with a lighter area for
the face.
Almost white they moved across the screen ... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
3b94fd93c7d310b4 | [I asked myself / What, Sappho, can...] | Sappho | I asked myself
What, Sappho, can
you give one who
has everything,
like Aphrodite? | [
"S1",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-8",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
1cd2560fd2028932 | Problems of Translation: Problems of Language | June Jordan | Dedicated to Myriam Díaz-Diocaretz
1
I turn to my Rand McNally Atlas.
Europe appears right after the Map of the World.
All of Italy can be seen page 9.
Half of Chile page 29.
I take out my ruler.
In global perspective Italy
amounts to less than half an inch.
Chile measures more than an inch and a quarter
of a... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
9bf358015b4755a1 | If Love Now Reigned As It Hath Been | Henry VIII, King of England | If love now reigned as it hath been And were rewarded as it hath sin, Noble men then would sure ensearch All ways whereby they might it reach, But envy reigneth with such disdain And causeth lovers outwardly to refrain, Which puts them to more and more Inwardly most grievous and sore. The fault in whom I cannot set, Bu... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
992a7fbbb82fe5b5 | Noon Concert | Dorothea Grossman | These frail, white widows who get their hair done weekly in tight curls, like little flowers, bend their heads until the applause says it’s time to be brave again. | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
907c0cc1f401790b | A Horse Named Never | Jennifer Chang | At the stables, each stall was labeled with a name.Biscuit stood aloof — I faced, always, invariably, his clockwork tail.Crab knew the salt lick too well.Trapezoid mastered stillness: a midnight mare, she was sternest and tallest, her chest stretched against the edges of her stall.I was not afraid of Never, the chestnu... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
bc9c7736f71e2711 | Gravity | Angel Nafis | After Carrie Mae Weems’s “The Kitchen Table Series”
I. THE STRAWCan you throw this away Maybe you should hire more Black staffWhere are you | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
585890a8d911f7ee | The Pond at Dusk | Jane Kenyon | A fly wounds the water but the wound
soon heals. Swallows tilt and twitter
overhead, dropping now and then toward
the outward-radiating evidence of food.
The green haze on the trees changes
into leaves, and what looks like smoke
floating over the neighbor’s barn
is only apple blossoms.
But sometimes what looks ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
1d71dcb6735b2544 | Saint Rose of Lima | Judith Ortiz Cofer | Never let my hands be to any one an occasion to temptation. — ISABEL DE FLORES
She was the joke of the angels—a girl crazy enough for Godthat she despised her own beauty; who grew bitter herbs to mix with her food,who pinned a garland of roses to her forehead; and who, in a fury of desireconcocted a potion of Indian p... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-9",
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
d9f58a3e91f6feaa | Black Space | Ishion Hutchinson | For Erna Brodber
Be ye my fictions; But her story.
— Richard Crashaw
I can bring a halo
into the night cave, quiet
with music (do not ask the music),
to her shaded there
in the moon; her fine spectacles
steam their pond rings;
her animal eyes fix
on the lintel of the door
as the wax owl glances back at me. I... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
0d7aceb2262548d2 | Rhymes for a Watertower | Christian Wiman | A town so flat a grave's a hill,
A dusk the color of beer.
A row of schooldesks shadows fill,
A row of houses near.
A courthouse spreading to its lawn,
A bank clock's lingering heat.
A gleam of storefronts not quite gone,
A courthouse in the street.
A different el... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
fb54c5086c625e86 | The Layers | Stanley Kunitz | I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
an... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
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