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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cc8e05f6d15fd754 | Costumes Exchanging Glances | Mary Jo Bang | The rhinestone lights blink off and on.
Pretend stars.
I'm sick of explanations. A life is like Russell said
of electricity, not a thing but the way things behave.
A science of motion toward some flat surface,
some heat, some cold. Some light
can leave some after-image but it doesn't last.
Isn't that what they s... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
b0f0742899cadc2c | [When the bed is empty ... ] | Dawn Lundy Martin | When the bed is empty, we pull the shades to block light,
light of resemblance to remembery, long light of waiting,
an impatience in the glows of it. The here of the now and the glow
that days make in the room, without the body but with the stench
of it. So we say, vacancy and abject,against the was, against
a phi... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
e2641b57f3ca1c5f | Instructions to an Artisan | Amit Majmudar | Into the rood wood, where the grain's current splits around the stones of its knots, carve eyelashes and eyelids. Dye the knots, too—indigo, ink-black, vermillion irises. These will be his eyes, always open, willing themselves not to close when dust rises or sweat falls, eyes witnessing, dimly, the eclipse th... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
5e5114cde123cc71 | Eros Turannos | Edwin Arlington Robinson | She fears him, and will always ask What fated her to choose him; She meets in his engaging mask All reasons to refuse him; But what she meets and what she fears Are less than are the downward years, Drawn slowly to the foamless weirs Of age, were she to lose him. Between a blurred sagacity ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
af8eb352f7e8213a | Poem [“Khrushchev is coming on the right day!”] | Frank O'Hara | Krushchev is coming on the right day!
the cool graced light
is pushed off the enormous glass piers by hard wind
and everything is tossing, hurrying on up
this country
h... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
c512bfa808149882 | Dedication | Franz Wright | It’s true I never write, but I would gladly die with you. | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0d7e51ec120d832b | Memorabilia | Robert Browning | Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!
But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at—
My starting moves your laughter!
I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
A... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
75b70a2d1c7cbe3a | Papulæ (Order I.) | Sylvia Legris | Genus II. Lichen.
On a scale of Lustrous to Sockeye,
Fishscale to Fire-Dot. Not Ichthyosis:
Lichen. Fruiting bodies in a calcareous
spot. Goldspeck. Blushing.
O the diffuse eruption of dazzling papulæ!
Usher the Wild Lichen. Usher spring
and the furfuraceous scurf recurs.
The Brain-Scaled (the hairline cracked)... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
0a60c15f35bc9bf9 | Her Name is Rose | Peter Pereira | With a boil the size of an egg
protruding from her right hip,
she knows what I must do,
and to stall me has locked herself
inside the bathroom, bargaining
for a way out.
But it’s too late: I’ve seen
the oozing wounds stopped up with bits
of toilet paper and tape, the scarified
pockets that crater the surface
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
ad4386e65d85efc1 | from The Unfollowing: 49 | Lyn Hejinian | A star screen shimmers under the moon over the urban center flashing on it red
and green
I’ll have a suspension, mustard, topicality, glue
Kitty, kitty, kitty, kitty
Whipped gouache just about covers the situation
In the Musée Unless there’s a fallen nest on display empty of an egg once
belongin... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
90106312b268fd72 | Prayer for the Dead | Stuart Kestenbaum | The light snow started late last night and continued all night long while I slept and could hear it occasionally enter my sleep, where I dreamed my brother was alive again and possessing the beauty of youth, aware that he would be leaving again shortly and that is the lesson of the snow falling and of the seeds of... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ef14dc25f60c3838 | Job’s Question on Nevis | Grace Schulman | “Turn back!” was all she snapped out as she passed
in a red dress that caught sunrays through mist.
I saw her lurch upwind, kick off spiked heels,
climb out to the edge of a knife-sharp rockpile,
and, arms outstretched, lead the sea’s tympani,
lure the din, guiding the steamy waves
to shore. Will the Almighty ans... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
bb186a9cb77acd50 | Passing | Toi Derricotte | A professor invites me to his “Black Lit” class; they’re
reading Larson’s Passing. One of the black
students says, “Sometimes light-skinned blacks
think they can fool other blacks,
but I can always tell,” looking
right through me.
After I tell them I am black,
I ask the class, “Was I passing
when I was just sit... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
2b460659db286c46 | Camouflaging the Chimera | Yusef Komunyakaa | We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,
blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird’s target.
We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts
from... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
f88b83ff45f9a5d8 | Glacial Erratics | Brenda Hillman | The last ice age had been caused by a wobble.
After it passed they made houses from stars;
Visitors would peer in
And see the tongs not slipping,
Roomsized pebbles having been moved far.
It’s like this more
When we speak than when we write;
Loving thus we have been
Loved by ground,
The word being
A box with f... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
fdc18d85b535c35d | Stray | Carl Phillips | When he speaks of deserved and undeserved as more
than terms — how they can matter, suddenly — I can tell
he believes it. Sometimes a thing can seem star-like
when it’s just a star, stripped of whatever small form of joy
likeness equals. Sometimes the thought that I’m doomed
to fail — that the body is — keeps me a... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
019cbed5972b06ee | from Deaf Republic: 3 | Ilya Kaminsky | Don’t forget this: Men who live in this time remember the price of each bottle of vodka. Sunlight on the canal outside the train-station. With the neighbor’s ladder, my brother Tony “Mosquito” and I climb the poplar in the public garden with one and a half bottles of vodka and we drink there all night. Sunlight on a yo... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
3ff67d3739a2f553 | from Deaf Republic: 12. Sonya Speaks Slowly, As If Unaffected | Ilya Kaminsky | I remember Tony arguing in front of his mirrors, the soldierswere painting the trees, Tony saton the floor of white hair, and all the trees werepainted white. And he spat at Alfonso’s irony, but whenthey played accordion, the fourth among us had no name.“I am not sleeping with Tony! He simply cuts my hair!”—but our din... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
73dd6be83560b10d | Song: “Take, oh take those lips away” | William Shakespeare | (from Measure for Measure)
Take, oh take those lips away, That so sweetly were forsworn, And those eyes: the breake of day, Lights that do mislead the Morn; But my kisses bring again, bring again, Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain. | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
a46c8b5220e77def | Prospice | Robert Browning | Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
f8d2cf77f82234da | Under a Full Moon at Midnight | Merrill Leffler | This is a paean to relief and ecstasy.
A man's poem of course—the electric ah!
in the long stream arcing a rainbow
under the spotlight moon, a covenant between
mv body and the earth's.
I think of Li Po smiling
silently on Green Mountain and can hear Rumi
drunk on rapt... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
7989b6b902e042cf | The Diagnosis | John Lee Clark | An erasure of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Palingenesis”
I, sobbing in the rolling mist,
Started for peopled days. In dreams
A faded, lonely promontory shed petals.
Belief exists. Cunning with its perfume
Working from youth, defiance. A phantom
Vanished. The swift surrenders, leap into
The old dead heart of lie... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
b00030abcb55b617 | The Self Banished | Edmund Waller | It is not that I love you less
Than when before your feet I lay,
But to prevent the sad increase
Of hopeless love, I keep away.
In vain (alas!) for everything
Which I have known belong to you,
Your form does to my fancy bring,
And makes my old wounds bleed anew.
Who in the spring from the new sun
Already has a fever go... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
b52c88549f3e8d1f | Song of Myself (1892 version) | Walt Whitman | 1
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents bor... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-11",
"S5-8",
"S6-6",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
596b9b5b444006bb | Darkness | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went—and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5515d8e6a967f224 | I am dark, I am forest | Jennifer Givhan | After Rilke
I carried a bowl of menudo into the forest / I carried my bisabuela’s tripas not daring ask whose intestines I carried / con cilantro y radish y cebolla chopped fine / I carried the sewing machine they’d chained her to in the garment district downtown I carried the forest crackling against asphalt where he... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
360264bb170b97ce | Blues-ing on the Brown Vibe | Esther Belin | I.
And Coyote struts down East 14th
feeling good
looking good
feeling the brown
melting into the brown that loiters
rapping with the brown in front of the Native American Health Center
talking that talk
of relocation from tribal nation
of recent immigration to the place some call the United States
home to man... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
75663229741f3b50 | Wet Casements | John Ashbery | When Eduard Raban, coming along the passage, walked into the
open doorway, he saw that it was raining. It was not raining much.
KAFKA, Wedding Preparations in the Country
The concept is interesting: to see, as though reflected
In streaming windowpanes, the look of others thro... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S3-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
80f90c2b7bcdade8 | Discontent | Janice Gould | We could hear her
knocking down strands of cobweb
from ceilings—sticky filaments,
sacs of eggs—as we woke most mornings
to a worm of discontent.
It lodged beneath the heart,
rubbed our frayed nerves,
gnawed at the gut, spleen,
ovaries. Filth
was Mom's first enemy, so each day
began with ritual cleaning: the s... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-7",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
daa4aa2c3f706dd9 | Light Shining out of Darkness | William Cowper | 1
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
2
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sov'reign will.
3
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
3acf295ba05b102a | Headlong | Rae Armantrout | As onemay be relievedby the myriadmarigold facesheld aloftbeside the freeway — their articulation — and, too,by the rushof notesfollowing their ownlikenessesin these headlongphrasesRelieved of what?Relieved of what? | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
f9c0d1eb0790eddb | A Child's Drawing, 1941 | Jean Valentine | A woman ladder leans
with her two-year-old boy in her arms.
Her arms & legs & hands & feet
are thin as crayons.
The man ladder
is holding his glass of bourbon,
he is coming out of the child’s drawing
in his old open pajamas—
he’s in the war. The sky
is blackest crayon-canyon.
When does he leave again? When he... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-8"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Youth"
] |
00ed190f3858e220 | The Pity of It | Thomas Hardy | April 1915
I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar From rail-track and from highway, and I heard In field and farmstead many an ancient word Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,' 'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar, Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird At England's very loins, thereunto spurred ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
9854a7758faee086 | Gwendolyn Brooks | Haki R. Madhubuti | she doesn’t wear
costume jewelry
& she knew that walt disney
was/is making a fortune off
false-eyelashes and that time magazine is the
authority on the knee/grow.
her makeup is total-real.
a negro english instructor called her:
“a fine negro poet.”
a whi-te critic said:
“she’s a credit to the ne... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
bfdbdd6561c2a081 | Violence on the Internet | S.J. Fowler | A circle.
What was needed was a circuit,
and a good operating system.
What’s within is without being seen
to be so.
Optical anomaly as unexceptional.
Four left’s a square.
One way turning system
until it becomes its other way.
A passive insistence on multiples
until that divorces itself,
becomes single.
A s... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
c1ef546f062012ee | The Brook | Edward Thomas | Seated once by a brook, watching a childChiefly that paddled, I was thus beguiled.Mellow the blackbird sang and sharp the thrushNot far off in the oak and hazel brush,Unseen. There was a scent like honeycombFrom mugwort dull. And down upon the domeOf the stone the cart-horse kicks against so oftA butterfly alighted. Fr... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
3b7b77b3669d876d | Voyages | Hart Crane | I
Above the fresh ruffles of the surf
Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand.
They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks,
And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed
Gaily digging and scattering.
And in answer to their treble interjections
The sun beats lightning on the waves,
The waves fol... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S2-6",
"S8-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
211ade0ec7de30b4 | Asked what it is | Durs Grünbein | The huge scar-pocked palm leaf
outside the papeterie in Papeete.
The bikini billboard at the bus station
of a busy mining town in Bohemia.
That moment’s hesitation in the photo studio:
how did I come to appear in this light?
The philologist’s pink index card, his
commentary on a line from the Iliad.
Letters tha... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
54ab3ae7a6c0b8f2 | Oranges | Roisin Kelly | I’ll choose for myself next time
who I’ll reach out and take
as mine, in the way
I might stand at a fruit stall
having decided
to ignore the apples
the mangoes and the kiwis
but hold my hands above
a pile of oranges
as if to warm my skin
before a fire.
Not only have I chosen
oranges, but I’ll also choose
w... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
515f4784d99b352b | Q’s Quest | Molly Peacock | Some quests begin before a person ever learns to walk. Q’s began at the foundling home, when he was still in diapers. They’d kept anything pointed from the Quonset hut where they housed the orphaned newbies, and later the house mothers forbade the children all but scissors with round edges, even table knives.
“Mind, n... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d85545d364958d90 | My Wolf Sister | Matthea Harvey | When my hole-punch drizzles tiny paper circles onto the carpet, my wolf sister moans and bites it, covering her ears with her paws. I think she’s tired of the moon. She takes a stack of dinner plates from my cupboard and slinks off to the park to break them. Our brother shows up a week later, collapses on the sofa like... | [
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
eb8274c63130b89a | Nocturne | Mary Margaret Alvarado | Out of
orange
juice
out of
gin. Me
& him?
We like
to walk
around.
Lumpy
houses
cars on
blocks.
Jesus
Jesus rest
your head. | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
52a5c692f4415e92 | Cool Pastoral on Bloor Street | John Reibetanz | 1.
Consider the tragic fortitude
of mannikins, the courage it takes
under casual poses to do
nothing interminably each day.
To face unflinching (through sunlit glass
that bars them from it) the rushing surf
of life within reach where they must stand
marooned on their islands’ plastic turf,
and n... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c0645a2d725dcae0 | Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing | James Weldon Johnson | Lift ev’ry voice and sing, Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the list’ning skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us; Facing th... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
64125a85fa598914 | Departure | Edna St. Vincent Millay | It's little I care what path I take, And where it leads it's little I care, But out of this house, lest my heart break, I must go, and off somewhere! It's little I know what's in my heart, What's in my mind it's little I know, But there's that in me must up and start, And it's little I care where my feet go! I wish I c... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
dcce2cd5b185bf7f | Finale | Pablo Neruda | Matilde, years or days
sleeping, feverish,
here or there,
gazing off,
twisting my spine,
bleeding true blood,
perhaps I awaken
or am lost, sleeping:
hospital beds, foreign windows,
white uniforms of the silent walkers,
the clumsiness of feet.
And then, these journeys
and my sea of renewal:
your head on the... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
e71a8e1f59d7b802 | The Swing | Robert Louis Stevenson | How do you like to go up in a swing, Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall, Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all Over the countryside— Till I look down on the garden green, Down on the roof so brown— Up i... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
48c7ee340572e99c | Eponymous | Paul Killebrew | I am unable to jump more than ten feet in the air.
I am blind. I am unable to understand the dark
passages. I begin to speak of being deprived.
I believe that I am being kept in want. Who
governs me? Who is to say what I am,
and what I am not? I wish to be conscious
of myself. My frontiers are long and insecure.
... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
87537002e289a9a1 | I, Too | Langston Hughes | I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashame... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
29772f8daff5a9a1 | Sale | Mary Kinzie | Older now, he is among us in diminished form, clothes sagging, hat large on the fine head He likes the largest stores acres of socks and tuna where high girders look down on him also who pushes his cart and leans o... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
dc856165b3c77da8 | Names of Children | Rachel Sherwood | In early morning when the sunis vague and birds are furiousnames of children floatlike smoke through the empty room:Ariadne, dark as seal skinIan, fair-skinned babyMarina Terrence Alex Johnafter dinner pulled back from
talk of war and morals
their names glow like light
around a candle —
Jack, my rampant you... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b80615079b112775 | You'd Think the Sky Would Run Out of Water | Todd Colby | You'd think the sky would run out of water,
but it won't; it just keeps coming down. I need someone
to marvel at the breath escaping from me.
Do you have a natural resource you prefer to exploit?
Does someone think of you and turn the channel?
How would you ever know?
Have you ever zoned out during Downton Abbey?... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Living/Youth"
] |
12b7db82c52ad8da | Poem | Frank Stanford | When the rain hits the snake in the head,
he closes his eyes and wishes he were
asleep in a tire on the side of the road,
so young boys could roll him over, forever. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
7b895d092eb43f03 | The Cenotaph | Fanny Howe | I want to leave this placeunremembered.The gas stove is leakingand the door of the refrigeratorstained with rust.The mugs are uglyand there are only two forks.The walls are blackand soft, the bed a balloonof night-clothing.The stairwell slopedto a dragger’s pace.There are big windowswith blind-slats dustyand gray. Stre... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
759c6561d73f9164 | San Marcos | Monica McClure | Since I stopped the flow
Of primordial ciswhite straight men
Whom I heedlessly collect
And from whom the spring feeds
Without reason I have been
Shopping so much more
Than suits a prophet in the forest.
A man said he felt like an awful cad
But an admission as such
Does not irrigate a dry spell
Once it’s surpa... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8f1272b5c667f7e3 | What to Wear Where | J. Patrick Lewis | When I was a boy
In Looziana,
We wore blue jeans
And a red bandanna.
My folks moved up
To the state of Maine,
We wore duck shoes
In slicker-suit rain.
My folks moved down
To the state of Texas,
We wore brand names
Like Lazy X’s.
Now that we’re living
It up in Vermont,
We wear pretty much
Whatever we want... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S6-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
4876ab3be51e29ab | The Father of My Country | Diane Wakoski | All fathers in Western civilization must have
a military origin. The
ruler,
governor,
yes,
he is
was the
general at one time or other.
And George Washington
won the hearts
of his country—the rough military man
with awkward
sincere
drawing-room manners.
My father;
have you ever heard me speak of him? I se... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
009c63bd2eca1107 | Safe | Steven Huff | You used to be able to flag a ride in this country. Impossible now—everyone is afraid of strangers. Well, there was fear then too, and it was mutual: drivers versus hitchhikers. And we rode without seat belts, insurance or beliefs. People would see me far ahead on a hill like a seedling, watch me grow in th... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
5d944bb8a22ec052 | Hour | Reginald Gibbons | Sleepless
in the cold dark,
I look
through the closed dim
door be-
fore me, which be-
comes an
abyss into
which my
memories have
fallen
past laughter or
horror,
passion or hard
work—my
memories of
our past
laughter, horror,
passion,
hard work. An ache
of be-
ing. An ache of
being,
over love. An
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
1ddd0b3a65e4b534 | No One Goes to Paris in August | Clarence Major | A Montparnasse August
with view of the Cimetière. A yard of bones.
We wake to it. Close curtains to it.
Wake to its lanes. Rows of coffin-stones in varying light.
Walking here. Late with shade low, low, long.
We’re passing through, just passing through
neat aisles of gray mausoleums.
(From Paris. Send this postc... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
6b46f963743fbdfd | She Spent a Year Hallucinating Birds | Jill Alexander Essbaum | They perched on roofs and fences and sills. They posed statue-still on catenary lines. They aligned along cables like prayer beads on rope. They amassed en masse on the cemetery lawn and marauded the broad, yawning fields like cattle. Their cackles were black. Each shadow dove and pecked. They nested in chimneys and ch... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
94e082e5648d8088 | “Where did the handsome beloved go?” | Jalal al-Din Rumi | Where did the handsome beloved go?
I wonder, where did that tall, shapely cypress tree go?
He spread his light among us like a candle.
Where did he go? So strange, where did he go without me?
All day long my heart trembles like a leaf.
All alone at midnight, where did that beloved go?
Go to the road, and ask any ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
0082ebaeb96adf54 | Along with Youth | Ernest M. Hemingway | A porcupine skin, Stiff with bad tanning, It must have ended somewhere. Stuffed horned owl Pompous Yellow eyed; Chuck-wills-widow on a biassed twig Sooted with dust. Piles of old magazines, Drawers of boy’s letters And the line of love They must have ended somewhere. Yesterday’s Tribune is gone Along with youth And the... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
2d8856e9ca100ea0 | The Heart of a Woman | Georgia Douglas Johnson | The heart of a woman goes forth with the dawn,As a lone bird, soft winging, so restlessly on,Afar o’er life’s turrets and vales does it roamIn the wake of those echoes the heart calls home.The heart of a woman falls back with the night,And enters some alien cage in its plight,And tries to forget it has dreamed of the s... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
e479279a4c2cf437 | The Ballad of Sally in our Alley | Henry Carey | The ARGUMENT. A Vulgar Error having long prevailed among many Persons, who imagine Sally Salisbury the Subject of this Ballad, the Author begs leave to undeceive and assure them it has not the least allusion to her, he being a stranger to her very Name at the time this Song was composed. For as Innocence and Virtue we... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
1fa159b8270480eb | Lilac Field | Dorothea Lasky | To perform death is something only humans would doNo animal would sit thereWith a blank look on its faceJust because the camera is thereNo no an animal would look directly in itOr cover its face, like the overweightWoman in the picture in the magazineBy the room where I keep my bedWhat people don’t understand about bea... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
7016671a5d05283a | New Year | Dilruba Ahmed | Last night something
tunneled through the elms.
But at sunrise,
I found just white light
biting my eyelids, salt
rubbed on a wound.
Batons of ice
fell from power lines,
soundless but still emphatic.
Then the rain
churned the snow to soap
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
ef308746325ec35a | A Spring Song | Donald Davie | “stooped to truth and moralized his song”
Spring pricks a little. I get out the maps.
Time to demoralize my song, high time. Vernal a little. Primavera. First Green, first truth and last. High time, high time. A high old time we had of it last summer? I overstate. But getting out the maps… Look! Up the valley of ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
77199f1eb5ed263b | Possible Answers to Prayer | Scott Cairns | Your petitions—though they continue to bear
just the one signature—have been duly recorded.
Your anxieties—despite their constant,
relatively narrow scope and inadvertent
entertainment value—nonetheless serve
to bring your person vividly to mind.
Your repentance—all but obscured beneath
a burgeoning, yellow fog ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
91febfbd750984fd | God’s Secretary | R. S. Gwynn | Her e-mail inbox always overflows. Her outbox doesn’t get much use at all. She puts on hold the umpteen-billionth call As music oozes forth to placate those Who wait, then disconnect. Outside, wind blows, Scything pale leaves. She sees a sparrow fall Fluttering to a claw-catch on a wall. Will He be in tod... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
1bb0a8ad71418786 | Interior at Petworth: From Turner | Rosanna Warren | (Lord Egremont speaks)
It was a way of punishing the house, setting it ablaze
in ruddy, golden flames; smoke
in billows up the front stairs; walls
cringing like leaves.
I say, I am afraid
in my own house. Do not believeI started this, it was
that man, who was to portray the park alone, mind you,
but then became... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-5",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
4b9b3189e990006f | Language of Love | Rae Armantrout | There were distinctive
dips and shivers
in the various foliage,
syncopated,
almost cadenced in the way
that once made him invent
“understanding.”
*
Now the boss could say
“parameters”
and mean something
like “I’ll pinch.”
By repeating the gesture exactly
the woman awakened
an exci... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
5f4786a0b64915f4 | Dear One Absent This Long While | Lisa Olstein | It has been so wet stones glaze in moss;
everything blooms coldly.
I expect you. I thought one night it was you
at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs,
you in a shiver of light, but each time
leaves in wind revealed themselves,
the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak.
We expect you, cat and I, ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
96d7b9f0abf80a5e | The Windy City [sections 1 and 6] | Carl Sandburg | 1
The lean hands of wagon men
put out pointing fingers here,
picked this crossway, put it on a map,
set up their sawbucks, fixed their shotguns,
found a hitching place for the pony express,
made a hitching place for the iron horse,
the one-eyed horse with the fire-spit head,
found a homelike spot and said, “Mak... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
ec4e923bea44080b | Missing More Than a Word | Tanaya Winder | Someone once asked me, what are the words I do not yet have — .... .... ....
verbs that will story our bodies into something more
than missing, more than squaw or lost, beyond statistics:1 in 3 Native women will be raped in her lifetime.
Daily ritual: my hands search and sift through layers
of tiny earthq... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
775e0cfa1284caf5 | Paris Syndrome | Victoria Kennefick | The Eiffel Tower erected itself in my head,we couldn’t find the lifts, climbed the stairs.Of course there were fireworks.We stared at each other, rare exhibits in the Louvre —you licked my Mona Lisa smile right off.Of course we were both in imaginary Chanel.We drank warm cider and ate pancakes, yours flambéed.I got dru... | [
"S1",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S9-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
12303721cf533c8d | Landscape with Scavengers and Bonelight | Chris Dombrowski | All day the ravens shit the buck whitetail back onto his antlers, the thick arcing tines graffitied with undigested tendons. Coyote- dragged, draped in a squawking garment that rises tattered when redtail-harried — revealing ribs, links of spine, tongue-clean sockets — and falls, in patches, back, stitched with wingsou... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
4645aa445d8f8ad9 | Growing Old | Matthew Arnold | What is it to grow old? Is it to lose the glory of the form, The luster of the eye? Is it for beauty to forego her wreath? —Yes, but not this alone. Is it to feel our strength— Not our bloom only, but our strength—decay? Is it to feel each limb Grow stiffer, every function less exact, Each nerve more loosely strung? Ye... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
f0d9bdf90452a2e3 | Memorial Day | Reginald Gibbons | After Walt Whitman
A last formality is
running late, as a life can't,
this hot day. The final
ethereal glow of
the sun seems to come up from
underfoot in this parkland
of polysyllabic death.
These deep graves, two this time,
neatly cut into the earth,
await the arrivals,
and two adjacent heaps of
damp ferti... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
52ba03efc6adeb51 | Still Life | Kathy Nilsson | I’m having trouble looking animals in the eye.Their empty suits in outer space!Monkeys injected with a virus to show off Our eminent domain, the nervous system.Teacup pigs we breed and obsessive mice Worrying themselves bald in a miniature opera.For pleasures of the tongue we areWinking cattle out of meadows Slashing ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
09009badda952e2a | Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight | Vachel Lindsay | (In Springfield, Illinois)
It is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down.
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
fba4a47a9998f8e3 | Remember | Langston Hughes | Remember
The days of bondage—
And remembering—
Do not stand still.
Go to the highest hill
And look down upon the town
Where you are yet a slave.
Look down upon any town in Carolina
Or any town in Maine, for that matter,
Or Africa, your homeland—
And you will see what I mean for you to see—
The w... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
f65a26153407a5fa | Beyond the Red River | Thomas McGrath | The birds have flown their summer skies to the south,
And the flower-money is drying in the banks of bent grass
Which the bumble bee has abandoned. We wait for a winter lion,
Body of ice-crystals and sombrero of dead leaves.
A month ago, from the salt engines of the sea,
A machinery of early storms rolled toward t... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
52040a9a74bd287c | At Thomas Merton’s Grave | Spencer Reece | We can never be with loss too long.Behind the warped door that sticks,the wood thrush calls to the monks,pausing upon the stone crucifix,singing: “I am marvelous alone!”Thrash, thrash goes the hayfield:rows of marrow and bone undone.The horizon’s flashing fastens tight,sealing the blue hills with vermilion.Moss dyes a ... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-3",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
aeef88d16d321aad | Releasing the Sherpas | Campbell McGrath | The last two sherpas were the strongest,faithful companions, their faces wind-peeled,streaked with soot and glacier-light on the snowfieldbelow the summit where we stopped to rest.The first was my body, snug in its cap of lynx-fur, smelling of yak butter and fine mineral dirt,agile, impetuous, broad-shouldered,alive to... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-10",
"S9-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
a31354602ca2c87d | Museums | Dan Beachy-Quick | Must I, in this question I am asking, include myselfAsking it? Must I include my face—My face that I cannot see—through which I speakThis question about my eyes, about the fieldOf vision, in which my hands press down these lettersUnattached to my arms? The sunlightComes in the window and lights up my handsAs they work.... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
3a0a688d09b49eb2 | Love Song: I and Thou | Alan Dugan | Nothing is plumb, level, or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the f... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
db29d0c5c5ef6857 | Vernacular Owl | Thomas Sayers Ellis | for Amiri Baraka
Old Ark,how funky it was, all those animals, two of every kind,and all that waste, the human shit somebody had to clean up.Somebody, some love you hugged before fear,the fear of an in-sani-nation, the No Blues, ruined your bowels.Go devil.Public programslikeRace.Dems a Repub of Dumpster Molesters,C... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
f30925a809c7d3ad | The Beak of the Pelican | J. Patrick Lewis | She looks for wiggly fishes,
At least so it appears,
To stuff inside the suitcase
That's swinging from her ears.
And though she's very graceful
When flying round and round,
How does she get that faceful
Of luggage off the ground? | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
e3bdf80ef54ad000 | At the Vietnam Center and Archive | Hai-Dang Phan | Lubbock, Texas
Between 1985-1987, he writes sincerely, gratefully
to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,
the International Red Cross Central Tracing Agency,
Thai National Police, U.S. Department of State, and more,
to no real end, though each letter surpasses the last.
First he writes them in long ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
604ab90b619cb3d4 | A Side Street | Louis Untermeyer | On the warm Sunday afternoons
And every evening in the Spring and Summer
When the night hurries the late home-corner
And the air grows softer, and scraps of tunes
Float from the open windows and jar
Against the voices of children and the hum of a car;
When the city noises commingle and melt
With a restless somet... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
3345cb7868ebef7f | Longing for Prophets | Shirley Kaufman | Not for their ice-pick eyes,
their weeping willow hair,
and their clenched fists beating at heaven.
Not for their warnings, predictions
of doom. But what they promised.
I don’t care if their beards
are mildewed, and the ladders
are broken. Let them go on
picking the wormy fruit. Let the one
with the yoke aroun... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
3974ad2c57603e69 | "Polly, put the kettle on," | Mother Goose | Polly, put the kettle on,
Polly, put the kettle on,
Polly, put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.
Sukey, take it off again,
Sukey, take it off again,
Sukey, take it off again,
They've all gone away. | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
1a476d9f8073930d | A Poem for Pulse | Jameson Fitzpatrick | Last night, I went to a gay bar
with a man I love a little.
After dinner, we had a drink.
We sat in the far-back of the big backyard
and he asked, What will we do when this place closes?
I don't think it's going anywhere any time soon, I said,
though the crowd was slow for a Saturday,
and he said—Yes, but one da... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
9679c44fdc248985 | ‘The Opal Sea’ | Ella Higginson | An inland sea – blue as a sapphire – set Within a sparkling, emerald mountain chain Where day and night fir-needles sift like rain Thro’ the voluptuous air. The soft winds fret The waves, and beat them wantonly to foam. The golden distances across the sea Are shot with rose and purple. Languorously The silve... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
70c5704a9af3db01 | Mountain Building | Victor Hernández Cruz | The mountain have changed to buildings
Is this hallway the inside of a stem
That has a rattling flower for a head,
Immense tree bark with roots made out of
Mailboxes?
In the vertical village moons fly out of
Apartment windows and though what you
See is a modern city
The mountain’s guitars pluck inside
It’s agr... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
6b7c16fb9c6add90 | Hello, Willie Shoemaker | Charles Bukowski | the Chinaman said don’t take the hardware
and gave me a steak I couldn’t cut (except the fat)
and there was an ant circling the coffee cup;
I left a dime tip and broke out a stick of cancer,
and outside I gave an old bum who looked about
the way I felt, I gave him a quarter,
and then I went up to see the old man
... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
096e4d3850d8e398 | Autumn | Adam Zagajewski | Autumn is always too early.
The peonies are still blooming, bees
are still working out ideal states,
and the cold bayonets of autumn
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.
What is its origin? Why should it destroy
dreams, arbors, memories?
The alien enters the hushed woods,
anger advancing, insinuati... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall"
] |
d85d882818ccffbf | Dogwood | William Johnson | Dog days doggone dog-tired dogwork of summer, mowing the grass we're all coming to the dog tags of you, me, I, we, stashed in a box, doghouse throwaways. Even the namesake tree whose blossoms some call Jesus-flowers for the rust-grooved tips of the petals as if nails now removed had indented the shape of a cross, betra... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c5ac0c15b1f746e3 | Mourning | Carolyn Forché | A peacock on an olive branch looks beyond
the grove to the road, beyond the road to the sea,
blank-lit, where a sailboat anchors to a cove.
As it is morning, below deck a man is pouring water into a cup,
listening to the radio-talk of the ships: barges dead
in the calms awaiting port call, pleasure boats whose lig... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
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