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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
efdece8a90c98e76 | In Memoriam, July 19, 1914 | Anna Akhmatova | We aged a hundred years and this descended
In just one hour, as at a stroke.
The summer had been brief and now was ended;
The body of the ploughed plains lay in smoke.
The hushed road burst in colors then, a soaring
Lament rose, ringing silver like a bell.
And so I covered up my face, imploring
God to destroy me... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
82e14d09c21f3e5d | Night Visit | Fabio Pusterla | You're dreaming of Cratoids, Armpullers, the Blownose Dragon. Who knows what Anna Brichtova dreamed about, the girl who comes looking for us tonight with her mosaic of colored paper: her house with its red roof, some trees on a green lawn, the sky—outside, the concentration camp. This is the real gift I brought back fr... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7a8baebdfebfb306 | Prothalamion | Michael Ryan | The love we’ve defined for ourselves
in privacy, in suffering,
keeps both of us lonely as a fist,
but does intimacy mean a happy ending?
I’m afraid of marriage.
Driving past them at night, the shadows
on a drawn curtain hide terrible lives:
a father stuck in a job, his daughter
opening her blouse to strangers.
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
c1e96325358485ed | T.S.A. | Amit Majmudar | Off with the wristwatch, the Reeboks, the belt.
My laptop's in a bin.
I dig out the keys from my jeans and do
my best Midwestern grin.
At O'Hare, at Atlanta, at Dallas/Fort Worth,
it happens every trip,
at LaGuardia, Logan, and Washington Dulles,
the customary ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
29339e686277be54 | He wishes his Beloved were Dead | William Butler Yeats | Were you but lying cold and dead, And lights were paling out of the West, You would come hither, and bend your head, And I would lay my head on your breast; And you would murmur tender words, Forgiving me, because you were dead: Nor would you rise and hasten away, Though you have the will of wild birds, But know your h... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
9d39a1ec58962b96 | Advection Blues | Michael Metivier | The mower alonesaw from the medianthe cloud come overthe mountain down to trawlthe valley like a whaleand the swifts like waterpassing through her white baleen.The mower alone patrollingthe haw with the hawkssaw from the medianthe cloud come overthe mountain to swallowwhere the sky had beenand where the town had beenpi... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
303f224a085352cf | the children of immigrants | Lenelle Moïse | When I am a toddler, a child, a tween, a teen, and a young adult, I am called an ancestral soul, a ti gran moun, a little old person.
Adults study me and decide that I am wise beyond my years, mature for my age, emotionally ripe. I am told it is unusual to meet a five-ten-fifteen-year-old girl who does not slouch or m... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S6-3",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth"
] |
ac8e28e3a694bb3f | Friend of the Enemy | Frank Stanford | The yolk went down my leg
Like a beautiful snail without a shell,
Went down the hill
To the skillet of water, to the nymphflies,
Into the lips of pond minnows,
Down the long belly of the gar – the hellbenders
Having dived and lost, then into
The paw of the lame panther
Who loped back to her lair with it.
As fo... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
7bd547d95cd924b9 | Everybody Who is Dead | Frank Stanford | When a man knows another man
Is looking for him
He doesn’t hide.
He doesn’t wait
To spend another night
With his wife
Or put his children to sleep.
He puts on a clean shirt and a dark suit
And goes to the barber shop
To let another man shave him.
He shuts his eyes
Remembers himself as a boy
Lying naked on a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
1a56259526ec31e7 | Ephemera | Robin Becker | The snake, alphabet of one glide, swims
with its keepsake head, periscoping, and then
we lose it in the pond grass, lashed
among the bottom-feeders. Pocketing goggles,
my gaze tends pineward, to the driest sky
in twenty years (also passing, rain predicted),
a month of sun days. In Fairbanks, all-night baseball
a... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-7",
"S9-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
676b71b9c3214366 | In Case of Complete Reversal | Kay Ryan | Born into each seedis a small anti-seeduseful in case of somecomplete reversal:a tiny but powerfulkit for adapting itto the unimaginable.If we could crack thefineness of the shellwe’d see thebundled minuses stacked as in a safe,ready for useif things don’tgo well. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4681414a3b9cd9eb | Bride Price | Ru Freeman | The coals you walked on
in places considered un-
civil gleam beneath
feet transformed they
gleam, new blades sharp you
are adept at conjuring shoes
for your bare feet & blood
pools easy along the obsidian
edge you walk fast because of in
spite of you are said to be laughing
until you cry you cry laughing... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
5c48eed148a02fac | Autumn Testament (1) | James K. Baxter | As I come down the hill from Toro Poutini’s house
My feet are sore, being bare, on the sharp stones
And that is a suitable penance. The dust of the pa road
Is cool, though, and I can see
The axe of the moon shift down behind the trees
Very slowly. The red light from the windows
Of the church has a ghostly look, a... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
1e49b91ec0a140d8 | [My mother saw the green tree toad] | Lorine Niedecker | My mother saw the green tree toad
on the window sill
her first one
since she was young.
We saw it breathe
and swell up round.
My youth is no sure sign
I’ll find this kind of thing
tho it does sing.
Let’s take it in
I said so grandmother can see
but she could not
it changed to brown
and town
changed us, to... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-1",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
6985ffcdcf278211 | Fountains of Aix | May Swenson | Beards of water
some of them have.
Others are blowing whistles of water.
Faces astonished that constant water
jumps from their mouths.
Jaws of lions are snarling water
through green teeth over chins of moss.
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
562c093899fac263 | The Forecast | Wendy Xu | Distrust this season breedsin me wholeblue worlds, am secondto leafy nouns,pinned back darkening lipof the night,untrustworthy sidewalk glazedand sleeping there,peachy trees, a line drawn from onebrow of a star downand planted, each pillowlittle shimmer, little wilt startledfrom out the arranging fieldmoonlit pale behi... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
c41547ca0ac5b76d | Wedding Portrait | David Dominguez | Yesterday afternoon, I hung a framed print in the living room—
a task that took two head-throbbing hours.
It’s a wedding portrait that we love: Frida and Diego Rivera.
I wonder how two people could consistently hurt each other,
but still feel love so deeply as their bones turned into dust?
Before Frida died, she p... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
0d8ba8e79b9cf155 | Proteus | Don Bogen | To take,
like water,
whatever shape you flow through, fill, or rest in.
And to choose that shape.
* * *
As: Brian, become a gangster,
six feet from my face.
Voice no longer a caress
but a sharpened projection,
belly a ram in a buttoned vest.
The whole body shows
... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-6",
"S8-3",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ca8c2d3d4e54b889 | Norroway in February | Hannah Sanghee Park | The glassy hill I clomb for thee
For surefooted step, hooves behoove the haver. The sky redid blue, the woman wavered,and the black bull (the vanquisher), vanished.She called out to nothing, and in vain shed tears until she reached the glass hill’s impasse. Served her standard fairy tale penance, passim,served her sev... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
91d97acdb77ee380 | Psychoanalysis: An Elegy | Jack Spicer | What are you thinking about?
I am thinking of an early summer.
I am thinking of wet hills in the rain
Pouring water. Shedding it
Down empty acres of oak and manzanita
Down to the old green brush tangled in the sun,
Greasewood, sage, and spring mustard.
Or the hot wind coming down from Santa Ana
Driving the hill... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
db61812e080893c8 | Willie’s Wart | Kenn Nesbitt | Willie had a stubborn wart
upon his middle toe.
Regardless, though, of what he tried
the wart refused to go.
So Willie went and visited
his family foot physician,
who instantly agreed
it was a stubborn wart condition.
The doctor tried to squeeze the wart.
He tried to twist and turn it.
He tried to scrape and ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
5c4bce00f37f91d8 | Trojan | Jericho Brown | When a hurricane sends
Winds far enough north
To put our power out,
We only think of winning
The war bodies wage
To prove the border
Between them isn’t real.
An act of God, so sweet.
No TV. No novel. No
Recreation but one
Another, and neither of us
Willing to kill. I don’t care
That I don’t love my lover.
... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S2-10",
"S3-11",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
0f9953f6f3d5338a | Incident | Eamon Grennan | for Louis Asekoff
Mid-October, Massachusetts. We drive
through the livid innards of a beast—dragon
or salamander—whose home is fire. The hills
a witch’s quilt of goldrust, flushed cinnamon,
wine fever, hectic lemon. After dark,
while water ruffles, salted, in a big pot, we four
gather towards the woodfire, excha... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S6-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
88e05a51aa6cf642 | The American Way | Gregory Corso | 1
I am a great American
I am almost nationalistic about it!
I love America like a madness!
But I am afraid to return to America
I’m even afraid to go into the American Express—2
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
e695395612897ec8 | The Dead | Rupert Brooke | These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the qui... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6a699bf0a7f2851a | My Trip | Donald Revell | I am looking at a smallpox vaccination scar
In a war movie on the arm
Of a young actor. He has just swum
Across a river somewhere in Normandy
Into the waiting arms of his rejoicing comrades.
Of course, the river’s in California,
And the actor is dead now. Nevertheless,
This is the first of many hotels this trip,... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
aa9e233edd2f4d30 | Susie Asado | Gertrude Stein | Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow, it is a silver seller.
This is a please this is a please there ar... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
74dbade1787422dc | Sun and Moon | Jane Kenyon | For Donald Clark
Drugged and drowsy but not asleep
I heard my blind roommate's daughter
helping her with her meal:
“What's that? Squash?”
“No. It's spinach.”
Back from a brain-scan, she dozed
to the sound of the Soaps: adultery,
amnesia, shady business deals,
and long, white hospital halls....
No separation b... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
37eb460a8a75887f | Seniors | Alberto Ríos | William cut a hole in his Levi’s pocket
so he could flop himself out in class
behind the girls so the other guys
could see and shit what guts we all said.
All Konga wanted to do over and over
was the rubber band trick, but he showed
everyone how, so nobody wanted to see
anymore and one day he cried, just cried
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S6-3",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
89594a8dee9c54c0 | Fragment 2: I know 'tis but a Dream, yet feel more anguish | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | I know 'tis but a Dream, yet feel more anguish
Than if 'twere Truth. It has been often so:
Must I die under it? Is no one near?
Will no one hear these stifled groans and wake me? | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b5894649844e8aad | Sonnet in the Shape of a Potted Christmas Tree | George Starbuck | * O fury- bedecked! O glitter-torn! Let the wild wind erect bonbonbonanzas; junipers affect frostyfreeze turbans; iciclestuff adorn all cuckolded creation in a madcap crown of horn! It’s a new day; no scapegrace of a sect tidying up the ashtrays playing Daughter-in-Law Elect; bells! bibelots! popsicle cigars! shatter t... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
57212d33283bd2e7 | from The Unfollowing: 26 | Lyn Hejinian | Puddings don’t have lungs, melons don’t have riders
Listen—a female seal, a seaport, and a social world
Come day’s end the top of the tree hesitates, pauses, then sweeps on like a
blackboard eraser to clear the horizon
Sit, Shep, incognito
The lid of the sun is heavy, its lashes blink on the horizon, brus... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
ad64ebf45d359d9b | From "DRIFT" | Caroline Bergvall | The fair wind failed. The wind dropped. Winds were unfavourable straightaway. The favourable wind dropped and they were beset by storms so that they made little progress. Then the wind dropped and they were beset by winds from the north and fog; for many days they did not know where they were sailing. The fair wind fai... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
1caf4aac2be8a3ed | From the House of Yemanjá | Audre Lorde | My mother had two faces and a frying pot
where she cooked up her daughters
into girls
before she fixed our dinner.
My mother had two faces
and a broken pot
where she hid out a perfect daughter
who was not me
I am the sun and moon and forever hungry
for her eyes.
I bear two women upon my back
one dark and ric... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
dc6519995581c975 | These Lacustrine Cities | John Ashbery | These lacustrine cities grew out of loathing
Into something forgetful, although angry with history.
They are the product of an idea: that man is horrible, for instance,
Though this is only one example.
They emerged until a tower
Controlled the sky, and with artifice dipped back
Into the past for swans and taperin... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
4fbf9cd097ebdfe3 | Faith Healing | Philip Larkin | Slowly the women file to where he stands
Upright in rimless glasses, silver hair,
Dark suit, white collar. Stewards tirelessly
Persuade them onwards to his voice and hands,
Within whose warm spring rain of loving care
Each dwells some twenty seconds. Now, dear child,
What’s wrong, | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
72f901a896c879bf | lion | Quan Barry | Shagged-gold, at rest the great haunches
as if axled, fur sleeked like a butter rug.
In the Serengeti sun, the male’s harem
like a solar system, each lady kept
exclusive, her seasonal heat for him alone,
estrous belly pressed to the ground,
then the male’s riding her musculature—
throughout evolution the cat’s b... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
308fa4134583bd31 | Their Bodies | David Wagoner | To the students of anatomy
at Indiana University
That gaunt old man came first, his hair as white
As your scoured tables. Maybe you’ll recollect him
By the scars of steelmill burns on the backs of his hands,
On the nape of his neck, on his arms and sinewy legs,
And her by the enduring innocence
Of her face, as o... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
81809f08d2ef6633 | To the Poor | Anna Lætitia Barbauld | Child of distress, who meet’st the bitter scorn
Of fellow-men to happier prospects born,
Doomed Art and Nature’s various stores to see
Flow in full cups of joy—and not for thee;
Who seest the rich, to heaven and fate resigned,
Bear thy afflictions with a patient mind;
Whose bursting heart disdains unjust control,... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7f162798f785b226 | Older, Younger, Both | Joyce Sutphen | I feel older, younger, both
at once. Every time I win,
I lose. Every time I count,
I forget and must begin again.
I must begin again, and again I
must begin. Every time I lose,
I win and must begin again.
Everything I plan must wait, and
having to wait has made me old, and
the older I get, the more I wait, and... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
e2192877c999e74e | December 24, 1971 | Joseph Brodsky | For V.S.
When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi.
At the grocers’ all slipping and pushing.
Where a tin of halvah, coffee-flavored,
is the cause of a human assault-wave
by a crowd heavy-laden with parcels:
each one his own king, his own camel.
Nylon bags, carrier bags, paper cones,
caps and neckties all twiste... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
f5edcbecbe919889 | East of New Haven | Carolyn M. Rodgers | you see so many
graveyards around
these little towns—
out in the open
spaces & places.
i guess big cities
have not enough space for the
living,
let ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b393975a50383661 | Some Boys are Born to Wander | Walter McDonald | From Michigan our son writes, How many elk? How many big horn sheep? It's spring, and soon they'll be gone above timberline, climbing to tundra by summer. Some boys are born to wander, my wife says, but rocky slopes with spruce and Douglas fir are home. He tried the navy, the marines, but even the army wouldn't take hi... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0cad3bdce5976dca | Gilding the Lily | Lisa Ampleman | To keep anxiety at bay, my friend called chemo dragonfly love. Those insects — christened, in places, the devil’s darning needles — hover as they contort their joined bodies into a heart, the male with pincers. Finger cutter, horse killer, ear stick, eye pisser. Look closely at the eyes of a female darner and you may w... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
ccb2d7d4edf127b9 | Less | Jason Guriel | —cooked by crooked math—is more than enough. For example, the rough patch on the roof of the mouth we tongue— a light fixture, chandelier of texture—is so much more than mere canker. And when fingering the clasp on Father's snuffbox, his fine initials grate against our fingerprints' grain li... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
47b749feb7857d6f | I Want to Read at the White House | Joshua Clover | I want to read at the white house.
I want to read poems at the white house.
I want to read poems at the white house with all the pomp available.
With celebratory music and all my beloveds watching.
With Baraka and DiPrima and Roque Dalton behind me
I want to read at the white house.
I want to read poems at the wh... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
51580bf29b7dc3d8 | The Second Coming | William Butler Yeats | Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionat... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
4ac47a35a4a950ea | This Ecstasy | Chard DeNiord | It’s not paradise I’m looking for
but the naming I hardly gave a thought to.
Call it the gift I carried in my loneliness
among the animals before I started
listening to the news. Call it the hint
I had about the knowledge that would explode.
In the meantime, which is real time
plus the past, you’re swishing your... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
69a1d935e26b38b7 | Portrait | Louise Bogan | She has no need to fear the fall Of harvest from the laddered reach Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing From the steep beach. Nor hold to pain's effrontery Her body's bulwark, stern and savage, Nor be a glass, where to forsee Another's ravage. What she has gathered, and what lost, She will not find to los... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
f6773773359200a6 | The Lie | Anne Waldman | Art begins with a lie
The separation is you plus me plus what we make
Look into lightbulb, blink, sun’s in your eye
I want a rare sky
vantage point free from misconception
Art begins with a lie
Nothing to lose, spontaneous rise
of reflection, paint the picture
... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
abfeac61d342ecf8 | Down Stream | Louise Imogen Guiney | Scarred hemlock roots, Oaks in mail, and willow-shoots Spring’s first-knighted; Clinging aspens grouped between, Slender, misty-green, Faintly affrighted: Far hills behind, Somber growth, with sunlight lined, On their edges; Banks hemmed in with maiden-hair, And the straight and fair Phalanx of sedges: ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
92911b51869b4d5a | On Donne's Poetry | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | With Donne, whose muse on dromedary trots,
Wreathe iron pokers into true-love knots;
Rhyme's sturdy cripple, fancy's maze and clue,
Wit's forge and fire-blast, meaning's press and screw. | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
c4033caa12b800e7 | I Want to Thank the Wind Blows | Alli Warren | Sound of the rain so I knowthere’s constraintsound of the trainso I know commercehas not come to a standstillnow they raise the barriernow they set it back in placeWhat coats the bottomof the surface of the soundwhen the swifts come inwhen the clerks come homewho will bathe the childrenwho will bake the breadwhen th... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f149a811f117fc40 | The Great San Bernardino Pitch Party | Callie Garnett | “I’m interested in feminist oratory,” we think
Jess should say
“Specifically that.”
Yellow-breasted engine sounds on the
Joshua tree
Joshua tree mid-shimmy
I think every bird is mad
at me. Does that make me
an alcoholic?
Let’s take a break, after
the great San Bernardino sculpture party
sparkling toilet piec... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
559ddf7e569f8951 | Fragment 1: Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scud | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Sea-ward, white gleaming thro' the busy scudWith arching Wings, the sea-mew o'er my headPosts on, as bent on speed, now passagingEdges the stiffer Breeze, now, yielding, drifts,Now floats upon the air, and sends from farA wildly-wailing Note. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
a841b9c79d985375 | Robert Duncan | Robin Blaser | the absence was there before the meeting the radical of
presence and absence does not return with death’s chance-
encounter, as in the old duality, life or death, wherein
the transcendence of the one translates the other into an everness
we do not meet in heaven, that outward of hell and death’s
beauty it... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-5",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b82a256f84375e6d | Underwear | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | I didn’t get much sleep last night
thinking about underwear
Have you ever stopped to consider
underwear in the abstract
When you really dig into it
some shocking problems are raised
Underwear is something
we all have to deal with
Everyone wears
some kind of underwear
The Pope wears underwear I hope
The Gover... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
36e9b4bc5e6008b5 | Poem Written with Issa [“The kids fighting”] | Matthew Rohrer | The kids fightingover 4 or 5 penniesmy ears ringingbent to the shapeof the spring moon Iam a crybaby | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
dfe765bfd44cae1f | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 116 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Is it, then, regret for buried time That keenlier in sweet April wakes, And meets the year, and gives and takes The colours of the crescent prime? Not all: the songs, the stirring air, The life re-orient out of dust, Cry thro' the sense to hearten trust In that which made the world s... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
01d7add7e89449d0 | A Pornography | Paisley Rekdal | There was a time when I watched it happen.
Strangers pressed to other strangers
in one bed, clothes on, air humid
with the cloying scent of fruit juice
and vodka; none of us
giving into another and yet unwilling to leave the scene
of that possibility,
pretending to sleep, actually sleeping.
Then waking again to... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
07e15090a70c322c | Mansion Beach | Elizabeth Spires | 1
I count the rays of the jellyfish:
twelve in this one, like a clock to tell time by,
thirteen in the next, time gone awry.
A great wind brought them in, left them here
to die, indifferent time measured by whirling moon
and sun, by tides in perpetual fall and rise.
Englobed, transparent, they litter the beach,
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
1e11e9448f950d31 | I Dreamed That in a City Dark as Paris | Louis Simpson | I dreamed that in a city dark as Paris
I stood alone in a deserted square.
The night was trembling with a violet
Expectancy. At the far edge it moved
And rumbled; on that flickering horizon
The guns were pumping color in the sky.
There was the Front. But I was lonely here,
Left behind, abandoned by the army.
Th... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
1797463e8e97f756 | How She Went to Ireland | Thomas Hardy | Dora’s gone to Ireland Through the sleet and snow; Promptly she has gone there In a ship, although Why she’s gone to Ireland Dora does not know. That was where, yea, Ireland, Dora wished to be: When she felt, in lone times, Shoots of misery, Often there, in Ireland, Dora wished to be. Hence she’... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4f064e41514e5466 | Acts of Love | Pam Rehm | If endear is earned
and is meant to identify
two halves
then it composes
one meaning
which means
a token
a knot
a note
a noting in the head
of how it feels
to have your heart
be the dear one | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
57db21e74c2327aa | Hidden | James McMichael | In dogma
is the secret that renders God unconditioned,
on one condition.
“If you are not My people,
I am not your God.”
As fashioned by His people's witness,
a made thing,
God,
condemns the made things graven
images are. Inscribed as born
wittingly of Himself,
God is
(so to speak)
that Father
abler than t... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e2cbd112cb1f7e51 | The Victory of the Beet-Fields | Louis Untermeyer | Green miles of leafy peace are spread
Over these ranks, unseen and serried;
Screening the trenches with their dead
And living men already buried.
The rains beat down, the torrents flow
Into each cold and huddling cave;
And over them the beet-fields grow,
A fortress gentle as a grave.“Morose, impatient, sick at h... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
24121c572ca05f23 | Postlude | William Carlos Williams | Now that I have cooled to you
Let there be gold of tarnished masonry,
Temples soothed by the sun to ruin
That sleep utterly.
Give me hand for the dances,
Ripples at Philae, in and out,
And lips, my Lesbian,
Wall flowers that once were flame.
Your hair is my Carthage
And my arms the bow,
And our words arrows
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
2cf654577c82e626 | Honorary Jew | John Repp | The first year, I grated potatoes, chopped onions & watched. The second year, I fed all but the eggs into the machine & said I'll do the latkes & did, my pile of crisp delights borne to the feast by the wife who baffled me, our books closed, banter hushed, money useless in the apartment—house, my in-laws called it, ne... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-6",
"S8-3",
"S8-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
1433c572bcd70283 | Tarantulas on the Lifebuoy | Thomas Lux | For some semitropical reason
when the rains fall
relentlessly they fall
into swimming pools, these otherwise
bright and scary
arachnids. They can swim
a little, but not for long
and they can’t climb the ladder out.
They usually drown—but
if you want their favor,
if you believe there is justice,
a reward for ... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
c77e98752be3cae9 | Equation Two | Jay Wright | You will recall
the day the dead returned
to the village.
Name it now
the nebula of perfect
expulsion.
These fragments
of existence spin their
enclosing
web, unlock
the uncertainty of grace.
We are late.
On the third day
we will dance with the beer;
the vessel will
be prepared
for t... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-8",
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a89c7c9803f76528 | Dreams | Wisława Szymborska | Despite the geologists’ knowledge and craft, mocking magnets, graphs, and maps— in a split second the dream piles before us mountains as stony as real life. And since mountains, then valleys, plains with perfect infrastructures. Without engineers, contractors, workers, bulldozers, diggers, or supplies— raging highways,... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
fa706898c97c2afa | Gautier D’Agoty’s Ecorchés | Leslie Adrienne Miller | Anatomie des parties de la génération, Paris, 1773
What have they done to deserve this beauty?
Did they, like Marsyas, invite some knife-
wielding god with petty transgressions,
the crime of a few tunes on Athena’s lost flute?
Or were they simply too poor for deep
graves, locked gates, and good husbands
to watch... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
4d943beee1b4c5d2 | For the Dogs Who Barked at Me on the Sidewalks in Connecticut | Hanif Abdurraqib | Darlings, if your owners say you are / not usually like this / then I must take them / at their word / I am like you / not crazy about that which towers before me / particularly the buildings here / and the people inside / who look at my name / and make noises / that seem like growling / my small and eager darlings / w... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-8",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
41501181aafe927e | Out of Metropolis | Lynn Emanuel | We’re headed for empty-headedness,
the featureless amnesias of Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada,
states rich only in vowel sounds and alliteration.
We’re taking the train so we can see into the heart
of the heart of America framed in the windows’ cool
oblongs of light. We want cottages, farmhouses
with peaked roofs leashe... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
3cbef47e44894cfd | Ice Cream for I Scream | Mark Waldron | It’s summer, and just the sunniest
of afternoons.
Outside the sanatorium,
in the arboretum, the attendees
are served their teas.
The strudel is toothsome
when Herr Stumpf, from the lectern,
contradicts the consensus
that I is for ice cream. No, now
he’s proposing that I’s for spaghetti,
all spaghetti, he aver... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
eff7be3cc15884d4 | It Is with Words as It Is with People | Anthony Madrid | It is with words as it is with people: Actual beauty is rare.
We call things beautiful, not as such, but because of what they mean.
Because we commonly attribute beauty to whatever does us a favor,
We are reduced to puzzled despair whenever actual beauty says no.
Indeed, our calling a thing beautiful almost means i... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
b60783b926d69ad1 | "Out of the rolling ocean the crowd" | Walt Whitman | Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,
Whispering, I love you, before long I die,
I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once look’d on you,
For I fear’d I might afterward lose you. | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
304c9805a67e43c2 | Strikes and Gutters | Clark Moore | As Walter settled in to finish his coffee, he was struck
by a phantom, peripheral visage, white as pins in flight, or bunny
white, in haze — a visit from “The Agent,” in the nominal parlance
of chemical memory, calling from a distant muddied element.
Or was it merely the milk he’d spilled in a fatuous
fit, hooking... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7087554f405f1172 | The Ladder of St. Augustine | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Saint Augustine! well hast thou said, That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread Beneath our feet each deed of shame! All common things, each day's events, That with the hour begin and end, Our pleasures and our discontents, Are rounds by which we may ascend. The low desire, t... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
0eb44811f0027771 | Banking Coal | Jean Toomer | Whoever it was who brought the first wood and coalTo start the Fire, did his part well;Not all wood takes to fire from a match,Nor coal from wood before it’s burned to charcoal.The wood and coal in question caught a flameAnd flared up beautifully, touching the airThat takes a flame from anything.Somehow the fire was fu... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
26f6cb78cd6894d9 | Wizard | Ray Amorosi | All this havocjust means I’m a poor wizard.Once, I lit three twigs and fanned the smoke,from miles away,into the girl who jumbled scales through my spine.As she vanished I clapped a delighted tune.But not without aches of my own.Did the sack of no echoes fail me?Now, on such a mild curse—boils, sewn eyes, a shrewin the... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
e6ca68b485b61cad | To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time | Robert Herrick | Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood a... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
e6086c1f8af2d0d4 | My Doggy Ate My Essay | Darren Sardelli | My doggy ate my essay.
He picked up all my mail.
He cleaned my dirty closet
and dusted with his tail.
He straightened out my posters
and swept my wooden floor.
My parents almost fainted
when he fixed my bedroom door.
I did not try to stop him.
He made my windows shine.
My room looked like a palace,
and my dr... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-8",
"S8-8",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
05a4f771e9c5dc28 | [Stutter] | Leslie Harrison | I said love because it came closest said leave
because you did we do this peeling off each
from each each from suddenly other said
come back but meant don't go I said dead
and meant every one of those instances of
vanishment how the dead swim away from us
in time their tide their closed wooden boats
I said tide ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
1a23942449ac9a6e | The Wolves | Paisley Rekdal | It was the week of asking. Asking
to watch her eat. Asking if she understood
the doctors’ questions. Asking her
to explain the difference between
wanting to die right now, and dying later.
The tumor making certain answers
unquestionable. I watched her point
to the incense dish from which
someone swept all the a... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
50f369e15d38512c | Survivor’s Guilt | Patricia Kirkpatrick | How I’ve changed may not be apparent.I limp. Read and write, make tea at the stoveas I practiced in rehab. Sometimes, like fire, a task overwhelms me. I cry for days, shriek when the phone rings. Like a page pulled from flame,I’m singed but intact: I don’t burn down the house.Later, cleared to drive, I did outpatient r... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
1faacda94edbcf38 | Old Love and New | Sara Teasdale | In my heart the old love
Struggled with the new,
It was ghostly waking
All night through.
Dear things, kind things
That my old love said,
Ranged themselves reproachfully
Round my bed.
But I could not heed them,
For I seemed to see
Dark eyes of my new love
Fixed on me.
Old love, old love,
How can I be true... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-9",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
f60c932898b6273e | X Ray | Dannie Abse | Some prowl sea-beds, some hurtle to a star
and, mother, some obsessed turn over every stone
or open graves to let that starlight in.
There are men who would open anything.
Harvey, the circulation of the blood,
and Freud, the circulation of our dreams,
pried honourably and honoured are
like all explorers. Men who... | [
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S9-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
b8a06185c01ea362 | Ex Machina | Linda Gregerson | When love was a question, the message arrived
in the beak of a wire and plaster bird. The coloratura
was hardly to be believed. For flight,
it took three stagehands: two
on the pulleys and one on the flute. And you
thought fancy rained like grace.
Our fog machine lost in the Parcel Post, we improvised
with smoke... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-5",
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S10-4",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
23bf5d0aa3ab1c11 | Unknown Sun | Laura Moriarty | "light which is not sum" —Norma Cole, Mars
The workaround or aura
Not like repetition
When we get to the final sun
The maps are water the water gold
He would not honor me
You explain then against
The disbelief displayed by the character
I couldn’t know him
But knew love and
Know it through knowledge
“Love ne... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
70987bd9ec877f0a | The Roundel | Algernon Charles Swinburne | A roundel is wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere, With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought, That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his ear A roundel is wrought. Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught— Love, laughter, or mourning—remembrance of rapture or fe... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
8344710ac0b17690 | Scene from Medieval War | Valzhyna Mort | When God appears before me he is a burning
woman tied to a bush.
Her nakedness, a missed
spot on a busy canvas, where a male hand
has been practicing female gestures. For instance,
hanging herself like laundry over her own arm.
Nipple-colons introduce this scene of medieval war:
horses crowned with riders are le... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-8",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
42e0bfb21d4e8f27 | Face | Indran Amirthanayagam | Imagine half your face
rubbed out yet
you are suited up
and walking
to the office.
How will your mates
greet you?
with heavy hearts,
flowers,
rosary beads?
How shall we greet
the orphan boy,
the husband whose hand
slipped, children
and wife swept away?
How to greet
our new years
and our birthdays?
Sha... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
3eed48d7dfc7e477 | Sense of Time | George Bowering | Being in a coma can play
havoc with your sense of time. It can
turn your eyes from brown to blue. It can
grow hair on your belly, it can get you lost
between bedroom and office. If you are to
live in extra innings, you’ll have to watch the corners,
step around bad things, ignore insults and welcome
loving hands ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
0caa01ded9950bf4 | To the Angel Spirit of the Most Excellent Sir Philip Sidney | Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke | (Variant printed in Samuel Daniel’s 1623 Works)
To thee, pure spirit, to thee alone addressed Is this joint work, by double interest thine, Thine by his own, and what is done of mine Inspired by thee, thy secret power impressed. My Muse with thine, itself dared to combine As mortal stuff with that which is divine: Let... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-8",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
7c0386b59a053c4d | Seasonal | Maggie Dietz | Summer-long the gulls’ old umbra cry
unraveled ease
but certain waves went by, then by.
The sky shook out the days.
The seabirds’ hunger rose in rings,
flung rock-clams to their shatterings,
raked gullets full, the bone-bills scraped.
High noon: oceans of time escaped.
*
All winter... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
6c88d28667d38769 | The House of Rest | Julia Ward Howe | I will build a house of rest, Square the corners every one: At each angle on his breast Shall a cherub take the sun; Rising, risen, sinking, down, Weaving day’s unequal crown. In the chambers, light as air, Shall responsive footsteps fall: Brother, sister, art thou there? Hush! we need not jar nor call; Need not turn t... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
e35e164dd7df7a9b | A Better Resurrection | Christina Rossetti | I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb'd too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
I lift mine eyes, but dimm'd with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is in the falling leaf:
O Jesus, quicken me.
My life is like a faded leaf,
... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
fe2ee0e098b44ed9 | At Sunset | Jason Shinder | Your death must be loved this much.
You have to know the grief—now.
Standing by the water’s edge,
looking down at the wave
touching you. You have to lie,
stiff, arms folded, on a heap of earth
and see how far the darkness
will take you. I mean it, this, now—
before the ghost the cold leaves
in your breath, ris... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
2827f083801583bb | His Mother's Hair | April Ossmann | The last time he cut his mother’s hair
the rude morning sun
left no corner of her kitchen private,
the light surgically clean
where it fell on his scissors.
Her hair fell in a blonde circle
on the lake blue tile—smell of coffee
and cinnamon; her laughing
shook her head, Hold still, he said,
... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
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