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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
266460f546508468 | Whale Fall | David Baker | 1
One dies.Eschrichtius
robustus, gray,
of the sole living genus, of baleen,
of the family
Eschrichtiidae, slate
gray or darker,
and notable, now, for
gray-white patterned scars
left by parasites, two
blowholes “which can
create a distinctive... | [
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
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"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
92a58d760a0627c6 | The Evidence is Everywhere | Juan Delgado | I.
The Santa Anas, childlike and profound,
blanket me; I see the dust stirring the valley
and clouding downtown San Bernardino;
I feel the sting of your loss.
The black oak leaves, brittle, tumbling,
crack under my feet. Is your hand
touching the dryness of my lips?
You sing: "Don't sit, mountain-still,
a coyo... | [
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] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
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"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Famil... |
b76e4e7352fed7d9 | Don't Cheapen Yourself | Jana Harris | You look sleazy tonight
ma said.
Cheap, I said.
I’m doin cheap.
You got any idea
how much it costs
to do cheap these days?
To do gold City of Paris
three-inch platform sandals
and this I. Magnin snake dress?
I’m doin cheap.
You look like a bird, she said
a Halloween bird with red waxed lips.
—In high ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
a493fc2a722795b2 | History | Aleida Rodríguez | In art, politics, school, church, business, love
or marriage—in a piece of work or in a career—
strongly spent is synonymous with kept.
—Robert Frost
She taught me the names of flowers: calendula, ranunculus, Iceland
poppy. And the medicinal uses of he... | [
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"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
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"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
c0752d766f6da64a | Brief reflection on killing the Christmas carp | Miroslav Holub | You take a kitchen-mallet
and a knife
and hit
the right spot, so it doesn’t jerk, for
jerking means only complications and reduces profit.
And the watchers already narrow their eyes, already admire the
dexterity,
already reach for their purses. And paper is ready
for wrapping it up. And smoke rises ... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
3c3dac5a2459b246 | Self Portrait | Frank Marshall Davis | I would be
A painter with words
Creating sharp portraits
On the wide canvas of your mind
Images of those things
Shaped through my eyes
That interest me;
But being a Tenth American
In this democracy
I sometimes sketch a miniature
Though I contract for a mural.
Of course
You understand this democracy;
One ma... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
cf3d1d511140b54b | Wākea’s Blue Teeth (a super bowl poem) | Donovan Kūhiō Colleps | It’s not so easy to smash the compass.
To rely on the winds the golden hum of
Herb Kane clouds navigating
the tips of these mountains.
It’s not so easy to modify the compass.
To apologize when your brothers
are spreading the sashimi
and churning the shoyu mustard.
It’s not so easy to ignore the compass
bec... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
74ab336371e2ff4c | Confession of a Bird Watcher | Chard DeNiord | The windows are dressed in feathers where the birds have flown against
them,
then fallen below into the flowers where their bodies lie grounded, still,
slowly disappearing each day until all that is left are their narrow,
prehensile bones.
I have sat at my window now for years and watched a hundred birds... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
67070d43b019dc83 | Sonnet | Louise Bogan | Since you would claim the sources of my thoughtRecall the meshes whence it sprang unlimed,The reedy traps which other hands have timedTo close upon it. Conjure up the hotBlaze that it cleared so cleanly, or the snowDevised to strike it down. It will be free.Whatever nets draw in to prison meAt length your eyes must tur... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
507e0cd7ca947981 | Dreams of My Father | Honorée Fanonne Jeffers | Or a man who looks like him.
I only know I call him Daddy
(as all southern women
do until the day we die).
In my dreams he is still alive
and this is not a comfort.
I am my best when tragic.
Grief becomes me.
Daddy is more real in death,
eyes dark, undimmed
by the grave, smile less sincere.
Matter clings to ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7d144b5bd0250214 | from Canto CXV | Ezra Pound | The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace i... | [
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"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
98e17d9597f684b2 | Miss Snooks, Poetess | Stevie Smith | Miss Snooks was really awfully niceAnd never wrote a poemThat was not really awfully niceAnd fitted to a woman,She therefore made no enemiesAnd gave no sad surprisesBut went on being awfully niceAnd took a lot of prizes.November 1964 | [
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"S10"
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"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
d751051fb068f2e8 | Dover Beach | Matthew Arnold | The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched... | [
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"S5",
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"S8"
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"S1-7",
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"Love",
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"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
40f7bf275fce2146 | For Gustave Moreau | Robin Blaser | The streets are my body
or rather the wish
of the skin to put on
the grass in a gold rain
not vice-versa,
the lips twisting to allow
the tongue to play in
the broken mirror on the floor
Catches an arm
a distance
the light
at the ceiling
This kills
the lift begged
of a ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
a8a9e8978bf2504a | Angels | B. H. Fairchild | Elliot Ray Neiderland, home from college
one winter, hauling a load of Herefords
from Hogtown to Guymon with a pint of
Ezra Brooks and a copy of Rilke’s Duineser
Elegien | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-6",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
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"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
a9386c02b980abe9 | If You Catch a Firefly | Lilian Moore | If you catch a firefly
and keep it in a jar
You may find that
you have lost
A tiny star.
If you let it go then,
back into the night,
You may see it
once again
Star bright. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
bfb8c6b9b96bf15e | To the Executive Director of the Actual: | Bruce Smith | Is this the world, Miss Bliss? Stacks of ingots on the docks where my brother works? Work and things on the threshold of raw and radiated. Bananas gassed in shacks to ripen by the forklifts. Ships of foreign port. Ships of car parts and dyes. The beef-stripping business. Things, Miss Bliss, and work. Flavors translated... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
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"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9f2fe95013618b32 | haiku #62 | Scott Helmes | Scott Helmes is a longtime visual poet who has produced works in a variety of forms, including mathematical poetry and rubber-stamped poetry. His "haiku #62" is part of a series of striking poems created from scraps of colored text torn out of glossy magazines and arrayed in three tiers. These tiers approximate the loo... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
8ba65c51be2a0b08 | History of My Heart | Robert Pinsky | One Christmastime Fats Waller in a fur coat
Rolled beaming from a taxicab with two pretty girls
Each at an arm as he led them in a thick downy snowfall
Across Thirty-Fourth Street into the busy crowd
Shopping at Macy’s: perfume, holly, snowflake displays.
Chimes rang for change. In Toys, where my mother worked
Ov... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5f29b7c720077f32 | Luna Moth | Carl Phillips | No eye that sees could fail to remark you:
like any leaf the rain leaves fixed to and
flat against the barn’s gray shingle. But
what leaf, this time of year, is so pale,
the pale of leaves when they’ve lost just
enough green to become the green that means
loss and more loss, approaching? Give up
the flesh enough... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-5",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
614cc2b0a4a24989 | The Shampoo (From The Nightingales) | David Wojahn | How long it must have been, the girl’s hair,
cascading down her shoulders almost to her waist,
light brown and heavy as brocade: the story I’m
remembering of N’s, remembering as my own
hair’s washed and cut, the salt-and-pepper
cuneiform to frill my barber’s smock.
Arts... | [
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"S3",
"S4",
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"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S11-1"
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"Nature",
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"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
b5fdbcab5ff32072 | The Prairies | William Cullen Bryant | These are the gardens of the Desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no name— The Prairies. I behold them for the first, And my heart swells, while the dilated sight Takes in the encircling vastness. Lo! they stretch, In airy undulations, far away, As if the ocean,... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
3b45ed026381b723 | Gazelle Lost in Watts | Harmony Holiday | I saw you painted on a ghetto wall last summer and thought don’t submit to this medium ... everybody’s running into the wall or running into each other and plagiarizing our future like mummies and nukes, I watched you hug the Mona Lisa. I wanna use the word pariah until it shrugs for us and even their disguises g... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
6881eefe9eab5507 | Touch Gallery: Joan of Arc | Mary Szybist | The sculptures in this gallery have been
carefully treated with a protective wax
so that visitors may touch them. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-3",
"S10-4",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Fall"
] |
c4c919a49c866ce1 | Interlude | Amy Lowell | When I have baked white cakesAnd grated green almonds to spread upon them; When I have picked the green crowns from the strawberriesAnd piled them, cone-pointed, in a blue and yellow platter;When I have smoothed the seam of the linen I have been working;What then?To-morrow it will be the same:Cakes and strawberries,And... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
c73822f405132c34 | Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket | Vachel Lindsay | I am unjust, but I can strive for justice.
My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness.
I, the unloving, say life should be lovely.
I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness.
Man is a curious brute—he pets his fancies—
Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury.
So he will be, though law be clear as crystal,
T... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
7f289b817b704990 | Rest before you sleep | Dionisio D. Martínez | Requiem after Fauré, for my father
Rest before you sleep You’ll be walking for hours then as usual away from home your shoes in your hand your feet not yet used to the road Perhaps they need to feel the gravel to know where they’re headed A woman I knew who lived... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d42e8780ade697b8 | To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible | Anna Lætitia Barbauld | Germ of new life, whose powers expanding slow For many a moon their full perfection wait,— Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to go Auspicious borne through life's mysterious gate. What powers lie folded in thy curious frame,— Senses from objects locked, and mind from thought! How little canst thou guess thy lofty c... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
0382e6ce6c33ea49 | Theologies for Korah | Dante Micheaux | from locusts and wild honey
On a lesser diet than that of the wretched
rests a prophecy: some of us come to prepare.
I stood before my god, at a foreign altar,
and promised to guide you; me, with my heretic
theology. I practice the ways passed to me
by descendants of followers of a wild man:
followers in the des... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
c74e3466a35a928d | Water Table | Eliza Griswold | My earliest wish was not to exist,to burst in the backyard without violence, no blood, no fleshy bits, mute button pressedalone behind the rectory where no one would see me.This wasn’t a plea to be found or mourned for, but to be unborn into the atmosphere. To hang in the humid air, as ponds vent upward from the overhe... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
45dde91dbd520d73 | No Soldier Story | Ish Klein | These ghost soldiers live underground with the vast
oversupply of castoff lanterns.
If one were to take broadsword to one of these
orange-bearded mammoth men of rough hew,
he woul... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
b51c5856a8f5fcd8 | [Love] | Ariana Reines | Love
Is an interruption or an aberration, a force in opposition to the ultimate inertia
of the universe,
Wrote Marguerite Duras.
Whether or not it is worth it it occurs. Whether or not it is to be believed it is.
The wind moves us without a frond being needed to be held by a slave girl.
The rudiments of sentences... | [
"S1",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
69f5b98f4d322368 | At Days Bay | James K. Baxter | To lie on a beach after
looking at old poems: how
slow untroubled by any
grouch of mine or yours, Father
Ocean tumbles in the bay
alike with solitary
divers, cripples, yelling girls
and pipestem kids. He does what
suits us all; and somewhere — there,
out there, where the high tight sails
are going — he wears ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
ddaf24bc462263ff | At the Other End of a Wire | Sandra Lim | When he called, there were 261 emotions
at play. I thought there were only wistfulness,
humiliation, and mere bitterness left, but lo,
I see now the brilliance in the numbers.
Emotions 75 and 78 made me happy just to know
they existed. I felt less alone, more impervious.
I was emboldened by the existence of 152.
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
bfa5be2a5f6bb006 | Work | Nate Klug | It hides its edgesin speed, it hasno edges. Plus every timehe thinks he knowsit close enough, can discriminatecentripetal forcefrom what gets shearedstraight off,direction changes:through stunned space the bladesnaps back,turtles into its handleand starts over spinning the other way. All along the chopped-up sidewalk (... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
d0e70d82f6a9849a | My Olson Elegy | Irving Feldman | I set out now
in a box upon the sea. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4",
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
f32de2d2a73403fe | Sunny Prestatyn | Philip Larkin | Come To Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.
She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
f53254ad2b557f5e | An Answer to Another Persuading a Lady to Marriage | Katherine Philips | Forbear, bold youth, all’s Heaven here,
And what you do aver,
To others, courtship may appear,
’Tis sacriledge to her.
She is a publick deity,
And were’t not very odd
She should depose her self to be
A pretty household god?
First make the sun in private shine,
And bid the world adieu,
That so he may his beams... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
96feb39a84ef0fe4 | The Sonnets: XLI | Ted Berrigan | banging around in a cigarette she isn’t “in love”
my dream a drink with Ira Hayes we discuss the code of the west
my hands make love to my body when my arms are around you
you never tell me your name
and I am forced to write “belly” when I mean “love”
Au revoir, scene!
I waken, read, write long letters and
... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
58b8f7325c0ea40b | The Cleaving | Li-Young Lee | He gossips like my grandmother, this man
with my face, and I could stand
amused all afternoon
in the Hon Kee Grocery,
amid hanging meats he
chops: roast pork cut
from a hog hung
by nose and shoulders,
her entire skin burnt
crisp, flesh I know
to be sweet,
her shining
face grinning
up at ducks
dangling sin... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
a216a1eb3deac9d1 | The Moon is distant from the Sea – (387) | Emily Dickinson | The Moon is distant from the Sea –
And yet, with Amber Hands –
She leads Him – docile as a Boy –
Along appointed Sands –
He never misses a Degree –
Obedient to Her eye –
He comes just so far – toward the Town –
Just so far – goes away –
Oh, Signor, Thine, the Amber Hand –
And mine – the distant Sea –
Obedient... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-9",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7098c4cf558ade59 | Snow-flakes | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take Suddenly shape in some divine expression, Even as the t... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
cbd0858bd63a8735 | The Siren | Joyelle McSweeney | The puppy must be learned of all this material.
No map of the hospital. First, the war effort.
Then, the war itself. The water makes and remakes
its walls. No persons or boats are allowed in them.
This plot is to be played out in the buildings known to us.
Swim for the stick, baby! You’ve got an anti-sink device.
... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S3-11",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
6d6fedc02ab13aa1 | Now Winter Nights Enlarge | Thomas Campion | Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o’erflow with wine,
Let well-turned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtl... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
949405bfd8292f2b | No Platonic Love | William Cartwright | Tell me no more of minds embracing minds,
And hearts exchang’d for hearts;
That spirits spirits meet, as winds do winds,
And mix their subt’lest parts;
That two unbodied essences may kiss,
And then like Angels, twist and feel one Bliss.
I was that silly thing that once was wrought
To practise this thin love;
I... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
7f27ea2206f1d28c | Sarabande | Norma Cole | “and then looks at
the stars” from the
bed in the ambulance
looks up at boughs of
trees shifting quickly
lit in blackness
blackening soft, deep
siren’s song—she died
several times that night
and only in the weeks
to come started and
started to come back
then forward which is
real life | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S10-2",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
ee7b0b3bff4a77b1 | To a Real Standup Piece of Painted Crockery | George Starbuck | I wonder what the Greeks kept in these comicstrip canisters.
Plums, milletseed, incense, henna, oregano.
Speak to me, trove. Tell me you contained dried smoked tongue once.
Or a sorcerer or a cosmetologist’s powders and unguents.
And when John Keats looked at you in a collection of pots
it was poetry at first sigh... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
c430aee75a06b2d5 | How to Look at Pictures | Rebecca Morgan Frank | title after Robert Clermont Witt, 1906
Refuse to make eye contact with the subject.
He has been following you around the gallery.
You are certain that he can see down your shirt.
Look at other subjects, but know that they, too,
are not of primary interest. Even when they watch
you. Try not to consider what happen... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
4da121939ca0c0ae | The Man with the Hoe | Edwin Markham | Written after seeing Millet’s World-Famous Painting
God made man in His own image,
in the image of God made He him. —Genesis.
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture an... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
29c64c08eaaf61d1 | The Exam | Joyce Sutphen | It is mid-October. The trees are in their autumnal glory (red, yellow-green, orange) outside the classroom where students take the mid-term, sniffling softly as if identifying lines from Blake or Keats was such sweet sorrow, summoned up in words they never saw before. I am thinking of my parents, of the six decades t... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
0d48a7c1b523d42e | Stories Are Made of Mistakes | James Galvin | 1.
Even the pole bean tendrils sought out and gripped their
frames within six hours of my setting them.
One of the things
that is breaking my heart is that I can’t trust language to
express any thanks.
My pole beans, my hon... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
dff60100d28087fa | The Present | Dana Gioia | The present that you gave me months agois still unopened by our bed,sealed in its rich blue paper and bright bow.I’ve even left the card unreadand kept the ribbon knotted tight.Why needlessly unfold and bring to lightthe elegant contrivances that hidethe costly secret waiting still inside? | [
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Relationships"
] | [] |
e1fd2a9c248d3b62 | kommentar/comment | Ernst Jandl | that never would he write his autobiography because his life seemed to him just so much filth that only a few points, bloody ones he still remembers but that he would never hesitate to reach into the filth to pull out what perhaps could serve as stuff for poetry his disgusting purpose in life * * * daß niemals er schre... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
0eecb7b1ec32d0be | The Unquarried Blue of Those Depths Is All But Blinding | Ashley Anna McHugh | for John Fogleman
There are some things we just don’t talk about—
Not even in the morning, when we’re waking,
When your calloused fingers tentatively walk
The slope of my waist:
How love’s a rust-worn boat,
Abandoned at the dock—and who could doubt
Waves lick their teeth,... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
831b6999b747adca | In Defense of Our Overgrown Garden | Matthea Harvey | Last night the apple trees shook and gave each lettuce a heart
Six hard red apples broke through the greenhouse glass and
Landed in the middle of those ever-so-slightly green leaves
That seem no mix of seeds and soil but of pastels and light and
Chalk x’s mark our oaks that are supposed to be cut down
I’ve seen th... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
05e8609e40ac29d8 | Aria | David Barber | What if it were possible to vanquishAll this shame with a wash of varnishInstead of wishing the stain would vanish?What if you gave it a glossy finish?What if there were a way to burnishAll this foolishness, all the anguish?What if you gave yourself leave to ravishAll these ravages with famished relish?What... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
b2f3eccc14e6fb52 | Thanking My Mother for Piano Lessons | Diane Wakoski | The relief of putting your fingers on the keyboard,
as if you were walking on the beach
and found a diamond
as big as a shoe;
as if
you had just built a wooden table
and the smell of sawdust was in the air,
your hands dry and woody;
as if
you had eluded
the man in the dark hat who had been following you
all ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
0599fc2528da3176 | The African Burial Ground | Yusef Komunyakaa | They came as Congo, Guinea, & Angola, feet tuned to rhythms of a thumb piano. They came to work fields of barley & flax,livestock, stone & slab, brick & mortar, to make wooden barrels, some going from slave to servant & half-freeman.They built tongue & groove — wedged into their place in New Amsterdam. ... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
cde76648db11676e | Petard | Rae Armantrout | 1
We hoped to see things as they are
by which we meant without us.
We thought once we stripped away
smell, taste, color —
anything improper —
leaving only location
and number,
the thing
would be naked
on the teeter-totter
of an equation.2
Then Archimedes
told another one.
If I had a long enough lever
a... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences"
] |
7371b7cf9556a2b9 | By Candlelight | Edith Sitwell | Houses red as flower of bean,Flickering leaves and shadows lean!Pantalone, like a parrot,Sat and grumbled in the garret—Sat and growled and grumbled till Moon upon the window-sillLike a red geraniumScented his bald cranium.Said Brighella, meaning well:“Pack your box and—go to Hell!Heat will cure your rheumatism!” . . .... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
e1fac89c4894f7ce | Be Someone | Rita Ann Higgins | For Christ’s sake,
learn to type
and have something
to fall back on.
Be someone,
make something of yourself,
look at Gertrudo Ganley.
Always draw the curtains
when the lights are on.
Have nothing to do
with the Shantalla gang,
get yourself a right man
with a Humber Sceptre.
For Christ’s sake
wash your nec... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
62e2b21fc2598e0a | There is no Frigate like a Book (1286) | Emily Dickinson | There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry –
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul – | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
039a587ff8f122a6 | Satan Says | Sharon Olds | I am locked in a little cedar box
with a picture of shepherds pasted onto
the central panel between carvings.
The box stands on curved legs.
It has a gold, heart-shaped lock
and no key. I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar. Satan
comes to me in the locked box
and says, I’ll get y... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
151b6a5754f20a2f | Ol’ Doc’ Hyar | James Edwin Campbell | Ur ol’ Hyar lib in ur house on de hill, He hunner yurs ol’ an’ nebber wuz ill; He yurs dee so long an’ he eyes so beeg, An’ he laigs so spry dat he dawnce ur jeeg; He lib so long dat he know ebbry tings ’Bout de beas’ses dat walks an’ de bu’ds dat sings— Dis Ol’ Doc’ Hyar, ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
e5984d471520d92d | No More and No Less | Mahmoud Darwish | I am a woman. No more and no less
I live my life as it is
thread by thread
and I spin my wool to wear, not
to complete Homer’s story, or his sun.
And I see what I see
as it is, in its shape,
though I stare every once
in a while in its shade
to sense the pulse of defeat,
and I write tomorrow
on yesterday’s sh... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
4f90fa369ec1705d | a | Marianne Boruch | They wore out the ain the letterpress case only aftera few thousand hits under the inked rollers,pulling the crank, turningthe giant wheel.Must have been 1820. Thereabouts.Wanderer, glory-run of letters: thereabouts.Hunger took its due fromthe belly of the a.So? All kept reading itas a — those who could read — and anyw... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
07701dfaaec03cf8 | Cypress, Dateless | Dara Wier | You are a seahorse unraveling.
You are the back of a landhorse looking backward.
Gotten away form have you thrown yourself racing.
Who took what was not out of thunderous shade
In an all-knowing sycamore's branches.
What who do you make of stone steps you stepped through.
You took the boat onto flattened waters.
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
0d10535232c07bca | Incantation Against Lilith | Peter Cole | Veiled in velvet, is she here?
Leave off, leave off:
You shall not enter,
you shall not emerge.
It is neither yours nor your share.
Return...Return:
The sea is swelling;
its waves are calling.
I hold to the holy portion—
I am held in... | [
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-6",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
028452416c791c75 | LA Odyssey | Cedar Sigo | I almost insist on the words
as doors left swinging
from the force no one saw
A wrap around hotel
with empty courtyard
boarded up, ... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
bb199f0c9d05b7a5 | From the First, the Body Was Dirt | Camille T. Dungy | For T.S.
Whose hands touched, first, the headof the penis, the shaft?And was it soft or shale? More rockthan clay.And who pinched firstinto their place the small cups at the base of the ass? Who was itgot down there, on whose knees,and blew— ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
7d0278993bfe7dc1 | The Greatest Grandeur | Pattiann Rogers | Some say it’s in the reptilian dance
of the purple-tongued sand goanna,
for there the magnificent translation
of tenacity into bone and grace occurs.
And some declare it to be an expansive
desert—solid rust-orange rock
like dusk captured on earth in stone—
simply for the perfect contrast it provides
to the blue... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
96e5bc066b68b4cb | $$$Expensive Magic$$$ | Cedar Sigo | I stumble down around torn peaks
“Fit the right suit
to trick them all.”
the questions fall
around allure. Poems floated
from... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
3ce81d8956fd408b | Aubade | Dore Kiesselbach | “Take me with you” my mother says standing in her nightgown as, home from college, I prepare to leave before dawn. The desolation she must face was once my concern but like a bobber pulled beneath the surface by an inedible fish she vanished into the life he offered her. It stopped occurring to me she might return. “I... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
466f189d676f688a | The Origins of the Owners of Land | Adrian Castro | —for the members of Oshugó Àgàn
At first a child
rolled off a reed mat
a height of no consequence
Later the bald ageless vulture
circles the hill the man climbs
When the owners of the land arrived
they brought beaded bag in their search
Bag beaded big enough to house the echoes
that gave birth to sketches of w... | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e1b367f9f75a0624 | Astrophil and Stella 14: Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend | Sir Philip Sidney | Alas, have I not pain enough, my friend, Upon whose breast a fiercer gripe doth tire Than did on him who first stale down the fire, While Love on me doth all his quiver spend, But with your rhubarb words you must contend To grieve me worse, in saying that Desire Doth plunge my well-formed soul even in the mire Of sinfu... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
fc79fda04e77f209 | to the sea | Aracelis Girmay | You who cannot hear or cannot know
the terrible intricacies of our species, our minds,
the extent to which we have done
what we have done, & yet the depth to which
we have loved
what we have
loved —
the hillside
at dawn, dark eyes
outlined with the dark
sentences of kohl,
the fūl we shared
beneath the lim... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
72bea6a4a1625df2 | The Jews that We Are | Richard Michelson | . . . you have inherited its burden without its mystery.
—Elie Wiesel
I. March 1979 and I am watching Nazis
march through Chicago. The bold type
of the Sun-Times describes a small band
of hoodlums, undereducated boy scouts, the better
to be ignored. My grandfather, back hunched
over his B... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
bc70d7435b944dfc | The Explorer | Adrian Matejka | I lied when Pops asked, but I’ll admit it now. I did touch the blue egg to see if, somehow,
it felt as much like the sky as it looked. The egg: speckled in its twiggy nest, eye level to
8-year-olds, perfect & off-limits like the Baoding balls on Pops’ desk. We tried to find
its mom, but the finches scattered when we... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
b14b66f54bce8313 | from Merlin and Vivien | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
It is the little rift within the lute,
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
The little rift within the lover’s lute,
Or little pitted speck in garne... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
65b2e672ea284d63 | California Prodigal | Maya Angelou | FOR DAVID P—B
The eye follows, the land
Slips upward, creases down, forms
The gentle buttocks of a young
Giant. In the nestle,
Old adobe bricks, washed of
Whiteness, paled to umber,
Await another century.
Star Jasmine and old vines
Lay claim upon the ghosted land,
Then quiet pools whisper
Private childhood s... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
cda047cd6757517b | winter migrants | Tom Pickard | a mass of moth-eaten cloud
threadbare and spun across
a bullish moon
an animal wakes
when I walk in winter,
wrapped against
a withering wind,
solitary,
on a Solway flat
winter migrants gather
in long black lines
along a silver sleek
heads held back,
throats
thrust toward
an onshore rush
occasionally cr... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
7760be8d17f81c99 | The Messenger | Eleanor Wilner | The messenger runs, not carrying the news
of victory, or defeat; the messenger, unresting,
has always been running, the wind before and behind him,
across the turning back of earth, leaving
his tracks across the plains, his ropes
hanging from the ledges of mountains;
for centuries, mi... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b99fc7bacdd31e75 | Adolescence-II | Rita Dove | Although it is night, I sit in the bathroom, waiting.
Sweat prickles behind my knees, the baby-breasts are alert.
Venetian blinds slice up the moon; the tiles quiver in pale strips.
Then they come, the three seal men with eyes as round
As dinner plates and eyelashes like sharpened tines.
They bring the scent of li... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
17fbac38669bb23a | Sylvia En Route to Kythera | Kathryn Starbuck | I never much likedforsythia, neverliked yellow, butliked the sounds:for syth i afor Kythera for sightfor sky for Sylvia.Forsythia made anokay divider betweenour place and hers.Sylvia used to trodthrough it to see ustoo often so we letall of it grow massiveand dense hopingshe’d go blind init then hop abo... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
e3489a129c00fc21 | Paradise Lost: Book 12 (1674 version) | John Milton | AS one who in his journey bates at Noone, Though bent on speed, so heer the Archangel paus'd Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd, If Adam aught perhaps might interpose; Then with transition sweet new Speech resumes. Thus thou hast seen one World begin and end; And Man as from a second stock proceed. Much tho... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
63ad785d3c590fc4 | Three Six Five Zero | Conor O'Callaghan | I called up tech and got the voicemail code. It’s taken me this long to find my feet. Since last we spoke that evening it has snowed. Fifty-four new messages. Most are old and blinking into a future months complete. I contacted tech to get my voicemail code to hear your voice, not some bozo on the road th... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Winter",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
022c5af7f5ac0912 | The Paradox | Paul Laurence Dunbar | I am the mother of sorrows, I am the ender of grief; I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-falling leaf. I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf and thy king; I cure the tears of the heartsick, When I come near they shall sing. White are my hands as the snowdrop; Swart are my fingers as clay; D... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
4af4dbeb196cbb27 | Panic at John Baldessari’s Kiss | Elena Karina Byrne | The aftermath always happening like an airplane falling, or a man
midair falling from a horse, and an arrow, a gun, many guns
pointing away, at us, our all bull’s-eye-on-the-mark. This is what he
sees when he sees. Maybe Wrong or not, the appropriation, the film
clip, chase, pressed lips over lips, photo moment on ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
2a391898657511b2 | Gold and Cardboard | David Shapiro | 1.
My son said Daddy are there words for everything? I said You mean the space betweenThe clouds? “Yes!” “No!”Like those who love to think one word will take care of Maupassant’s tree and his landlady.But it turns out you will get no further than the words that reach and do not touch.X uses a hard word one per poem li... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b2c1468bc0e69091 | A Practical Mom | Amy Uyematsu | can go to Bible study every Sunday
and swear she’s still not convinced,
but she likes to be around people who are.
We have the same conversation
every few years—I’ll ask her if she stops
to admire the perfect leaves
of the Japanese maple
she waters in her backyard,
or tell her how I can gaze for hours
at a des... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-8",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b3a5b3d8fd735c1a | Vows | Jim Harrison | I feel my failure intensely
as if it were a vital organ
the gods grew from the side of my head.
You can't cover it with a hat and I no longer
can sleep on that side it's so tender.
I wasn't quite faithful enough
to carry this sort of weight up the mountain.
When I took my vows at nineteen
I had no idea that god... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
424304cf65cb3596 | Song: My silks and fine array | William Blake | My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish'd air, By love are driv'n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave: Such end true lovers have. His face is fair as heav'n, When springing buds unfold; O why to him was't giv'n, Whose heart is wintry cold? His breas... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-9",
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
1271ff58ff592a49 | The Orders | Thomas Centolella | One spring night, at the end of my street
God was lying in wait.
A friend and I were sitting in his new sedan
like a couple of cops on surveillance,
shooting the breeze to pass the time,
chatting up the daydreams, the raw deals,
all the wouda-coulda-shoulda’s,
the latest “Can you believe that?”
As well as the l... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
b01b0b68bb5f255e | Sparrow | Farnoosh Fathi | This was more like the atmospherehad been pinched, whose chirp was an unexpected gust in a harmonium enough to break all that high horse talkthat curdles the atmosphere. While centaursate grass and hurdled epitaphs, that chirp in the midst did change one of us. 'Twas clawed out in a feeling’s flock'Twas 'couraged by th... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
ee76335d9b15e3cc | Domestic Violence | Roger Reeves | Let us descend into the blind world now.
— Dante, “The Divine Comedy”
As above, so below; as below, so above.
— Three Initiates, “The Kybalion”
A Lowcountry marsh trembles with the blood of an African
Who refused to climb out of the salt and mud of the bay
And quite literally lost his head. A hunter named Hunter
... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S5-3",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
0f7a0eb8538097a9 | Aubade with Concussion | Martín Espada | Poverty is black ice.
— Naomi Ayala
You leave me sleeping in the dark. You kiss me and I stir,
fingers in your hair, eyes open, unseeing. You leave me asleep
every morning, commuting to the school in the city at sunrise.
The landlord’s driveway, a muddy creek, ices over hard after
the freezing rain clatters all n... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-6",
"S4-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
e18f1740bea89816 | Graduation Day | Matthew Zapruder | Drawn by ceremonial obligation
up from sleep I woke and stepped
into the borrowed black robes
all ghost bureaucrats trained
to redirect dreaming pretend
we do not like to wear. I drove
my black car to the stadium
to sit on stage and be watched
watching young expectant spirits
one by one with dread certainty
p... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S6-8",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
7c3283224ac8125c | Your Hair of Snakes and Flowers | Håkan Sandell | When I saw one of those men touch your hair,
I heard for the first time in many a year
the ancient battle trumpets and I saw
the banners of an army winding off to war
and felt that blind power urging me to knock
him out with one punch, send him tumbling to the floor.
If nobody had held me back, stopped me,
I wou... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
e8334ce1d84a3486 | After “Las Formas Puras,” After Lorca | John Matthias | In memory of Anthony Kerrigan
The pure shapes of things shake and are fall
ing under the cry of bajo el cri cri
and chirping of the six margaritas
daisies that I loved but now know deflower
when the men bent upon murdering me bend
down in cabinets and on cliffs and in cafes
where some flamenco guitarist breaks h... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
f04c21ae5262a7da | 7 December | Kate Greenstreet | Men are trading their bullets for worms.
“I spent a lifetime building.”
We come down from the mountains. We brought eggs, a table, a windowshade. There were times when we couldn’t bring anything. So many people.
As you were walking up the hill and I was walking down, we almost passed each other. But I grasped your a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-9"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
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