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 |
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93e106d85c4e1541 | Soup and Jelly | Fay Zwicky | “Feed Fred and sit with him
and mind he doesn’t walk about.
He falls. Tell him his ute is safe
back home. Thinks someone’s pinched it,
peers around the carpark all the time.
His family brought him in it and
he thinks it’s gone.
He was a farmer once . . .”
I take the tray. The ice-cream’s almost
melted round th... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
b58dde67fb7a4cd3 | The Cowboy | James Tate | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
Someone had spread an elaborate rumor about me, that I was
in possession of an extraterrestrial being, and I thought I knew who
it was. It was Roger Lawson. Roger was a practical joker of the
worst sort, and up till now I had not been one of his victims, so
I kind o... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-5",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
19ba91466b1e2938 | Six Sailors | Irving Feldman | to Pete Foss,
God give him good berth!
Shipped deckhand June of ’fifty-one
aboard the freighter Willis Kerrigan, | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-4",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
dccf035d35076426 | Coming to Sumer | A. R. Ammons | Coming to Sumer and the tamarisks on the river
I Ezra with unsettling love
rifled the mud and wattle huts
for recent mournings
with gold leaves
and lapis lazuli beads
in the neat braids loosening from the skull
Looking through the wattles to the sun
I said
It has rained some here in this place
unless snow... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
21742ee7e8470d42 | In The Summer After “Issue Year” Winter (1873) | Roberta Hill | I scratch earth around timpsila
on this hill, while below me,
hanging in still air, a hawk
searches the creekbed for my brothers.
Squat leaves, I’ll braid your roots
into such long ropes, they’ll cover
the rump of my stallion.
Withered flower, feed us now
buffalo rot in the waist-high grass.
Hear my sisters la... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S2-10",
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestor... |
4574bb0925ca58c9 | Counting to Six Million | Richard Michelson | I.Sleep faster, my son says. He’s poking
at my eyelids, pulling at the pillows, the helicopter
hum of anticipation rising in his throat as I reach out
and spin him onto the bed. I want to set my heels
once more in the soft underbelly of his childhood,
airlift him from danger, from disease, from all his fears,
whi... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
da99b7ac5c271019 | Faith | Frances Anne Kemble | Better trust all, and be deceived, And weep that trust, and that deceiving; Than doubt one heart, that, if believed, Had blessed one’s life with true believing. Oh, in this mocking world, too fast The doubting fiend o’ertakes our youth! Better be cheated to the last, Than lose the blessèd hope of truth. | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
42ff3dc1888f2b33 | wax job | Charles Bukowski | man, he said, sitting on the steps
your car sure needs a wash and wax job
I can do it for you for 5 bucks,
I got the wax, I got the rags, I got everything
I need.
I gave him the 5 and went upstairs.
when I came down 4 hours later
he was sitting on the steps drunk
and offered me a can of beer.
he said he’d get ... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
5d61d754a246483d | Barber | Larry Bradley | Learn from the man who spends much of his life speaking To the back of your head knowing what it means to followThe razor’s edge along a worn strop or random thoughts As they spring so invisibly from the mind to a mouthWho shouldered soldiers in two wars and fled fire fields Undecora... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
b2925362d1cc787e | Wind in a Box | Terrance Hayes | —after Lorca
I want to always sleep beneath a bright red blanket
of leaves. I want to never wear a coat of ice.
I want to learn to walk without blinking.
I want to outlive the turtle and the turtle’s father,
the stone. I want a mouth full of permissions
and a pink glistening bud. If the wildflower and ant hill
c... | [
"S1",
"S5"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
98437e7ca603db89 | Eagle Poem | Joy Harjo | To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Sa... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
ed751eff03d0c8d2 | Railroad Face | Ray Gonzalez | I sit with my railroad face and ask God to forgive me
for being a straight line toward the dead
who were buried with their poor clothes
in the Arizona desert of iron borders.
This way of waving to the embers of the past,
not apologzing for carrying torn rosaries inside
my pockets where beads of worry became fossi... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
1bc9959dd2f3f94f | Exposure | Wilfred Owen | Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us . . . Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . . Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . . Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous, But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wir... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-11",
"S5-3",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
b61a489a8cc6ba2f | The Idea | Mark Strand | for Nolan Miller
For us, too, there was a wish to possess
Something beyond the world we knew, beyond ourselves,
Beyond our power to imagine, something nevertheless
In which we might see ourselves; and this desire
Came always in passing, in waning light, and in such cold
That ice on the valley’s lakes cracked and ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
32510e33f3b67245 | 4:13 am | Jill Alexander Essbaum | The shift of sleepwalks and suicides. The occasion of owls and a demi-lune fog. Even God has nodded off And won't be taking prayers til ten. Ad interim, you put them on. As if your wants could keep you warm. As if. You say your shibboleths. You thumb your beads. You scry the glass. Night creeps to its precipice And th... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
5eba67a24e7deb80 | from The Countesse of Montgomery’s Urania: “Love peruse me, seeke, and finde” | Lady Mary Wroth | Love peruse me, seeke, and findeHow each corner of my minde Is a twine Woven to shine.Not a Webb ill made, foule fram’d,Bastard not by Father nam’d, Such in me Cannot bee.Deare behold me, you shall seeFaith the Hive, and love the Bee, Which doe bring. Ga... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
60d606fb0f60caa3 | Scarcely There | Jorie Graham | [For J.A.]
After the wind just stops you still hear
the wind’s wild almost, its approach and retreat, and how it kept
circling as-if-trying, as if about-to-be, an almost-speech,
loud and full of syntax casting about for
life, form, limit, fate. To be bodied. To strut. To have
meaning. How easily we wear ourselves... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S6-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Weather",
"Living/Aging"
] |
443537acf5531735 | How Things Work | Gary Soto | Today it’s going to cost us twenty dollars
To live. Five for a softball. Four for a book,
A handful of ones for coffee and two sweet rolls,
Bus fare, rosin for your mother’s violin.
We’re completing our task. The tip I left
For the waitress filters down
Like rain, wetting the new roots of a child
Perhaps, a bell... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
96153fa8684d9cb5 | from The Unfollowing: 20 | Lyn Hejinian | Wake up, get married, be born
First A and B pick up the trunk, then C relieves A and A wanders off, then D
takes B’s end and B goes in search of A, but A is nowhere to be found,
and C and D make off with the trunk
Long are the lazy man’s laws, the kittens are in the kitchen, the child’s chin aids
... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
67953d807d286eec | O Me! O Life! | Walt Whitman | Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the ... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
2ba1e102b0521e03 | Troop Train | Karl Shapiro | It stops the town we come through. Workers raise
Their oily arms in good salute and grin.
Kids scream as at a circus. Business men
Glance hopefully and go their measured way.
And women standing at their dumbstruck door
More slowly wave and seem to warn us back,
As if a tear blinding the course of war
Might once ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ad8792cb74ab7e05 | The French Revolution as It Appeared to Enthusiasts at Its Commencement | William Wordsworth | Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood Upon our side, we who were strong in love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times, In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a co... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e7cf3dfbaa579257 | Not Over It | Heather McHugh | In sympathy with Gaspara Stampa
By woman so touched, so pressed,
detachment being thought
achievable at all
is boggling in itself. Its being
thought achievable by love—but love
for only all (not someone’s single) sentience—
appears the precept of too cold
a form of flame. How much
of a hand in things
relinqui... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
49a3f8b75499b5a6 | Wife | Ada Limón | I’m not yet comfortable with the word,
its short clean woosh that sounds like
life. At dinner last night my single girls
said in admonition, “It’s not wife-approved”
about a friend’s upcoming trip. Their
eyes rolled up and over and out their
pretty young heads. Wife, why does it
sound like a job? “I need a wife”... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
ecedb83d62d2f7b1 | Remember | Christina Rossetti | Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to c... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
538f4d02769c0cb5 | Goosestep | Tomás Q. Morín | A collector of walks, I was practicing my llamastep when one of those white geese with the knob of cheddar on its bill honked at the goslings ignoring the art of the rank and file so adored by Mussolini and other assorted lunatics who I have trouble believing could ever raise one leg parallel to the earth they scor... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
91490b2b92408578 | The English in Virginia, April 1607 | Charles Reznikoff | They landed and could
see nothing but
meadows and tall
trees—
cypress, nearly three
fathoms about at the
roots,
rising straight for
sixty or eighty feet
without a branch.
In the woods were
cedars, oaks, and
walnut trees;
some beech, some elm,
black walnut, ash,
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
630b9af5d2fe4a55 | Burn Lake | Carrie Fountain | For Burn Construction Company
When you were building the i-10 bypass, one of your dozers, moving earth at the center of a great pit, slipped its thick blade beneath the water table, slicing into the earth’s wet palm, and the silt moistened beneath the huge thing’s tires, and the crew was sent home for the day. Next ... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
e32251184199d209 | My Life as a Subject | Meghan O'Rourke | I Because I was born in a kingdom, there was a king. At times the king was a despot; at other times, not. Axes flashed in the road at night, but if you closed your eyes and sang the old ballads sitting on the well edge amongst your kinspeople then the silver did not appear to be broken. Such were the circumstances. ... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
97ebb10c469fb3a6 | Figures in the Carpets | David Schloss | [SAROUK]
We buy what we cannot control, the rugs,
rhythm-makers, containing refrains of
the oldest story: a man takes a journey.
I have no stories inside me, he says,
so travels on, to rest beneath a carpet
of blue constellations, star patterns
at the edges of disordered border walls.
At the center, a meditativ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S4-1",
"S9-7",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f7b24f0251acbc8d | Going Back to Bed | J. D. McClatchy | Up early, trying to muffle
the sounds of small tasks,
grinding, pouring, riffling
through yesterday’s attacks
or market slump, then changing
my mind—what matter the rush
to the waiting room or the ring
of some later dubious excuse?—
having decided to return to bed
and finding you curled in the sheet,
a dream ... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S5-3",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
baaf4a7e81264b9a | Recycler | Christopher Spaide | In memory of Dorothy Burns
i. troppo allegro
Remember seasons? Seem to recall those once were easier.
Reasonably sequenced, regal of tempo and temper,
Reliable change flipped heads-over-tails each quarter,
Recovering the hemisphere with four fine suits, knock-off designer.
Recently, someone shuffled, cut the deck... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-4",
"S2-10",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Winter",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
78cd473c87c30b9a | Ground Truth | Claudia Emerson | My brother's funeral over, the dark-clothed
congregation clots the church doors, a lingering
aftermath moving into flat light—the sky
low and swollen, a storm siren's long
expansive notes, evenly measured,
so loud the pauses between ring
with aftersound. Used to it, no one
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2247ab62aa0cda37 | Ode to Black Skin | Ashanti Anderson | You are dark as religion. Remember God
could not have named a modicum of light without you.
You are plum, black currant, passion
fruit in another woman’s garden. You are Black
as and as if by magic. Black not as sin, but a cave’s jaw
clamped shut by forgiveness. Color of closed wombs and bellies
of ships, you, da... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
9c7458b4f055969b | Back Then | Trish Crapo | Out in the yard, my sister and I tore thread from century plants to braid into bracelets, ate chalky green bananas, threw coconuts onto the sidewalk to crack their hard, hairy skulls. The world had begun to happen, but not time. We would live forever, sunburnt and pricker-stuck, our promises written in blood. Not yet ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
975b36702570ee59 | The Pasture | Robert Frost | I'm going out to clean the pasture spring;
I'll only stop to rake the leaves away
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):
I sha'n't be gone long.—You come too.
I'm going out to fetch the little calf
That's standing by the mother. It's so young,
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.
I sha'n't be gone long.—Y... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
408cf43fd59c9d1d | Oh Great Spirit | Deena Metzger | In the name of Raven. In the name of Wolf. In the name of Whale. In
the name of Elephant. In the name of Snake.
Who have taught us. Who have guided us. Who have sustained us. Who
have healed us.
Please heal the animals.
In the name of Raven. In the name of Wolf. In the name of Whale. In
the name of Elephant. In t... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
cfa147f28f53fe4d | The Crane Dance | Yannis Ritsos | The clew paying out through his fingers, a deftness
that would bring him back to her, its softness the softness
of skin, as if drawn from herself directly, the faint
labial smell, guiding him up and out, as some dampness
on the air might lead a stone-blind man to the light.
Asterios dead for sure, his crumpled hor... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
74e8e55a0e9261c4 | The Bells of San Blas | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | What say the Bells of San Blas To the ships that southward pass From the harbor of Mazatlan? To them it is nothing more Than the sound of surf on the shore,— Nothing more to master or man. But to me, a dreamer of dreams, To whom what is and what seems Are often one and the same,— The Bells of San B... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-11",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f3fb1647f41661a8 | Self-Portrait | Robert Creeley | He wants to be
a brutal old man,
an aggressive old man,
as dull, as brutal
as the emptiness around him,
He doesn’t want compromise,
nor to be ever nice
to anyone. Just mean,
and final in his brutal,
his total, rejection of it all.
He tried the sweet,
the gentle, the “oh,
let’s hold hands together”
and it w... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
9613ef66a2bdd3ba | Fact | Rae Armantrout | Operation Phantom Fury. * * * The full force of the will to live is fixed on the next occasion: someone coming with a tray, someone calling a number. * * * Each material fact is a pose, an answer waiting to be chosen. "Just so," it says. "Ask again!" | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
ba59e87800f475fe | Dialog Outside the Lakeside Grocery | Ishmael Reed | The grocery had provided him with
boxes of rotten lettuce
He was loading them onto a
yellow pick-up truck
He was a frail white man and
wore a plaid woolen shirt and
frayed dungarees
I was sitting in a gray chevrolet
rent-a-dent
“I have eight adult geese and
twenty-six ducks,” he said
and i said
“I’ll bet yo... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
ac34d9681d2354f2 | Injun Joe as an Avatar | W. S. Di Piero | The poetry’s arrested in his scene,which can’t be trusted, because I saw it through painkillers that softened my head,after I’d asked him what Keats really meant:“Was it a vision or a waking dream?”—You think that really mattered much to him?In my waking vision dream, there’s no glory,no prize committee or dew-drip Par... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
0e4d2290d876a4b5 | View from a Dodo Chair | Mónica de la Torre | A mutable shape stating that downtime hasn’t gone the way of the dodo.
Yet the days of sitting around seem extinct.
Now it’s all go-go. No need to go into it; who doesn’t know the feeling?
The dodo, maybe? Its temporality is other.
Its inability to adapt rendered it obsolete.
And so this prop here is adaptable as ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
bc0456312bd130d3 | Spring and All: III [The farmer in deep thought] | William Carlos Williams | The farmer in deep thought
is pacing through the rain
among his blank fields, with
hands in pockets,
in his head
the harvest already planted.
A cold wind ruffles the water
among the browned weeds.
On all sides
the world rolls coldly away :
black orchards
darkened by the March clouds —
leaving room for thoug... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
5e7226e22a587f85 | Going to Connecticut | Sandra M. Gilbert | —for J.R.
More than a third of a century later,
meeting for the first time in almost all those years,
we face each other’s still somewhat familiar faces
across a table in a California restaurant,
and wonder why we did it, why we suddenly said
that night in July in Greenwich Village
“Let’s go to Connecticut,” and... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
32bef566f7644fe6 | At Last the New Arriving | Gabrielle Calvocoressi | Like the horn you played in Catholic school
the city will open its mouth and cry
out. Don't worry 'bout nothing. Don't meanno thing. It will leave you stunned
as a fighter with his eyes swelled shut
who's told he won the whole damn purse.
It will feel better than any floor
that's risen up to meet you. It will ris... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-5",
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S9-6",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/New Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
613fde276d8e1500 | Tiare Tahiti | Rupert Brooke | Mamua, when our laughter ends, And hearts and bodies, brown as white, Are dust about the doors of friends, Or scent ablowing down the night, Then, oh! then, the wise agree, Comes our immortality. Mamua, there waits a land Hard for us to understand. Out of time, beyond the sun, All are one in Paradise, You and Pupure ar... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
bb76318ee9b8b6bc | It is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free | William Wordsworth | It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquility; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! de... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2769d456209bb7d5 | Goblin Market | Christina Rossetti | Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
“Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpeck’d cherries,
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheek’d peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S9-1",
"S10-5",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
c7d247daf9aaf8b4 | from The Song of Solomon, Chapter 2 | Solomon | I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
He brought me to the banqueting house, a... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
ab4011bdedc2e5c4 | If You Go to Bed Hungry | Angela Narciso Torres | If you go to bed hungry, your soul will get up and steal cold rice from the pot.
Stop playing with fire before the moon rises or you’ll pee in your sleep.
Sweeping the floor after dark sweeps wealth and good fortune out the door.
Fork dropped: a gentleman will visit. Spoon: a bashful lady.
Bathing after you’ve cook... | [
"S5",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S9-1",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
3dfd6658a61b04d2 | The Virgin | William Wordsworth | Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrostWith the least shade of thought to sin allied.Woman! above all women glorified,Our tainted nature's solitary boast;Purer than foam on central ocean tost;Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewnWith fancied roses, than the unblemished moonBefore her wane begins on heaven's blu... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
0be92720ec8ea2ab | The Waste Land | T. S. Eliot | FOR EZRA POUND
IL MIGLIOR FABBRO
I. The Burial of the Dead
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
94cda31b432d9b47 | Dream-Land | Edgar Allan Poe | By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have reached these lands but newly From an ultimate dim Thule— From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime, Out of SPACE—Out of TIME. Bottomless vales and boundless floods, And ch... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-9",
"S11-1",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
aaf09209e30f26c4 | Lethargy | Donald Justice | It smiles to see me
Still in my bathrobe.
It sits in my lap
And will not let me rise.
Now it is kissing my eyes.
Arms enfold me, arms
Pale with a thick down.
It seems I am falling asleep
To the sound of a story
Being read me.
This is the story.
Weeks have passed
Since first I lifted my hand
To set it down. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
90bddb581dff6bcf | Soul | Cleopatra Mathis | It is not the angel riding a goat,
trying to make him go. It does no work
with refusal or guilt, which loves
only its contorted self. But fancies instead
my terrier’s long pink tongue,
how it teases out the bone’s marrow,
tasting with all its muscle.
The angel is silver, but so is the goat
and the box on which ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
c5ec910105c9fbbb | Reflection | Elizabeth Arnold | I said
no to you
so often, couldn't see.
Do you know how that
changed you
—divided
what you saw in me
or anything
(if you did)
from what you
said
or mostly
didn't?
And another bottle
drained,
your head
lolling off the chair's back,
the mirror's
face blacked. | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
7a8979ae9b1579ec | The Empty Glass | Louise Glück | I asked for much; I received much.
I asked for much; I received little, I received
next to nothing.
And between? A few umbrellas opened indoors.
A pair of shoes by mistake on the kitchen table.
O wrong, wrong—it was my nature. I was
hard-hearted, remote. I was
selfish, rigid to the point of tyranny.
But I was a... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-4",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
62621a4746c08a8d | The Moor | Nathalie Handal | This is what I see:
a grain of wheat in the hand of a small boy
barefoot on the unnamed roads,
sleeping in the dream another is having.
An oud, a violin, a guitar,
a mirror of dew,
a man about to undress,
a woman staring.
A traveler
returning
everywhere
and forgetfulness
stealing from itself.Maktoub, the Mo... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-5"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Islam"
] |
762e0a1499705996 | Scary Movies | Kim Addonizio | Today the cloud shapes are terrifying,
and I keep expecting some enormous
black-and-white B-movie Cyclops
to appear at the edge of the horizon,
to come striding over the ocean
and drag me from my kitchen
to the deep cave that flickered
into my young brain one Saturday
at the Baronet Theater where I sat helpless... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
045e6ea59b95cf73 | Love Recidivus | Lisa Barnett | Whatever it may be, we may suppose
it is not love, for love must leave its trace
like contraband seized and displayed in rows;
is not sufficient reason to erase
the careful lives we have so far lived through—
there is no call for us to undermine
the walls we've built; no need to think anew
of all the chains and choices... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
1e5e90b7bb75ac7d | Vesper Sparrows | Deborah Digges | I love to watch them sheathe themselves mid-air,
shut wings and ride the light’s poor spine
to earth, to touch down in gutters, in the rainbowed
urine of suicides, just outside Bellevue’s walls.
From in there the ransacked cadavers are carried
up the East River to Potter’s Field
as if they were an inheritance,
g... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
8a1b21597d6cba76 | The Song of the Bow | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | What of the bow? The bow was made in England: Of true wood, of yew-wood, The wood of English bows; So men who are free Love the old yew-tree And the land where the yew-tree grows. What of the cord? The cord was made in England: A rough cord, a tough cord, A cord that bowmen love; ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
b788cab0adbb765c | O. | Robin Blaser | the poets have always preceded,
as Mallarmé preceded Cézanne,
neck and neck that was no
privilege, sweet and forgotten
seated in chairs, the afternoon
marches along with the shadows
which are not bougainvillaea but
northern I have always loved
shadows as long as they were northern
and moved gently west ... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
aaffa018cf98cc50 | In Beauty Bright | Gerald Stern | In beauty-bright and such it was like Blake’s lily and though an angel he looked absurddragging a lily out of a beauty-bright storewrapped in tissue with a petal drooping,nor was it useless—you who know it knowhow useful it is—and how he would be deadin a minute if he were to lose it thoughhow do you lose a lily? His l... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4078f67352b209f7 | The Percherons | Chard DeNiord | My sister and I went out to them with sugar
cubes and bridled their heads when they bent down
to eat from our palms. We led them over
to the long white fence on which we climbed
to the topmost rail, then threw our legs
across their backs, clutching the reins to steady
ourselves against their girth, steering them ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-9",
"S8-3",
"S8-8",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
0da6f8973793078f | On PrEP or on Prayer [“when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis”] | sam sax | when i say pre-exposure prophylaxis
you thinkeasy fix. greek in origin. an act of guarding.east of here a small temple.inside parishioners strip nudeas armless statues, their stonegenitals hardening under a chemist’s glare.the garden out front fecund & tended.the garden inside bare.
when i say tenofovir disoproxil
y... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
73c44f6415dda07c | Firefly Under the Tongue | Coral Bracho | I love you from the sharp tang of the fermentation;
in the blissful pulp. Newborn insects, blue.
In the unsullied juice, glazed and ductile.
Cry that distills the light:
through the fissures in fruit trees;
under mossy water clinging to the shadows. The
papillae, the grottos.
In herbaceous dyes, inst... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
e38cdc4305ec7bbb | [4,2] | Roberto Harrison | i fail in the retry of possible gaps
for the middle of canyons
in crumbling lights
for the scarification of vinyl.
it rides through the forest
and throbs a small packet
where parallel seams
scratch a readable... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
da8b7191143ad484 | Modest Proposals | Stephen Sandy | A longish poem about wallpaper.A short lyric about discouragement in white.A medium-length thesis of uncertain importance.Another sonnet, about scholarship.A couplet of olives.A long narrative about the exaggeration of your absence.Several quatrains about candle stubs.That old sestina on Isaiah.Palindromes about Scots ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
66798296724f54ed | Fragments 1953 | Gottfried Benn | A day without tears is a rare occurrence
culpable absent-mindedness
practically an episode
•
when men still wore starched collars,
and stuffed cotton wool between their toes
hobbled about in pain, pedicure hadn’t been invented,
but you would see ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
8d6a2dc046bb1280 | We Are Alive. We Are for Everything | Daniela Danz | After Otto Piene
How does beginning go how does
remembering without forgetting go
in front of me in the snow a man
his back lonesome somber
how does beginning go not remembering
flashes of light that showed him images when he
was a boy quick and blinding see the shadows
in the light how does not-remembering go
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-8",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Youth"
] |
02be58b804399eff | On the Metro | C. K. Williams | On the metro, I have to ask a young woman to move the packages beside her to make room for me;
she’s reading, her foot propped on the seat in front of her, and barely looks up as she pulls them to her.
I sit, take out my own book—Cioran, The Temptation to Exist—and notice her glancing up from hers
to take in the tit... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S1-9",
"S3-4",
"S6-1",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging"
] |
7de49e6f15bdf72e | Wrestling | Louisa S. Bevington | Our oneness is the wrestlers’, fierce and close,
Thrusting and thrust;
One life in dual effort for one prize,—
We fight, and must;
For soul with soul does battle evermore
Till love be trust.
Our distance is love’s severance; sense divides,
Each is but each;
Never the very hidden spirit of thee
My life do... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
c247159abc58ba9d | Sonnet | Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson | I had not thought of violets late,The wild, shy kind that spring beneath your feetIn wistful April days, when lovers mateAnd wander through the fields in raptures sweet.The thought of violets meant florists' shops,And bows and pins, and perfumed papers fine;And garish lights, and mincing little fopsAnd cabarets and soa... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
012f4712c17ce7dd | Toth Farry | Sharon Olds | In the back of the charm-box, in a sack, the baby canines and incisors are mostly chaff, by now, split kernels and acicular down, no whole utensils left: half an adz; half a shovel, in its broken handle a marrow well of the will to dig and bite. And the enamel hems are sharp as shell-tools, and the colors go f... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
3826e1386ad12d74 | from Citizen: “Some years there exists a wanting to escape...” | Claudia Rankine | Some years there exists a wanting to escape—
you, floating above your certain ache—
still the ache coexists.
Call that the immanent you—
You are you even before you
grow into understanding you
are not anyone, worthless,
not worth you.
Even as your own weight insists
you are here, fighting off
the weight of no... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
adb0ebb619713a2e | I | Michael Ryan | When did I learn the word “I”?What a mistake. For some, it may be a placeholder, for me it’s a contagion.For some, it’s a thin line, a bare wisp, just enough to be somewhere among the gorgeous troublesome you’s.For me, it’s a thorn, a spike, its slimness a deceit, camouflaged like a stick insect: ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
c5655e63259eda5d | Lines | Dan Beachy-Quick | The lightning struck him and left a scar. The wind stopped blowing and the wheat stood up. Self-tensed self, who is this I that says I ? I had a scar in the shape of lightning That split in half when I opened my mouth. The sun just a circle of heat in the sky Throwing absence in the shape of clouds Down on the field... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-8",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
d7b062591515a4ad | The Young | Roddy Lumsden | You bastards! It’s all sherbet, and folly makes you laugh like mules. Chances dance off your wrists, each day ready, sprites in your bones and spite not yet swollen, not yet set. You gather handful after miracle handful, seeing straight, reaching the lighthouse in record time, pockets brim with scimitar t... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S9-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4929767aa6693ba7 | The Spoilsport | Robert Graves | My familiar ghost again Comes to see what he can see, Critic, son of Conscious Brain, Spying on our privacy. Slam the window, bolt the door, Yet he’ll enter in and stay; In to-morrow’s book he’ll score Indiscretions of to-day. Whispered love and muttered fears, How their echoes fly about! None e... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
2f83a50a66b3f29e | Dawn on the Somme | Robert Nichols | Last night rain fell over the scarred plateau And now from the dark horizon, dazzling, flies Arrow on fire-plumed arrow to the skies Shot from the bright arc of Apollo's bow; And from the wild and writhen waste below, From flashing pools and mounds lit one by one, O is it mist or are these companies Of morning heroes w... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-11",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
30d9573918659086 | Bankruptcy Hearing | Dana Bisignani | They have us corralled in the basement of the courthouse. One desk and a row of folding chairs— just like first grade, our desks facing Teacher in neat little rows. Upstairs, wooden benches like pews and red carpet reserved for those who’ve held out the longest. No creditors have come to claim us today. We’r... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
3311ddb58a37f953 | The Gulf, 1987 | Deborah Paredez | The day upturned, flooded with sunlight, nota single cloud. I squint into the glare,cautious even then of bright emptiness.We sit under shade, Tía Luciashowing me how white folks dine, the high life.I am about to try my first oyster,Tía spending her winnings from the slotson a whole dozen, the glistening valveswet and ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
15c0e7d4e46a9c70 | Dawn at Saint Anna’s Skete | Scott Cairns | Agion Oros, 2006
The air is cool and is right thick with birdsongas our bleary crew files out, of a sudden disinterred from three sepulchral hours of prayerinto an amber brilliance riotingoutside the cemetery chapel. With bitsof Greek and English intermixed, the monksinvite us to the portico for coffee, παξιμάδια, a... | [
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
cd4a1be70bd91bb4 | Her Scar | Peter Spagnuolo | Remember me: the murmuring lips half saidin half-light, buried in the hollowa boy’s neck made, as now inside his headthey stir again, though twenty years swallow the purest parts of her, all but her plea,this taunt—what act from him could it command?The boy who’d know is gone—Re-member me—but what man can assemble limb... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
5e8e5167009fcbed | pronoun circle-jerk and the dog charlie | Julian Talamantez Brolaski | i had scarcely got acquainted
when they took me by the paw & made me even-minded
nor did i mind
i had exactly enough window
i had exactly enough to get started
wine makes a person weak
that is not to say that wine is not delightful, only
that it makes a person weak
a person can be made weak with whiskey
and th... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-8",
"S9-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
64540d3dface151c | Cold Open | Danniel Schoonebeek | It was the thought that — if you could watch, if I could leak to the public the film of when I needed to reach you — that would be one way. • From a little-known bluff overgrown last summer with wildflowers,if you could watch a family of turkeys,a mother and 162 poults,if you could watch them abandon their roost on the... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
90b7c5619cc5a1e8 | Kamakura | Mari L'Esperance | I don’t recall when I first understood
why you stiffen at the roar of low flying jets—
Did you tell me, Mother, or did I just know?
When you refused to show me the caves like eyes
in the hills behind Bah-chan’s house—
Did I only dream it, how when the sirens began the trains stopped
dead in their tracks, unleashi... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
24d613ebe2a305c4 | Valentine | Paul Carroll | Our matchbox bedroom in the loft above your
sculpture factory
Turns magical at times
Behind its dark blue Druid door. Last night,
Inside you, sweetheart,
It felt as if I were coming from the soul itself.
And that Indian Summer Sunday afternoon a year
ago
When the bed became a meadow
Of purple thist... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
065340fad068d601 | The History of Red | Linda Hogan | First
there was some other order of things
never spoken
but in dreams of darkest creation.
Then there was black earth,
lake, the face of light on water.
Then the thick forest all around
that light,
and then the human clay
whose blood we still carry
rose up in us
who remember caves with red bison
painted in ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
08eabee8f891a363 | Haymaking | Edward Thomas | Aftear night’s thunder far away had rolledThe fiery day had a kernel sweet of cold,And in the perfect blue the clouds uncurled,Like the first gods before they made the worldAnd misery, swimming the stormless seaIn beauty and in divine gaiety.The smooth white empty road was lightly strewnWith leaves—the holly’s Autumn f... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
21ba5836b8f42cd5 | In Praise of My Bed | Meredith Holmes | At last I can be with you!
The grinding hours
since I left your side!
The labor of being fully human,
working my opposable thumb,
talking, and walking upright.
Now I have unclasped
unzipped, stepped out of.
Husked, soft, a be-er only,
I do nothing, but point
my bare feet into your
clean smoothness
feel your... | [
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
0146da802f546dae | August Diary | Peter Balakian | 8/1
From here groomed fields and clumps of trees,
a silo of corrugated tin and a white barn blur.
Unseasonable cool days,
high, blue, a few clouds like ripped pillows
as if this were a lip of the North Sea
and I could look out and imagine Denmark.
But I’m in my office three floors up.
8/3
In Armenian there’s a... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
3ddcf96ae808dbb5 | South Country | Kenneth Slessor | After the whey-faced anonymity
Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush,
After the rubbing and the hit of brush,
You come to the South Country
As if the argument of trees were done,
The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains,
All ended by these clear and gliding planes
Like an abrupt solution.
And over the... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
4890a593abce55c5 | “Knocks on the door” | Maram Al-Massri | Knocks on the door.Who?I sweep the dust of my lonelinessunder the rug.I arrange a smileand open. | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
d4837b16d1843a09 | To Juan Doe #234 | Eduardo C. Corral | I only recognized your hair: short,neatly combed. Our motherwould’ve been proud. In the Sonoran desertyour body became a slaughter-house where faith and want were stunned,hung upside down, gutted. We were taughtto bring roses, to aim for the bush. Rem... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f5429131a595211c | The Green Car | Landis Everson | Defend me. I am not capable. The river sweeps by three minutes at once cleansing me of guilt. But the bear crashes through it and breaches my innocence. He rages and frightens my innocence. The psychologist says, "You are the bear. You are the river. You are the green car crossing the bridge. Defend yourself." But the ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
8c5ed577bc2dbbc6 | Still Life in Landscape | Sharon Olds | It was night, it had rained, there were pieces of cars and
half-cars strewn, it was still, and bright,
a woman was lying on the highway, on her back,
with her head curled back and tucked under her shoulders
so the back of her head touched her spine
between her shoulder-blades, her clothes
mostly accidented off, a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
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