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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
d606f855808e932e | sea | Tom Pickard | walking up John Street
thinking of you
I saw a slash of sea
between houses
and felt — as always,
no matter mood,
its or mine —
as though
it was the source
of language
and language
the source of itself | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
ebb5d071a2154724 | Red Stains | Allen Tate | In a pyloned desert where the scorpion reigns My love and I plucked poppies breathing tales Of crimes now long asleep, whose once–red stains Dyed stabbing men, at sea with bloody sails. The golden sand drowsed. There a dog yelped loud; And in his cry rattled a hollow note Of deep uncanny knowledge of that crowd That lo... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
c142134e1682855d | To a Mountain Daisy | Robert Burns | On Turning One Down with the Plow, in April, 1786
Wee, modest, crimson-tippèd flow'r, Thou's met me in an evil hour; For I maun crush amang the stoure Thy slender stem: To spare thee now is past my pow'r, Thou bonie gem. Alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, The bonie lark, companion meet, Bending th... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e600215ed848ca80 | Introductory to Second Edition | Alfred Islay Walden | My book is largely growing; Its leaves are multiplied;Its pages are much longer, And nearly twice as wide.At first I thought the reader Had not the time to spare,To hail my little volume As it floated in the air.I thought perhaps while floating Away through empty space,Perchance would there discover Some lo... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
f547fd17e8a94655 | Devotion (“I Am on the Battlefield for My Lord”) | Cortney Lamar Charleston | By way of my mother, the deacon with the slick gray hair and money
clip in his pocket can claim a percentage of my body like tithe rights.
And on this Sunday, as with every other Sunday, he is a slender
ebony panel in the fence of faith, one man in the company of men
standing shoulder to shoulder in suits, tapping ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S5-2",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
ce853cb457db2edf | Then | Aaron Shurin | Once we were in the loop . . . slick with information and the luster of good timing. We folded our clothes. Once we stood up before the standing vigils, before the popping vats, before the annotated lists of marshaled forces with their Venn diagrams like anxious zygotes, their paratactic chasms . . . before the set of ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b15dce51ff032801 | Wood. Salt. Tin. | Jane Hirshfield | Little soul,
do you remember?
You once walked
over wooden boards
to a house
that sat on stilts in the sea.
It was early.
The sun painted
brightness onto the water,
and wherever you sat
that path
led directly to you.
Some mornings
the sea-road was muted
scratched tin,
some mornings blinding.
Then it woul... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
03c4b83fb5bb7ecc | You Have Harnessed Yourself Ridiculously to This World | Lucie Brock-Broido | Tell the truth I told me When I couldn’t speak.Sorrow’s a barbaric art, crude as a Viking ship Or a childWho rode a spotted pony to the lake away from summer In the 1930s Toward the iron lung of polio.According to the census I am unmarr... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
2ad7513117e8d660 | Mowing | Robert Frost | There was never a sound beside the wood but one,And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—And that was why it whispered and did not speak.It was no dream of the gift... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
fd538b26e50d4fa1 | Photo of Melville; Back Room, Old Bookstore | Stephen Sandy | I passed him by at first. From the photograph
Peered sepia eyes, blindered, unappeased
From a lair of brows and beard: one not amazed
At anything, as if to have looked enough
Then turned aside worked best for him—as if
Night vision was the discipline that eased
The weight of what he saw. A man’s gaze posed
Too l... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
4abae18757fe6dc2 | All | Barbara Ras | The prisoner can’t go any longer, but he does.
The beggar can’t go on begging, but watch—
Tomorrow he’ll be in the alley, holding out a bowl
To everyone, to even a young, possibly poorer, child.
The mother can’t go on believing,
But she will kneel for hours in the cathedral,
Holding silence in her arms.
The rain... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
89d530f4c0b9d497 | Cantico del Sole | Ezra Pound | The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America,
The thought of what America would be like
If the Classics had a wide circulation
Troubles my sleep.
Nunc dimit... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
cb96309cd20a304e | Seaman’s Ditty | Gary Snyder | I’m wondering where you are now
Married, or mad, or free:
Wherever you are you’re likely glad,
But memory troubles me.
We could’ve had us children,
We could’ve had a home—
But you thought not, and I thought not,
And these nine years we roam.
Today I worked in the deep dark tanks,
And climbed out to watch the s... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
cc5f5a34a04724c2 | Accountability | William E. Stafford | Cold nights outside the taverns in Wyoming
pickups and big semis lounge idling, letting their
haunches twitch now and then in gusts of powder snow,
their owners inside for hours, forgetting as well
as they can the miles, the circling plains, the still town
that connects to nothing but cold and space and a few
str... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-6"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
a8cd655ffc3da1f0 | Old Woman With Protea Flowers, Kahalui Airport | Kathleen Flenniken | She wears the run-down slippers of a local and in her arms, five rare protea wrapped in newsprint, big as digger pine cones. Our hands can’t help it and she lets us touch. Her brother grows them for her, upcountry. She’s spending the day on Oahu with her flowers and her dogs. Protea for four dogs’ graves, two ... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bd3ce0a711a46eb9 | On Old Ideas | Dorothea Lasky | Kissing the bankteller outside his stairs
In Brighton, MA I cannot lie. I felt the hope
That we once felt, if only for an instant
O the lovely bankteller, like a moose he
Rode my spirit quite outside my clothes
And chrysanthemums sprouted I assure you
Out my nipples when he kissed them.
And the pureness of not k... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
11d4517e82776a0c | Chinese Dream 14 | Timothy Yu | Race, friends, is boring. Everyone says so.
Hashtag all lives matter, the channel turns,
we ourselves live and turn,
and moreover the TV told me yesterday
(unendingly) ‘Ever to talk about race
means you have no
Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
Inner Resources, because all I see is race.
People have r... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
8692d47cb10fdf77 | Wild Poppies | Marion McCready | And how do you survive? Your long throat, your red-rag-to-a-bull head?You rise heavy in the night, stars drinkingfrom your poppy neck.Your henna silks serenade me under the breadth of the Pyrenees.You move like an opera,open like sea anemones.You are earth’s first blood. How the birds love you,I envy your lipstick dres... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c27949496279ee57 | Lines Written on a Splinter from Apollinaire’s Coffin | Paul Violi | Look at me now, I stand before you, a man
whom life has made a gullible skeptic.
Life so obvious and strange,
so full of marvels and dross
even in our sleep we create monuments
even in our graveWhat more can we askthan to never know what to expect Each day has a different ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
c4f71f3c23672a4a | Adult | Ray Gonzalez | Everything was the apple and the glass of tea.
The mountain, the mold, the apron on the grandmother—
the neck of a brown baby holding its tiny head
to get rid of the black bees.
This is the end of a bad century,
the opening of a door that was never built into the chest.
A volume of loud wires coming out of the gr... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
44afdbf3b0ee80dc | [Old Mother turns blue and from us] | Lorine Niedecker | Old Mother turns blue and from us,
“Don’t let my head drop to the earth.
I’m blind and deaf.” Death from the heart,
a thimble in her purse.
“It’s a long day since last night.
Give me space. I need
floors. Wash the floors, Lorine!—
wash clothes! Weed!” | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
5ffef9512ff66609 | Self Portrait as a Meadow | Linda Norton | There is a chair
the heart of which
is wooden
split five ways
and grass pressed flat
where we kissed
where others later kissed
on the same mattress
and solemn nothing
happening under a canopy—
Have you forgotten me?
I will go down wonderfully
as was told in proverbs
though for a long time I thought
I shou... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-7",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
2415cd43d44f1dbe | Tablets IV | Dunya Mikhail | 1
I wanted to write an epic about suffering,
but when I found a tendril
of her hair among the ruins
of her mud house,
I found my epic there.2
I didn’t sleep last night.
As if the night
were hiding in the morning coffee.3
Her life is a game of snakes and ladders
sent relentlessly back to square one,
but whose... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
34cf8f1d2f0d7610 | The Llano Estacado | John Poch | How much soil do you plow to soothe a conscience?If you’re a staked plains, dry-land, long view man:a sky’s worth. Some even sow the dry playamid-summer with sorghum, the cotton plowed underafter early hail. Thus, not every farmer keepsan old broken homestead sacred as a graveyard. Today, no Sharpshin on a pivot for an... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
474fae72580e1873 | My Therapist Wants to Know about My Relationship to Work | Tiana Clark | I hustleupstream.
I grasp.I grind.
I control & panic. Poke
balloons in my chest,
always popping there,
always my thoughts thump,
thump. I snooze — wake & go
boom. All day, like this I short
my breath. I scroll & scroll.
I see what you wrote — I like.
I heart. My thumb, so tired.
My head bent down, but not
i... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
b3f8a97c66af50d2 | The Significance of Location | Pattiann Rogers | The cat has the chance to make the sunlight
Beautiful, to stop it and turn it immediately
Into black fur and motion, to take it
As shifting branch and brown feather
Into the back of the brain forever.
The cardinal has flown the sun in red
Through the oak forest to the lawn.
The finch has caught it in yellow
And... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-9",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
834f6a8a9b9c5790 | Thanksgiving Magic | Rowena Bastin Bennett | Thanksgiving Day I like to see
Our cook perform her witchery.
She turns a pumpkin into pie
As easily as you or I
Can wave a hand or wink an eye.
She takes leftover bread and muffin
And changes them to turkey stuffin’.
She changes cranberries to sauce
And meats to stews and stews to broths;
And when she mixes g... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
7c9f09ba3d6cff40 | Connubial | Stephen Dunn | Because with alarming accuracy she’d been identifying patterns I was unaware of—this tic, that tendency, like the way I’ve mastered the language of intimacy in order to conceal how I felt— I knew I was in danger of being terribly understood. | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
916ddc1f3321d34c | In the Park | John Koethe | for Susan Koethe
This is the life I wanted, and could never see.
For almost twenty years I thought that it was enough:
That real happiness was either unreal, or lost, or endless,
And that remembrance was as close to it as I could ever come.
And I believed that deep in the past, buried in my heart
Beyond the depth... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
85fb5bc21264ac88 | Adam's Curse | William Butler Yeats | We sat together at one summer’s end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry.
I said, ‘A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pa... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
a4aff2f676707d09 | From “In Memory of Geoffrey Hill” | Karl O'Hanlon | The day glared, breathless: an eye socket.
Clouds barely shifted, and the opal sky
was sheared into dry-dazzling millions.
Yet fall in, the sky, it did not.
The mail did not go undelivered,
dogs were walked; lovers fell savagely
out of and in love, and all between.
Seven concussed days, his draft longhand
swayi... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
61a9ecfe0fbd721a | Limitations | Henrietta Cordelia Ray | The subtlest strain a great musician weaves,
Cannot attain in rhythmic harmony
To music in his soul. May it not be
Celestial lyres send hints to him? He grieves
That half the sweetness of the song, he leaves
Unheard in the transition. Thus do we
Yearn to translate the wondrous majesty
Of some rare mood, when the... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
ade9df777e7568d1 | Rabbi Ben Ezra | Robert Browning | Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made: Our times are in His hand Who saith "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'' Not that, amassing flowers, Youth sighed "Which rose make ours, Which lily leave and then as best recall?" Not... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-6",
"S6-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Living/Aging"
] |
7f114d17de289aa9 | March: An Ode | Algernon Charles Swinburne | I Ere frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight, The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight; The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed Such wonder... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather"
] |
a2c595ed180b7b1e | In the Lake Region | Tomas Venclova | When you open the door, everything falls into place—
the little ferry by the wharf, fir trees and thujas.
An old woman, feeding ducks, seems as old as Leni
Riefenstahl. At the base of the hill, chestnut trees, not yet in full bloom,
are younger—but probably as old as her films.
All is wet and bright. A hedgehog or... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [] |
75453a6d6326d7b3 | The Meaning of the Shovel | Martín Espada | —Barrio René Cisneros
Managua, Nicaragua, June-July 1982
This was the dictator’s land
before the revolution.
Now the dictator is exiled to necropolis,
his army brooding in camps on the border,
and the congregation of the landless
stipples the earth with a thousand shacks,
every weatherbeaten carpenter
planting... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
da820e80ae479afc | Prop Rockery | Emily Rosko | We were thinking of starting a band,
all lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery.
This one would be gem, that one
metamorphic, the rest pebbles and some
laboratory-grown, semi-precious stones. The trees
were in it for the long-run; they swayed or stood
stoic, sheltered what they could. We made the cast
as an i... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
5d1065285c9cbb96 | Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face | Jack Prelutsky | Be glad your nose is on your face,
not pasted on some other place,
for if it were where it is not,
you might dislike your nose a lot.
Imagine if your precious nose
were sandwiched in between your toes,
that clearly would not be a treat,
for you’d be forced to smell your feet.
Your nose would be a source of drea... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
3e6b975be6650e95 | Psalm 84 | Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke | How lovely is thy dwelling, Great god, to whom all greatness is belonging! To view thy courts far, far from any telling My soul doth long and pine with longing Unto the God that liveth, The God that all life giveth, My heart and body both aspire, Above delight, bey... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
a71cf3535191551b | Sonnet 104: To me, fair friend, you never can be old | William Shakespeare | To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burned, ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
a8fd163e10720306 | The Ash Bringer | W. S. Di Piero | A grainy predawn dark, early Expressway traffic bleeding arterial tail lights across gray water and its blue heart. Under Lemon Hill, grunts from Boathouse Row, woodshop clunks, young men’s voices too loud for a day exhaling into starless skies, bad boysafter keg night, hungover, push long scullsinto the water and slic... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
84942fefb91a4d4d | Sustenance | Chris Dombrowski | I tracked it through the one mind of the woods. Its hoofprints pressed in snow were smallish hearts. Buck fawn: he let me come so near, take aim. Crouched against a fir, I was anything. Bush, stump, doe in estrus he could rut. Not his maimer, though, not his final thought. He stared me down until I shot him: low. Then... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
b11728d5e6bd24d4 | Still Life | Roberto Tejada | We’d often
been included in
the weather, whose
changes (as in the
still, portending
darknesses of after
noon) were hardly
evident, if even
manifest at all.
The August rain
over Mixcoac
& the deadening
of all aspect
at a distance:
yet our sudden
wet bodies, firm
swelling divested
finally of shirts
& tr... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S2-2",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer"
] |
7799f583b94f0af3 | Comfort Animal | Joy Ladin | From the sequence “Shekhinah Speaks”
Comfort, comfort my people ...
—Isaiah 40:1
A voice says, “Your punishment has ended.”
You never listen to that voice. You really suck
at being comforted.
Another voice says, “Cry.”
That voice always gets your attention,
keeps you thinking
about withered flowers and witheri... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
e4c71fd1f1d9757e | No Less | Alice B. Fogel | It was twilight all day.
Sometimes the smallest things weigh us down,
small stones that we can't help
admiring and palming.
Look at the tiny way
this lighter vein got inside.
Look at the heavy gray dome of its sky.
This is no immutable world.
We know less than its atoms, rushing through.
Light, light. Light as... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
2c1b4744ea3281f0 | Warm Life | Garrett Caples | for Bill Berkson & Khaled al-Assad
the union president’s dead
& they won’t let transgender
people pee in north carolina
& here i’m complaining about
climbing the mountain again
the mountain’ll always remain
if i’m lucky, to keep me from
sucking & only a king mule will
do. humbled by bill as he goes
through th... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
eab21b544110cfe7 | The Tree Frog | C. Dale Young | It is not the chambers of the heart that hold him
captive, but the hallways of the mind. Why
his image burning green and blue persists
—the face, the eyes questioning, the shape
of his head—is beyond anything I can understand. | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
53cddb319204b784 | Slow Dancing on the Highway:the Trip North | Elizabeth Hobbs | You follow close behind me, for a thousand miles responsive to my movements. I signal, you signal back. We will meet at the next exit. You blow kisses, which I return. You mouth "I love you," a message for my rearview mirror. We do a slow tango as we change lanes in tandem, gracefully, as though music were guiding us. ... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
52c85bf52ce239f8 | Lost and Found | Maxine Chernoff | I am looking for the photo that would make all the difference in my life. It’s very small and subject to fits of amnesia, turning up in poker hands, grocery carts, under the unturned stone. The photo shows me at the lost and found looking for an earlier photo, the one that would have made all the difference then. My pa... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
db72396eda5f42d5 | To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing | William Butler Yeats | Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honor bred, with one
Who were it proved he lies
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbors' eyes;
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers p... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
4cb4ab004a5e3709 | The Day of Gifts | Paul Claudel | It’s not true that Your saints have won everything: they left me with sins enough.
Someday I’ll lie on my deathbed, Lord, ill-shaven and yellow as a lifelong drunk.
And I’ll make a general examination of myself, looking back over all my days,
And I’ll see that I’m rich after all, ripe and rich with evil in its unnum... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
3577fff2387fcb74 | Solo | Roddy Lumsden | For once, I felt wanted, dead or alive,
the day my fame outgrew the Famous Five.
There came a time I could give no more
to the other guys in the Gang of Four
and I felt the dead weight fall from me
when I unyoked the clowns of the Crucial Three.
I considered all this as I boarded the bus
to quit the town not big... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c59a9228ca4bf22f | from Each in a Place Apart | James McMichael | I know I’ll lose her.
One of us will decide. Linda will say she can’t
do this anymore or I’ll say I can’t. Confused
only about how long to stay, we’ll meet and close it up.
She won’t let me hold her. I won’t care that my
eyes still work, that I can lift myself past staring.
Nothing from her will reach me after th... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-1",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
5ee36c22eb8ae6cd | Let Me Handle My Business, Damn | Morgan Parker | Took me awhile to learn the good wordsmake the rain on my window grownand sexy now I’m in the tub holding downthat on-sale Bordeaux pretendingto be well adjusted I am on that realjazz shit sometimes I run the streetssometimes they run me I’m the bodyof the queen of my hood filled upwith bad wine bad drugs mu shu porksi... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
e2b498d0719fa183 | Beyond Hammonton | Stephen Dunn | Night is longing, longing, longing,
beyond all endurance.
—Henry Miller
The back roads I’ve traveled late
at night, alone, a little drunk,
wishing I were someone
on whom nothing is lost,
are the roads by day I take
to the car wash in Hammonton
or to Blue Anchor’s
lawnmower repair shop
when the self-propel me... | [
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e214b080558bc2c7 | Memories Are a House | Avot Yeshurun | Stars by the power of their orbit
are stars in the order of the sun.
But if they are not figures of orbit,
they are not in the sun.
Exactly like me: by the power of my yearnings
I am in the family.
And if I will not yearn,
I am not in the family.
Memories are a house.
Time is a roof. All the time a roof. All t... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
4633d8f60c19b59b | The Search Party | William Matthews | I wondered if the others felt
as heroic
and as safe: my unmangled family
slept while I slid uncertain feet ahead
behind my flashlight’s beam.
Stones, thick roots as twisted as
a ruined body,
what did I fear?
I hoped my batteries
had eight more lives
than the lost child.
I feared I’d find something.
Reader, ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S6-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
5fe41a1f143a1d79 | Alberto | Warren Woessner | When the wind clipped the whitecaps, and the flags came down before they shredded, we knew it was no nor’easter. The Blue Nose ferry stayed on course, west out of Yarmouth, while 100 miles of fog on the Bay blew away. The Captain let us stand on the starboard bridge and scan a jagged range. Shearwaters skimmed the peak... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fac4aec0d89d9746 | The Glove and the Lions | Leigh Hunt | King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport, And one day as his lions fought, sat looking on the court; The nobles filled the benches, and the ladies in their pride, And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he sighed: And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show, Valour and lo... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S8-1",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
ed5352a05850dac6 | Victory | David Orr | Lepisosteus osseus
Despite it all, something stirs at the sight Of the cool, enameled body, The unreflecting eye, And the long jaw like a chisel With its single, violent purpose. It hangs dead still at the water's surface And seems lifeless, until A flickering gesture Carves fish after fish From any school that swims ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e3f0904b98c3939e | Animals | Joshua Corey | As the extinguished.As creatures, coming out to playin the twilight of creationhuman faces intelligent and suffering,turned upward entering the trees.The charismatic megafauna:polar bears, moose, rippling massive flanksto shake loose biting flies.The fox and the vixen. The leoparddazzling in his camouflage, breakingthe... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
c0ad07a28d73bee0 | Cutting Hair | Minnie Bruce Pratt | She pays attention to the hair, not her fingers, and cuts herself once or twice a day. Doesn’t notice anymore, just if the blood starts flowing. Says, Excuse me, to the customer and walks away for a band-aid. Same spot on the middle finger over and over, raised like a callus. Also the nicks where she snips ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
a12ce3140e8c9c7e | Association Copy | Camille T. Dungy | Lynda Hull
Maybe you sold it to buy junk. Though I like to think not.And I don't want to think you used the money for foodor rent or anything obligatory, practical.
A pair of boots, perhaps. Thigh high burgandy boots
with gold laces. Something crucial as lilies.
Mostly, I want to believe you held onto the book,
th... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
fb436d739ede40aa | Girl Sleuth | Brenda Hillman | A brenda is missing—where is she?
Summon the seeds & weeds, the desert whooshes. Phone the finch
with the crowded beak; a little pretenda
is learning to read
in the afternoon near the cactus caves. Near oleander & pulpy
caves with the click-click of the wren & the shkrrrr of the thrasher,
... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
7b367af60638553f | I Saw in Louisiana A Live-Oak Growing | Walt Whitman | I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing, All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches, Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green, And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself, But I wonder’d how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without its fr... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-8",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
29c3e30d1ce2dd40 | Save the Candor | Amit Majmudar | Every tripod-toting birderknows it nevernests on urbangirders. Even fences set itsscalded-crimsonhead askew, itswaddle swinging,wings akimbo.Few have got iton their lists andfewer still havecaught it singing,this endangeredNorth Americancandor, cousinof the done-in dodo, big-eyedBig Sur tremor-tenor — onlyten or twenty... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
c923aeee2d31405e | State's Attorney Fallas | Edgar Lee Masters | I, the scourge-wielder, balance-wrecker, Smiter with whips and swords; I, hater of the breakers of the law; I, legalist, inexorable and bitter, Driving the jury to hang the madman, Barry Holden, Was made as one dead by light too bright for eyes, And woke to face a Truth with bloody brow: Steel forceps fumbled by a doct... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
5c4c7f9a9c7863e8 | Poem to an Unnameable Man | Dorothea Lasky | You have changed me already. I am a fireball
That is hurtling towards the sky to where you are
You can choose not to look up but I am a giant orange ball
That is throwing sparks upon your face
Oh look at them shake
Upon you like a great planet that has been murdered by change
O too this is so dramatic this shakin... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
1f49b1e970609542 | What I Learned From the Incredible Hulk | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | When it comes to clothes, make
an allowance for the unexpected.
Be sure the spare in the trunk
of your station wagon with wood paneling
isn’t in need of repair. A simple jean jacket
says Hey, if you aren’t trying to smugglerare Incan coins through this peacefullittle town and kidnap the local orphan,
I can be on... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
c231bb0ab1779d3f | Aubade | David Mura | A wound is a blossom
but only to the living.
A May night, birdsong
before the first light pierces,
chirps out of blackness:
My daughter's angry at me
and her mother as I
was once angry at mine.
It's a way of crossing over.
I'm so tired now.
And my core's
all water, flowing
somewhere where the sea
can't fin... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
b3bc92188c6fbbb7 | A Few Miles Off | Micah Ballard | Too many are leaving
usually they greet in sleep before dashing
as in today with this gentleman
(awkward not to type his name)
when yesterday in the shower
I remembered his face in Aardvark
something about NWA but not about them
just a played reference
There were newspaper clips
all po... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ac509bd9feb182f6 | The Ten Best Issues of Comic Books | Alice Notley | 1. X-Men #141 & 142
2. Defenders #125
3. Phoenix: The Untold Story
4. What if. . .? #31
5. New Mutants #1
6. New Mutants #2
7. Micronauts #58
8. Marvel Universe #5
9. New Mutants #14
10. Secret Wars #1 | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
932a8119275093d2 | Pioneers, First Women in Construction | Susan Eisenberg | Her sister was shot, and hers found bludgeoned
dead in her car trunk; her mother was alcoholic,
and hers a suicide; her daughter killed by an uncle,
and hers stayed alive thanks to prison.
Before the term, date-raped, she was. Beforedomestic violence, love punched her face.
We wanted the career. Not just skills an... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7624bc4eea6e5aac | [At last, to be identified!] | Rebecca Hazelton | A dirigible powered us through the first leg,
traversing snow-capped mountains where goats
leapt from crags, and men with wrinkled
apples faces looked up, pointed.
Smiling
to cold air, I slept under a bear skin,
touched your lips in the night.
... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
8a80b9651493b9c9 | Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale | John Skelton | Ay, beshrew you! by my fay,
These wanton clerks be nice alway!
Avaunt, avaunt, my popinjay!
What, will ye do nothing but play?
Tilly, vally, straw, let be I say!
Gup, Christian Clout, gup, Jack of the Vale!
With Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale.
By God, ye be a pretty pode,
And I love you an whole cart-load.
Straw, ... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8b8e67ddc550c54a | Sonnet—To Science | Edgar Allan Poe | Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art! Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes. Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart, Vulture, whose wings are dull realities? How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise, Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences"
] |
20bddaf5246899cc | Georgia Dusk | Jean Toomer | The sky, lazily disdaining to pursue
The setting sun, too indolent to hold
A lengthened tournament for flashing gold,
Passively darkens for night’s barbecue,
A feast of moon and men and barking hounds,
An orgy for some genius of the South
With blood-hot eyes and cane-lipped scented mouth,
Surprised i... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
4db58cc70bbf78d1 | Horse Apocalypse | Amit Majmudar | Hrhm Shp, colt-culling,Is what hoof lore calls it—The choke-chain sound a roan coinedTo describe the things he sawBefore the sniff weevils crept Up his nostrils and chewedHis eyes at the hue-sweet root. •Mother mares scare foalsFrom folly-trots and foxgloveBy telling them fury talesOf muck stirrup-... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
92821f38ef4ac8ec | Memorial Day | Sunnylyn Thibodeaux | All that's left is the shroud
the back wings. Roaches
scurrying in the kitchen. There’s no
greater threat than this time at hand.
Drunken cackles from the street. Still damp
from 4 AM rain.
I missed the instructions f... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
bb29f77a0ee1ca41 | Argument Over, Amounting | Clark Coolidge | In edges, in barriers the tonal light of t
the one thing removed overemphasizes tonally
and you could hurry it, and it vanish and plan
You go out on an avenue, but may be taken in despite
your chordal list of hates, overcomings banished ready
receiving you from a darkened cone, the one a beat
behind the one you t... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
bd262401fd8fd602 | Tremble | Major Jackson | My neighbor is velvety and kicks serious game.
So sweet garlic refuses to hang tight
in his mouth. He pulls women to his wide chest
each time as if he's won the Lotto. He rocks
them gently and gentler. My neighbor
is a master spooner. He knows not of desire, but only
the rules of engagement. He says, I misshaving... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
eb086aecc7f7a201 | The Housewife | Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman | Here is the House to hold me — cradle of all the race;
Here is my lord and my love, here are my children dear —
Here is the House enclosing, the dear-loved dwelling place;
Why should I ever weary for aught that I find not here?
Here for the hours of the day and the hours of the night;
Bound with the bands of Duty, rive... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
67608818eb1d93a8 | Proclamation | Ofelia Zepeda | Cuk Son is a story.
Tucson is a linguistic alternative.
The story is in the many languages
still heard in this place of
Black Mountains.
They are in the echo of lost, forgotten languages
heard here even before the people arrived.
The true story of this place
recalls people walking
deserts all their lives and
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
0d20766c8ed6ef29 | Dream in Which I Love a Third Baseman | Lisa Olstein | At first he seemed a child,
dirt on his lip and the sun
lighting up his hair behind him.
All around us, the hesitation
of year-rounders who know
the warmer air will bring crowds.
No one goes to their therapist
to talk about how happy they are,
but soon I’d be back in the dugout
telling my batting coach how
th... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
75b448a5583b5b8f | Creek | Mark Levine | I suppose I shan’t go fishing
Pa, for fear of finding
We’re no fishers,
Our folk, for all our bent
For fish scraps and our
Tolerance for muck dwellers and the like.
This creek is like no other, Pa,
Inky cold and familiar,
Don’t drink from it, it
Commands, don’t kneel, don’t stare down
Or wash in it, don't pry... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
06fec728323c60c8 | “Find Work” | Rhina P. Espaillat | I tie my Hat—I crease my Shawl—Life's little duties do—preciselyAs the very leastWere infinite—to me— —Emily Dickinson, #443
My mother’s mother, widowed very young of her first love, and of that love’s first fruit, moved through her father’s farm, her country tongue and country heart anaesthetized and mute with labor.... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c516e1542e34fd84 | Words Are the Sum | Richard Kenney | 1 As so-called quarks, so atoms before and throughAnd after molecules, which tooConstitute us awhile, plumingThrough our slowly changing shapesLike beachscapesThrough a duneless sandglass, say(I said, once) — all theseSo utterly forgetful, wiped cleanAs numbers with each new use, lint-free.How not so words, which pass... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
b0457a165008e499 | Fish Carcass | Vi Khi Nao | fish carcass
say hello to pork rind
+ arborio rice
while castaway caraway puree returns
home to deconstruct wilted carrot
from its butter + herb remnants
fish carcass
say goodbye to a knife fight
between under-marinated onion slice
+ wasted redbor kale
amidst a gun battle between
grilled salmon + paprika
fi... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
032d36d44c6d002e | If It Were Not for You | Hayden Carruth | Liebe, meine liebe, I had not hoped
to be so poor
The night winds reach
like the blind breath of the world
in a rhythm without mind, gusting and beating
as if to destroy us, battering our poverty
and all the land’s flat and cold and dark
under iron snow
the dog leaps i... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
e64e64943a198365 | Rutherford McDowell | Edgar Lee Masters | They brought me ambrotypes Of the old pioneers to enlarge. And sometimes one sat for me i Some one who was in being When giant hands from the womb of the world Tore the republic. What was it in their eyes? i For I could never fathom That mystical pathos of drooped eyelids, And the serene sorrow of their eyes. It was li... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film"
] |
3efe7447ce2266f9 | Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all | William Shakespeare | Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
d3fe2de3367435bd | The Widower’s Courtship | Elizabeth Hands | Roger a doleful widower,
Full eighteen weeks had been,
When he, to meet the milk-maid Nell
Came smiling o’er the green.
Blithe as a lad of seventeen,
He thus accosted Nell;
Give me your pail, I’ll carry it
For you, if you think well.
Says Nell, indeed my milking-pail
You shall not touch, I vow;
I’ve carried i... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
36aabbc227cfefd1 | Towns in Colour | Amy Lowell | I Red Slippers Red slippers in a shop-window, and outside in the street, flaws of grey, windy sleet! Behind the polished glass, the slippers hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by with dripping colour, jamming their crimson reflections aga... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
88c63cb56b676b88 | A Brief Attachment | Cate Marvin | I regard your affections, find your teeth have
left me a bruise necklace. Those lipstick
marks leech a trail, ear to ear, facsimile your
smile. Your 40 ounces of malt liquor, your
shrink hate, your eyes dialing 911. The hearts
you draw with ballpoint on my cigarette packs
when I've left the room, penn... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-9",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
62460fbad0a6a128 | Writing | Howard Nemerov | The cursive crawl, the squared-off characters
these by themselves delight, even without
a meaning, in a foreign language, in
Chinese, for instance, or when skaters curve
all day across the lake, scoring their white
records in ice. Being intelligible,
these winding ways with their audacities
and delicate hesitati... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
9e9d52368f39498d | Object Lesson | Rae Armantrout | 1 That a memory,caught and mountedfor permanent display,is not muchlike anything that happenscan’t be surprising.But where does that leave us?Night at the Museum,the set piecesin their comicignorance of one anothertake the stage.2 In this series,he tosses heron the bedlike laundryas she strugglesirrelevantlyagainst the... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
dbb8bc41dbdaffd0 | Parchment, Please | Sasha Steensen | Near the year
1000
we find
Maximos Planudes
nude
writing to a friend
in Asia Minor
asking for parchment
because the right quality
is not for sale
in his own neighborhood,
presumably Constantinople.
In the end,
all he receives
are some asses’ skins,
which do not please
him in the least,
and a note:
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
f657e019961570d3 | seventh heaven | Patti Smith | Oh Raphael. Guardian angel. In love and crime
all things move in sevens. seven compartments
in the heart. the seven elaborate temptations.
seven devils cast from Mary Magdalene whore
of Christ. the seven marvelous voyages of Sinbad.
sin/bad. And the number seven branded forever
on the forehead of Cain. The first ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
3242b280f0fa6926 | “Un Tintero,” Inkwell | Desirée Alvarez | Anger is the other person inside
mi garganta, my throat.
The mouth’s mouth is the deepest.
Rage is the homeless boy fallen down a well.
Shout down and he will echo back.
La lengua, tongue.
How long have you been down... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f04cba4b03e01714 | From “Romanticisms” | Dan Beachy-Quick | Mortal oddment, there’s no wish in the bloodBut beat, but stay gift-strong, but make demandsTo keep within veins this ore’s diffuse gold,These voices that know without being known —These voices that riddle thought with herself,Ridicule thought in her flimsy eternalGowns a child can tear in half with a breath —That ch... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
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