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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
f9a32dc35ab7a0cb | Typhoni | Sy Hoahwah | This is the deepest part of the world.
Bird don’t fly here,but there is the sound of wings.
The smell, just a struggle in the earthunderneath the musty floorboards.
Monsters hatch fully-grown from their eggs.Snaky legs indicate chaos.
I carry sad omens,
slobber down the psychic’s legsto her feet pointed backwards.... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S5-8",
"S11-2",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Nature/Weather",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
7f0e846ec8768b6e | Kora in Hell: Improvisations XI | William Carlos Williams | XI
1
Why pretend to remember the weather two years back? Why not? Listen close then repeat after others what they have just said and win a reputation for vivacity. Oh feed upon petals of edelweiss! one dew drop, if it be from the right flower, is five years’ drink! _______________
Having once taken th... | [
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"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
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"S2-8",
"S2-10",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
b8736691b0e1e977 | Time of Need | Allison Seay | In the road, a dog. Days dead, that dog. Liliana was walking beside me awhile (I am sure) and I was almost not crying but then found what I was looking for. She heaved it for me—all of it, the stench, the weight—in her thin arms until it was too much. Tired, she dragged the thing by its wasted paws all the way home. He... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
70facc907c659e3e | Poem with One Fact | Donald Hall | "At pet stores in Detroit, you can buy
frozen rats
for seventy-five cents apiece, to feed
your pet boa constrictor"
back home in Grosse Pointe,
or in Grosse Pointe Park,
while the free nation of rats
in Detroit emerges
from alleys behind pet shops, from cellars
and junked cars, and gathers
to flow at twilight... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
4bf24e2b05a89662 | The Return | Jan Owen | Mondays Began
with one plait loose, a pip in your teeth
and late for Geography, lined and blank,
facts to the right, tall stories left.
To sail the heat in a weatherboard classroom boat
with banana and vegemite colouring the air
sargasso green. To ship ten thousand things
on cursive seas to the edge of the known... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-6",
"S10-8"
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"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
f14c444637bcebd6 | From the Sidelines | Rita Dove | It seems I have always sat here watching men like you —
who turn heads, whose gaze is always either a kiss
or a slap or the whiplash of pure disregard. Why fret? All
you’re doing is walking. You’re this year’s It, the
one righteous integer of cool cruising down a great-lipped
channel of hushed adoration, women tu... | [
"S1",
"S3"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
edbb662a0ecc7d89 | No Worry | Cole Swensen | No, worry about nothing
but the chiseling
of hills into distance
in the slight haze
and sleep lost over color
no two ever the same
the wringing hands
float ashore amazed.
Worry about beauty.
It can sell you anything.
Lakes collect in the
chambers of the heart
where the sailboats are made
of flying fish abo... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
b31e4cc39c9090fd | [When I stop to consider my calling] | Roberto Tejada | When I stop to consider my calling, remark
the places a wayward temper impelled me
I’ve found in light of where I wandered lost
the most appalling evils could have befallen;
but when I disregard the journey it’s hard to
even fathom I endured so much affliction;
what’s more, my days being spent, I feel I’ve
seen ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7942091f1189d0e8 | from Step | George Albon | a perfect world
living manifests of
nipple and tip
worked back into
the locus one had
thought delivered
rectangles seep with
the slight growing, to
walk out onto them
a perfect world
the identities
traced above a ground
print as enlarged
location, geographies
of the whorl
the smile that held
no life but... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [] |
8e38d698bcd7aee1 | Ancestor | Jimmy Santiago Baca | It was a time when they were afraid of him.
My father, a bare man, a gypsy, a horse
with broken knees no one would shoot.
Then again, he was like the orange tree,
and young women plucked from him sweet fruit.
To meet him, you must be in the right place,
even his sons and daughter, we wondered
where was papa now ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
57da89f011aab920 | Litany | Carolyn Creedon | Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant?
I will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and I will eat it and call
it a carolyn sandwich. Then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayonnaise and
that is how you shall love me in my restaurant
Tom, will you come to my empty beige apartment and help me s... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
551ffe534e28b9be | Three Dreams of Korea: Notes on Adoption | Lee Herrick | 1.
This one happens in morning
as a nearby crow wakes me,
calling God, God, look at this :
I am on the steps of a church,
wrapped in Monday's Korea Times
telling of the drought in Pusan.
You can live by the water
and still die of thirst, and I,
there on the cold brick steps,
am dying. But dying
means the pre... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
edd625f58bbed473 | Daynight, With Mountains Tied Inside | Alice Fulton | Chandelier too full of brilliance to be indolent.
Your prisms enunciate the light
and don’t need rain to break it into rainbows.
Snow with six crutches in each crystal.
Your livery your glitter, your purring
made visible. Only inanimate things can sparkle
without sweat. My spinet, the thre... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
0e24fe82e0676bce | The Day Lady Died | Frank O'Hara | It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S6-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Summer",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0669c812c15b26bb | The Way to the River | W. S. Merwin | The way to the river leads past the names of
Ash the sleeves the wreaths of hinges
Through the song of the bandage vendor
I lay your name by my voice
As I go
The way to the river leads past the late
Doors and the games of the children born looking backwards
They play that they are broken glass
The numbers wait ... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
fcc5e2a7e26fd66b | Sitting with Others | Rodney Jones | The front seats filled last. Laggards, buffoons,
and kiss-ups falling in beside local politicos,
the about to be honored, and the hard of hearing.
No help from the middle, blenders and criminals.
And the back rows: restless, intelligent, unable to commit.
My place was always left-center, a little to the rear.
The... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
42214c2f28981740 | Black Deaths In Custody | Ali Cobby Eckermann | despite the cost a new gaol has been built
it seems the incarceration rates are trebling
I only came here in the role
of a Deaths In Custody inspector
all the cells are stark and spotless
blank screens watch from the corner
the offices have the highest technology
the faces of the staff still look the same
when ... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e5bc2da643729c93 | On a View of Pasadena from the Hills | Yvor Winters | From the high terrace porch I watch the dawn.
No light appears, though dark has mostly gone,
Sunk from the cold and monstrous stone. The hills
Lie naked but not light. The darkness spills
Down the remoter gulleys; pooled, will stay
Too low to melt, not yet alive with day.
Below the windows, the lawn, matted deep
... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
16312b6b8a49f099 | Loving and Liking: Irregular Verses Addressed to a Child | Dorothy Wordsworth | There’s more in words than I can teach: Yet listen, Child! — I would not preach; But only give some plain directions To guide your speech and your affections. Say not you love a roasted fowl But you may love a screaming owl, And, if you can, the unwieldy toad That crawls from his secure abode Within the mossy garden wa... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
274a90364f1fc9e6 | Back Up Quick They’re Hippies | Lani O'Hanlon | That was the year we drove
into the commune in Cornwall.
“Jesus Jim,” mam said,
“back up quick they’re hippies.”
Through the car window,
tents, row after row, flaps open,
long-haired men and women
curled around each other like babies
and the babies themselves
wandered naked across the grass.
I reached for the... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-7",
"S6-3",
"S6-8",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
f566054d413a7abe | The Imagined Copperhead | Andrew Hudgins | Without intending to hide, the imagined copperhead hid on the path ahead, unseen on bronze leaves, unheard, and a mortal likelihood at every step. This was childhood, mine, the wood’s jihad against a boy who’d intruded among monkshood, wasp, tick, and nettles haired with needles. Scrub brush abhorred him with a ho... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
4bc807bb2d085265 | Song, the Winds of Downhill | George Oppen | ‘out of poverty
to begin
again’ impoverished
of tone of pose that common
wealth
of parlance Who
so poor the wordswould with and take on substantial
meaning handholds footholds
to dig in one’s heels sliding
hands and heels beyond the residential
lots the plots it is a poem
which may be su... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
e5d9aaedc60fb6d9 | The Request of Alexis | Sarah Dixon | Give, give me back that Trifle you despise,
Give back my Heart, with all its Injuries:
Tho’ by your Cruelty it wounded be,
The Thing is yet of wond’rous Use to me.
A gen’rous Conqueror, when the Battle’s won,
Bestows a Charity on the Undone:
If from the well aim’d Stroke no Hope appear,
He kills the Wretch, and shews C... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
34796293dd7e1401 | Sonnet | Todd Swift | No children;Cold uncoils in the blood;Science, true, not goodFor you. So old,Suddenly, or so young.Lyric inside not to be sung.Plug pulled, screen gone.Sun out; mindBountiful, playing pain.These are my childrenIn my head. Unbegotten.This is to self-forget,To have the futureBorn forgotten. | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
015302eb60705d21 | Eating the Pig | Donald Hall | Twelve people, most of us strangers, stand in a room
in Ann Arbor, drinking Cribari from jars.
Then two young men, who cooked him,
carry him to the table
on a large square of plywood: his body
striped, like a tiger cat’s, from the basting,
his legs long, much longer than a cat’s,
and the striped hide as shiny as... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-8",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
96b25f43a2b3f9f4 | Identity | Angela C. Trudell Vasquez | White-Mexican looks like a Latina,
not my label
a question
from a Guatemalan student
who's come undone
in my ESL class,
doesn't get my kind
I try to describe
how I grew up
in Caucasian corn country
surrounded by houses
on cul-de-sacs
that all looked the same,
how we were alone
in a town of 5000,
one blac... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
723cfa573340b668 | from The Book of the Dead: The Dam | Muriel Rukeyser | All power is saved, having no end. Rises
in the green season, in the sudden season
the white the budded
and the lost.
Water celebrates, yielding continually
sheeted and fast in its overfall
slips down the rock, evades the pillars
building its colonnades, repairs
... | [
"S2",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S4-1",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
6050dcf9730eb545 | The Fire Cycle | Zachary Schomburg | There are trees and they are on fire. There are hummingbirds and they are on fire. There are graves and they are on fire and the things coming out of the graves are on fire. The house you grew up in is on fire. There is a gigantic trebuchet on fire on the edge of a crater and the crater is on fire. There is a complex s... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
ac21410424fc3df4 | Symptoms of Prophecy | Camille Rankine | In the new century,
we lose the art of many things.
For example, at the beep, I communicate
using the wrong machine.
I called to say we have two lives
and only one of them is real.
When the phone rings: you could be anybody.
In the evening: you are homeless
and hunting for good light, as safe a place
as any to... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-9"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences"
] |
11ed4398dc1cee11 | A Midsummer Night’s Stroll | Philip Nikolayev | I.I am a man. I’ve lived alone. I’ve been in love. I’ve played with fire, cursed the telephone, and basked in verse, in verve, and alsoHumid, terrestrial, mixed, nongenderspecific, have occasionallyday’s tumult ushers in an evening with a lone moved a woman’sshut icecream stan... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
05fa4a953b7701ec | Epistle to Miss Blount, On Her Leaving the Town, After the Coronation | Alexander Pope | As some fond virgin, whom her mother’s care
Drags from the town to wholesome country air,
Just when she learns to roll a melting eye,
And hear a spark, yet think no danger nigh;
From the dear man unwillingly she must sever,
Yet takes one kiss before she parts for ever:
Thus from the world fair Zephalinda flew,
Saw othe... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
691eeb985fbbf287 | In Memory of a Child | Vachel Lindsay | I The angels guide him now, And watch his curly head, And lead him in their games, The little boy we led. II He cannot come to harm, He knows more than we know, His light is brighter far Than daytime here below. III His path leads on and on, Through pleasant lawns and flowers, His brown eyes open wide At grass ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
838acde20cde3b5d | Tutelary | Michael Ryan | What a fuckup you are.
What dumbshit you do.
Your father's voice
still whispers in you,
despite the joys
that sweeten each day.
Your Genius it isn't
until, dying away,
it worms back through
the sparkling dream
where you drown him
in an inch-deep stream:
your knee in his back,
your strength on his skull,
i... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
056bea75c437bfe3 | The Golden Schlemiel | Irving Feldman | So there’s a cabbie in Cairo named Deif.
So he found 5,000 bucks in the back seat.
So meanwhile his daughter was very sick.
So he needed the money for medicine bad.
So never mind.
So he looked for the fare and gave it back.
So then the kid died.
So they fired him for doing good deeds on company time.
So the President h... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
4987a68cf7ef7b0a | The Visiting Hour | Toi Derricotte | he came in his seedy brown jacket smelling of paint. all
thumbs, a man stumbling over his own muscles, unable to
hold some part of himself and rock it, gently. she gave
up, seeing him come in the door, wanting to show him her
flat belly just an hour before, looking at her own corpse
in the mirror. she lay th... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
1570dc168132f1fc | Sea-Wash | Carl Sandburg | The sea-wash never ends.The sea-wash repeats, repeats.Only old songs? Is that all the sea knows? Only the old strong songs? Is that all?The sea-wash repeats, repeats. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
fbe31ee4fe0fffe2 | Some Questions about the Storm | Hilda Raz | What's the bird ratio overhead?
Zero: zero. Maybe it's El Niño?
The storm, was it bad?
Here the worst ever. Every tree hurt.
Do you love trees?
Only the gingko, the fir, the birch.
Yours? Do you name your trees?
Who owns the trees? Who's talking
You presume a dialogue. Me and You.
Yes. Your fingers tap. I'm li... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
f62d37d188c014ee | Rainforest | Teresa Mei Chuc | I close my eyes so that I can see it.
What we so freely eliminate. Who is
not guilty of it? We reek of paper.
Everywhere we go is paper. Our
hands are stained with paper.
Walls. What echoes from our walls.
The sweet whisper of rainforest—
even the name makes the sound of
rushing water or perhaps it’s a ghost
t... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c9654c7f4efd10e3 | An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland, Considered as the Subject of Poetry | William Collins | Home, thou return'st from Thames, whose Naiads long Have seen thee ling'ring, with a fond delay, Mid those soft friends, whose hearts, some future day, Shall melt, perhaps, to hear thy tragic song. Go, not unmindful of that cordial youth, Whom, long endear'd, thou leav'st by Lavant's side; Together let us w... | [
"S2",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-6",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
9cc4de4254aef540 | How Spring Comes | Alice Notley | Toys and rose The zoo body zigzags
I think fish too
but I'm a polite
social being, I'm a Ladle Lady or purple
and blue I write green letters and gold
editorials for the Krystal Oxygen Company
I have one hip as far as I can see, that
I see as I write say
... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
98fff399ddf259e7 | Genesis: The Resilient Colors | Roberto Tejada | And surfaced a flame in the dark elsewhere
of one remembered form: just one,
suppose it the flesh of unspecified man
a mouth down deeper between my legs
his heavy beard in the beginning
against these wet thighs our bodies scribbled
in signs to draw the grey curtain of steam back
by which we found ourselves surro... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
38babbe132abf78b | Impossible to Tell | Robert Pinsky | To Robert Hass and in Memory of Elliot Gilbert
Slow dulcimer, gavotte and bow, in autumn,
Bashō and his friends go out to view the moon;
In summer, gasoline rainbow in the gutter,
The secret courtesy that courses like ichor
Through the old form of the rude, full-scale joke,
Impossible to tell in writing. “Bashō”
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
a196ce8ab27695e9 | Now that You Too Must Shortly Go | Eleanor Farjeon | Now that you too must shortly go the way Which in these bloodshot years uncounted men Have gone in vanishing armies day by day, And in their numbers will not come again: I must not strain the moments of our meeting Striving for each look, each accent, not to miss, Or question of our parting and our g... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S1-9",
"S3-11",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
945132e165d9c396 | Citation | Joshua Mehigan | Their ruler is elected state by state, and no one cuts his heart out as he drowses. Their senior citizens still copulate. Their convicts are allowed to change their blouses. In this backyard there hangs a gutted deer, and in that driver's seat there sits a wife. They have their MMR and Retrovir. They have their quarter... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
c4b94db23d317c18 | scars | Truong Tran | my father’s body is a map
a record of his journey
he carries a bullet
lodged in his left thigh
there is a hollow where it entered
a protruding bump where it sleeps
the doctors say it will never awaken
it is the one souvenir he insists on keeping
mother has her own opinionsbố cùa con điên—your father is crazy
a... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
36e43fc3de72f25a | Money | Philip Larkin | Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
‘Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.’
So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don’t keep it upstairs.
By now they’ve a second house and car and wi... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
40f72dc2790aad79 | “Alone I stare into the frost’s white face” | Osip Mandelstam | Alone I stare into the frost’s white face.
It’s going nowhere, and I—from nowhere.
Everything ironed flat, pleated without a wrinkle:
Miraculous, the breathing plain.
Meanwhile the sun squints at this starched poverty—
The squint itself consoled, at ease . . .
The ten-fold forest almost the same . . .
And snow c... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
319be77ab3f3dbb0 | The Empty House | Walter de La Mare | See this house, how dark it is
Beneath its vast-boughed trees!
Not one trembling leaflet cries
To that Watcher in the skies—
‘Remove, remove thy searching gaze,
Innocent of heaven’s ways,
Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright,
On secrets hidden from sight.’
‘Secrets,’ sighs the night-wind,
‘Vacancy is all I find;
Every key... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-10",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Fall"
] |
834152ea601fb058 | Autobiographical Fragment | Katie Peterson | In those days I began to see light under everybushel basket, light nearly splittingthe sides of the bushel basket. Light camethrough the rafters of the dairy where the gracklescongregated like well-taxed citizensuntransfigured even by hope. Understand I was the oneunderneath the basket. I was certain I had nothing to s... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
6df1d62008a9727b | I Went into the Maverick Bar | Gary Snyder | I went into the Maverick Bar
In Farmington, New Mexico.
And drank double shots of bourbon
backed with beer.
My long hair was tucked up under a cap
I’d left the earring in the car.
Two cowboys did horseplay
by the pool tables,
A waitress asked us
... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
3c61b232bb98d116 | An Essay on Criticism: Part 2 | Alexander Pope | Of all the causes which conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. Whatever Nature has in worth denied, She gives in large recruits of needful pride; For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find What wants in blood... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
7c7e0f8f9e43c10a | A Visit | Tom Sleigh | What she is waiting for never arrives
or arrives so slowly she can't see it:
Like the river
bluing silver
and wearing minutely deeper into its channel,
the flow hardens to carved stone as she fidgets
beneath the whirling fan
impatient for the train
that rocks us above the water to arrive:
Her sisters and broth... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
45fc4b14b447583e | Green-Striped Melons | Jane Hirshfield | They lie under stars in a field. They lie under rain in a field. Under sun. Some people are like this as well— like a painting hidden beneath another painting. An unexpected weight the sign of their ripeness. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
7533e2acacbb272e | Credo | Robert Creeley | Creo que si ... I believe it will rain
tomorrow ... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
a267c58cbabbfdad | Ramadan | Khaled Mattawa | My mother forgets to feed her animals
because it's only fair.
She rushes to them when
she hears hoarse roosters crowing
and billy goats butting
over a last straw.
This month the moon becomes a princess.
The stars fan her,
Jupiter pours cups of wine,
Mars sings melancholy mawals.
Bearded men holding prayer bea... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
375fcf80d4cc2495 | The Ice Storm | Christian Wiman | Then all one day because of ice
they couldn't make it down the hill.Or up, James says,
dabbing at a spill
of coffee, crunching toast as if it had a spine.
But he could work, at any rate,
could concentrate
on that book he's been reading,
or meaning to,
the flu—
or was it famine?—of '49,
some smoldering fact
h... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-3",
"S8-7",
"S9-5",
"S10-3",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
daf78e77d4379ac9 | Sorry | Roddy Lumsden | When I hurt you and cast you off, that was buccaneer work:
the sky must have turned on the Bay that day and spat.
We’d tarried on corners, we’d dallied on sofas, we were
in progress, do you see? Yet stormcloud bruises bloomed
where once we touched. The walls swam under minty fever;
we failed to reach the long, low... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
526677e191476753 | [asking] | Barbara Jane Reyes | there is ghazal swimming inside of her, wanting to be born. on the matter of foretelling, of small miracles, cactus flowers in bloom on this city fire escape, where inside your tongue touches every inch of her skin, where you lay your hand on her belly and sleep. here, she fingers the ornate remains of ancient mosques.... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-9",
"S6-7",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
1d98a36d83791633 | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: [Prelude] | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Strong Son of God, immortal Love, Whom we, that have not seen thy face, By faith, and faith alone, embrace, Believing where we cannot prove; Thine are these orbs of light and shade; Thou madest Life in man and brute; Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot Is on the skull which thou hast... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
a66c5fd33e95711b | On the Death of Richard West | Thomas Gray | In vain to me the smiling Mornings shine,
And reddening Phœbus lifts his golden fire;
The birds in vain their amorous descant join;
Or cheerful fields resume their green attire;
These ears, alas! for other notes repine,
A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
a47b0ca573b03657 | Never to Dream of Spiders | Audre Lorde | Time collapses between the lips of strangers
my days collapse into a hollow tube
soon implodes against now
like an iron wall
my eyes are blocked with rubble
a smear of perspectives
blurring each horizon
in the breathless precision of silence
one word is made.
Once the renegade flesh was gone
fall air lay agai... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
dae409ea770ff1cb | Life in a Love | Robert Browning | Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I f... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
216757080b1ac782 | Wish for an Overcoat | Alfred Islay Walden | Oh! had I now an overcoat, For I am nearly freezing;My head and lungs are stopped with cold, And often I am sneezing.And, too, while passing through the street, Where merchants all are greeting,They say, young man this is the coat That you should wear to meeting.Then, looking down upon my feet, For there my b... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-10",
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
953890cab104c194 | Macular Hole | Catherine Wagner | Please god love me and buy me
Read this hillock and ride me
Wraith typing all day for money.
God bought me today for two silver fish in a can
God bought me tomorrow for bland in a pan
and a card an email from Rebecca
Bought four hours of my control alt delete shut down
Bought a new day-section with a headstand
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S5-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
cef8bbccbc4c3f19 | from The Prelude: Book 2: School-time (Continued) | William Wordsworth | Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much Unvisited, endeavour'd to retrace My life through its first years, and measured back The way I travell'd when I first began To love the woods and fields; the passion yet Was in its birth, sustain'd, as might befal, By nourishment that came unsought, for still, From week ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-3",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
a2f08f8b8a8115a5 | The City's Oldest Known Survivor of the Great War | James Doyle | marches in uniform down the traffic stripe at the center of the street, counts time to the unseen web that has rearranged the air around him, his left hand stiff as a leather strap along his side, the other saluting right through the decades as if they weren't there, as if everyone under ninety were pervasive fog the m... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Living/Aging"
] |
0f67c9428d909bcf | Bacall | William Trowbridge | To Have and Have Not, 1944
Betty Joan Perske, age nineteen, gives that look,
the one that shifts tectonic plates, to Bogie,
and that’s it: Germany surrenders,
Japan bows its apologies, and that sailor
smooches the nurse in Times Square. The world,
no longer black and white, makes love
as D-Day shrinks to just a ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-8"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Youth"
] |
30e3baf4f81a0500 | February Elegy | Mary Jo Bang | This bald year, frozen now in February.
This cold day winging over the ugly
Imperfect horizon line,
So often a teeth line of ten buildings.
A red flag flapping
In the wind. An orange curtain is noon.
It all hurts her eyes. This curtain is so bright.
Here is what is noticeably true: sight.
The face that looks ba... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
5209fa82c5beb14e | Helen Betty Osborne | Marilyn Dumont | Betty, if I set out to write this poem about you
it might turn out instead
to be about me
or any one of
my female relatives
it might turn out to be
about this young native girl
growing up in rural Alberta
in a town with fewer Indians
than ideas about Indians,
in a town just south of the 'Aryan Nations'
... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
00cdf608f408a29d | Gender Bender | Jennifer Michael Hecht | Evolution settles for a while on various stable balances.
One is that some of the girls like cute boys and some
like ugly older men and sometimes women. The differencebetween them is the ones who like older men were felt upby their fathers or uncles or older brothers, or if he didn'ttouch you, still you lived in his ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
e32c6f1f6fda3497 | Heat Wave | Samuel Menashe | Sheets entangle him Naked on his bed Like a toppled mast Slack sails bedeck At sea, no ballast For that even keel He cannot keep— No steering wheel As he falls asleep | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
6cd2413fce7b780f | “Imagine Lucifer . . .” | Jack Spicer | Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness An apple Plucked clear by will of taste, color, Strength, beauty, roundness, seed Absent of all God painted, present everything An apple is. Imagine Lucifer An angel without angelness A poem That has revised itself out of sound Imagine, rhyme, concordance Absent of all God spo... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
7a62e707355c131d | On Freedom | Kahlil Gibran | And an orator said, Speak to us of Free-
dom.
And he answered:
At the city gate and by your fireside I
have seen you prostrate yourself and worship
your own freedom,
Even as slaves humble themselves before
a tyrant and praise him though he slays
them.
Ay, in the grove of the temple and in
the ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [] |
cdba05ff035af5a5 | Pathetic Fallacies Are Bad Science But | Marie Ponsot | On reading Susanne K. Langer’s Mind
If leaf-trash chokes the stream-bed,reach for rock-bottom as you rakethe muck out. Let it slump dank,and dry fading, flat above the bank.Stand back. Watch the water vault ahead.Its thrust sweeps the surface clean, shores the debris,as it debrides its stone path to the lake,clarity ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
d1ad146ea623c6ec | Pieces on the Ground | Marianne Boruch | I gave up the pencil, the walk in woods, the fog
at dawn, a keyhole I lost an eye to.
And the habit of early, of acorn into oak—
bent tangled choked because of ache or greed,
or lousy light deemed it so.
So what. Give up that so what.
O fellow addicts of the arch and the tragic, give up
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
087fe6a26f728b21 | “Ah Margarida” | Álvaro de Campos | Ah Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would you do with it? I’d take my earrings out of hock, Marry a blind man, And live on a tree-lined block. But Margarida, If I gave you my life, What would your mother say? (Her mother knows me inside out.) She’d say yo... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
1ffea7e4dcb639b1 | from Deaf Republic: 1 | Ilya Kaminsky | Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air,a story sung by those who danced before the Lord in quiet.Who whirled and leapt. Giving voice to consonants that risewith no protection but each other’s ears.We are on our bellies in this silence, Lord.Let us wash our faces in the wind and forget the strict shapes... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
8fbe389fa92c9616 | In Jerusalem | Mahmoud Darwish | In Jerusalem, and I mean within the ancient walls,
I walk from one epoch to another without a memory
to guide me. The prophets over there are sharing
the history of the holy ... ascending to heaven
and returning less discouraged and melancholy, because love
and peace are holy and are coming to town.
I was walking... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Islam"
] |
0e9635d1671e0f16 | That Domestic Animal | Rebecca Seiferle | My damn cat brings me a dead songbird,
wren or finch, I don’t know what it is—
I mistook at first its folded grey
for a strangely shaped piece of lint
in the cubicle beneath my desk—nor which
cat for I have two: Cricket with her dense
body and stubby legs who jumps down
from every shelf so reverberatingly, I cal... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
7f07d5a0bc0a1239 | Milton’s God | Nate Klug | Where i-95 meets the Pike, a ponderous thunderhead flowered;stewed a minute, then flippedlike a flash card, tatterededges crinkling in, linings so dark with excessive bright | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
69316a884b2eccb5 | Of History and Hope | Miller Williams | We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The ric... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
8587304358e7aeb1 | The Wound | Adonis | 1.
The leaves asleep under the wind
are the wounds’ ship,
and the ages collapsed on top of each other
are the wound’s glory,
and the trees rising out of our eyelashes
are the wound’s lake.
The wound is to be found on bridges
where the grave lengthens
and patience goes on to no end
between the shores of our lo... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [] |
876be6764fa762d5 | Riders on the Back of Silence | Cyrus Cassells | Brooklyn, the present day
I. The Spirit Box
Son:
A son is a steadfast keeper of secrets,
a cupped palm, a calyx,a son is a spirit box, listen—
I was born after armistice,
the fissured cities,
but slept nights
with a human smoke.
And though I never shuddered
from a black rouge
of rationed coffee
to ke... | [
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"S5",
"S8"
] | [
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"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c3e6c4f1ae7bd7cc | The Boa | Douglas Florian | Just when you think you know the boa,
There’s moa and moa and moa and moa.
| [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
8fdee21ad9c0a23a | The Ships of Theseus | Steve Gehrke | The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians ... for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their place, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question... | [
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"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d2da84b623d18292 | Mirror Image | Jan Owen | ‘Thirty years ago. And only yesterday,’
says Balázs, slapping at a fly.
We sit beside a bottle underneath his vines
and watch the football arc between his sons.
‘Check through the corner one,’ the sergeant says,
‘and make it short and sweet. Take a couple of men.’
(Seventeen-year-olds still nervous with a gun.)
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
318b3af53c4856be | Afterword | Desirée Alvarez | Chile, chocolate, coyote, guacamole, mezcal, peyote,
tomato, ocelot, tequila—the words survive months of siege,
240,000 dead in Tenochtitlan. The Place of Herons,
a place of whiteness, did not survive. Duende, a tiny face
in a calla lily, survived. A bowl decorated with scorpion
and pelican survived. Clay faces fu... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S10-2",
"S10-4"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a601004284858b8f | Six Quatrains | Ursula K. Le Guin | AUTUMN
gold of amber
red of ember
brown of umber
all September
MCCOY CREEK
Over the bright shallows
now no flights of swallows.
Leaves of the sheltering willow
dangle thin and yellow.
OCTOBER
At four in the morning the west wind
moved in the leaves of the beech tree
with a long rush and patter o... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-3",
"S2-4",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
8ad156dd0730af0e | Going Back | Gregory Djanikian | We have been cruising, half a block
at a time, my wife, my two children,
all morning, and I have been pointing out
unhurriedly and with some feeling
places of consequence, sacred places,
backyards, lush fields, garages, alleyways.
“There,” I say, “by this big cottonwood,
That’s where I dropped the fly ball, 1959... | [
"S6",
"S7",
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] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d4c9d575c6f307e7 | To the Censorious Ones | Anne Waldman | (Jesse Helms & others...)
I'm coming up out of the tomb, Men of War Just when you thought you had me down, in place, hidden I'm coming up now Can you feel the ground rumble under your feet? It's breaking apart, it's turning over, it's pushing up It's thrusting into your point of view, your private property O Men of Wa... | [
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"S8"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
60ee103f897f7761 | Victims of the Latest Dance Craze | Cornelius Eady | The streamers choking the main arteries
Of downtown.
The brass band led by a child
From the home for the handicapped.
The old men
Showing their hair (what’s left of it),
The buttons of their shirts Popping in time
To the salsa flooding out
Of their portable headphones,
And mothers letting their babies
Be held... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
490b3d19394bf2bd | Vita Nova | Louise Glück | You saved me, you should remember me.
The spring of the year; young men buying tickets for the ferryboats.
Laughter, because the air is full of apple blossoms.
When I woke up, I realized I was capable of the same feeling.
I remember sounds like that from my childhood,
laughter for no cause, simply because the worl... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
eaccd2d655902277 | Love's Good-Morrow | Thomas Heywood | Pack, clouds away! and welcome day!
With night we banish sorrow;
Sweet air, blow soft, mount larks aloft
To give my love good-morrow!
Wings from the wind to please her mind,
Notes from the lark I’ll borrow;
Bird, prune thy wing, nightingale, sing,
To give my love good-morrow;
To give my love good-morrow;... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
a2db1149d5347aaf | Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness | John Donne | Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with thy choir of saints for evermore, I shall be made thy music; as I come I tune the instrument here at the door, And what I must do then, think here before. Whilst my physicians by their love are grown Cosmographers, and I their map, who... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
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"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
9a7b4bc6ff4a725d | Inside | Amy Uyematsu | based on photographs from Rural Japan:
Radiance of the Ordinary
/ afloat
two boats with no riders
still moving on water
the hulls barely touching
each with a single oar
safely propped
so it won’t fall
/ lotus leaves
close into themselves
at night
on their wide folded backs
water beads... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
06656238505af977 | from The Princess: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Home they brought her warrior dead: She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry: All her maidens, watching, said, "She must weep or she will die." Then they praised him, soft and low, Call'd him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden fr... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
055699dbd5e813aa | The Blessed Mother Complains to the Lord Her God on the Abundance of Brokenness She Receives | Mary Karr | Today I heard a rich and hungry boy verbatim quoteall last night’s infomercials — an anorectic sonwho bought with Daddy’s Amex black cardthe Bowflex machine and Abdomenizer,plus a steak knife that doth slicethe inner skin of his starving arms.Poor broken child of Eve myself,to me, the flightless fly,the listing, bl... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
cacbd4e14918afb0 | The Author to Her Book | Anne Bradstreet | Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain, Who after birth didst by my side remain, Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true, Who thee abroad, expos’d to publick view, Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judg). At thy return my blushing was not... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
de9a86df582cc9cd | Gravelly Run | A. R. Ammons | I don’t know somehow it seems sufficient
to see and hear whatever coming and going is,
losing the self to the victory
of stones and trees,
of bending sandpit lakes, crescent
round groves of dwarf pine:
for it is not so much to know the self
as to know it as it is known
by galaxy and cedar cone,
as if bir... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
c60bf020920c3a06 | From “Party” | Kinga Tóth | 1
finger family
father the most used
mother obscene
i lift her up
married sister
well fed brother
no common stem
2
bunker
show shoes
touch and stand
behind others
place hands
take them off
come right in
here is the cure
learning how to hide
from planes
helicopters
turning ships
falling to the groun... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
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"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
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