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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cf45057f5f3ca566 | The Harp | Bruce Weigl | When he was my age and I was already a boy
my father made a machine in the garage.
A wired piece of steel
with many small and beautiful welds
ground so smooth they resembled rows of pearls.
He went broke with whatever it was.
He held it so carefully in his arms.
He carried it foundry to foundry.
I think it was ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
1c2600d9151f4306 | February 11th 1990 | Wanda Coleman | —for Dennis Brutus
This year the leaves turn red green black
freedom colors each leaf
each stitch of grass. I am amazed
at my sweet harvest. The prison door has opened
and a nation’s heart is released. I am full
having spent my greediness in a ritual of joy. | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
74fa14ed2c3465c6 | Here Now | Samuel Menashe | Now and againI am here nowAnd now is whenI’m here again | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
e6bf04c8e7d668c7 | Crumbling is not an instant's Act (1010) | Emily Dickinson | Crumbling is not an instant's Act
A fundamental pause
Dilapidation's processes
Are organized Decays —
'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul
A Cuticle of Dust
A Borer in the Axis
An Elemental Rust —
Ruin is formal — Devil's work
Consecutive and slow —
Fail in an instant, no man did
Slipping — is Crashe's law — | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
fa866a0e6febc9e3 | For the Executive Director of the Fallen | Tom Sleigh | In memoriam Liam Rector
The little boy crying out Weenie Weenie in self-panicking delight, waving his little cock under the banner of the sun, seemed pure Blake, all anarchy and energy, an innocence unfrightened of itself that shook the lake's waters and unsettled the strained composures and appointed certainties of w... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8d3e3360973a3f5e | The Indoors is Endless | Tomas Tranströmer | It’s spring in 1827, Beethoven
hoists his death-mask and sails off.
The grindstones are turning in Europe’s windmills.
The wild geese are flying northwards.
Here is the north, here is Stockholm
swimming palaces and hovels.
The logs in the royal fireplace
collapse from Attention to At Ease.
Peace prevails, vacci... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S3-1",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Nature/Spring",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
a778fff2e733d275 | from Quatrains: Second Hundred | Patrizia Valduga | 107
I have always been the way I am
even when I wasn't the way I am
and none can ever know the way I am
because I am not merely the way I am
122
Him or someone else, what's it to me
if every time I'm lonely afterward?
Alone here with my moribility . . .
if there only were such a lovely word . . .
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging"
] |
46d503428ba11a1c | I’m thankful that my life doth not deceive | Henry David Thoreau | I’m thankful that my life doth not deceive
Itself with a low loftiness, half height,
And think it soars when still it dip its way
Beneath the clouds on noiseless pinion
Like the crow or owl, but it doth know
The full extent of all its trivialness,
Compared with the splendid heights above.
See how it waits to watch th... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
0415143a5672dd33 | A Dream | Edgar Allan Poe | In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed—
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream—that holy dream,
While all the worl... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
f81d30ea10e5ac21 | The Box Kite | William Logan | The lift, the very lift and pull of it!They’d wasted the summer morning,father and son in the devil’sbreath of July—gnats wheelingmadly above the drive—pasting Sunday comics across the struts, like the canvas skinof a Sopwith Camel. Into the close-gnawn yardwith its humpback boulder, they dragged it triumphantly, unree... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c375c64d2137e49a | Closings | Donald Hall | 1“Always Be Closing,” Liam told us—abc of real estate, used cars,and poetry. Liam the dandyloved Brooks Brothers shirts, double-breastedsuits, bespoke shoes, and linen jackets.On the day Liam and Tree marriedin our backyard, Liam and I woreChuck’s burgundy boho-prep high-topsthat Liam bought on Fifth Avenue. ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ee29840be99a22fc | Pulled Over in Short Hills, NJ, 8:00 AM | Ross Gay | It’s the shivering. When rage grows
hot as an army of red ants and forces
the mind to quiet the body, the quakes
emerge, sometimes just the knees,
but, at worst, through the hips, chest, neck
until, like a virus, slipping inside the lungs
and pulse, every ounce of strength tapped
to squeeze words from my taut li... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
9590006eaf6d70e1 | The Mortician in San Francisco | Randall Mann | This may sound queer,
but in 1985 I held the delicate hands
of Dan White:
I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk
was made monument—no, myth—by the years
since he was shot.
I remember when Harvey was shot:
twenty, and I knew I was queer.
Those were the years,
Levi’s and leather jackets holding hands
o... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S3-7",
"S6-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
1b8e1e945f156c24 | National Insecurity | Tomas Tranströmer | The Under Secretary leans forward and draws an X
and her ear-drops dangle like swords of Damocles.
As a mottled butterfly is invisible against the ground
so the demon merges with the opened newspaper.
A helmet worn by no one has taken power.
The mother-turtle flees flying under the water. | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
94ba08b3df1e8835 | Stop Sniffling! | Bruce Lansky | If you should have the sniffles,
you’d better blow your nose.
Because if you should go “Achoo!”
you’ll mess up all your clothes. | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
7e4ab0027d7526ba | Poem to the Detroit River | Terry Wolverton | Detroit – where the weak are killed and eaten.
– T-shirt slogan, circa 1990
. . . the 33 year old woman . . . leapt to her death . . .
from a crowded bridge that . . . connects Detroit . . . with its
famous island park, Belle Isle. She was trying to escape the
300-pound man whose car she had accidentally bumpe... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-1",
"S3-6",
"S3-11",
"S4-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
b6bdd90429b618bb | Eating Together | Li-Young Lee | In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to slee... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
b158df898dc02adf | Lines | Ina Coolbrith | On Hearing Kelley’s Music to ‘Macbeth’
O melody, what children strange are these From thy most vast, illimitable realm? These sounds that seize upon and overwhelm The soul with shuddering ecstasy! Lo! here The night is, and the deeds that make night fear; Wild winds and waters, and the sough of trees To... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
a4e2136f862d5dd6 | Mother to Son | Langston Hughes | Well, son, I’ll tell you:
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare.
But all the time
I’se been a-climbin’ on,
And reachin’ landin’s,
And turnin’ corners,
And sometimes goin’ in the dark
Where there ain’t be... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2c2d734b6fc49d1c | Apostrophe | Martha Serpas | See, now You are finally offstage where we can talk.
I can’t see through the drapes and pulleys, it’s too dark
for me to turn them into moss and oaks, too dark
for me to blink wooden risers into a bayou beautiful
in near collapse that once ran a monstrous river into the Gulf,
a scorched stew powerful only in suffi... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
97da7dbbd060308c | Thunder raining poison | Ali Cobby Eckermann | a whisper arrives. two thousand. two thousand or more. did you hear it? that bomb. the torture of red sand turning green the anguish of earth turned to glass did you hear it? two thousand. two thousand or more yams cremated inside the earth. poison trapped in glass like a museum. did you hear it? two thousand. two thou... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
e8f110db3dfd4ef3 | Something Childish, but Very Natural | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Written in Germany
If I had but two little wings
And were a little feathery bird,
To you I'd fly, my dear!
But thoughts like these are idle things,
And I stay here.
But in my sleep to you I fly:
I'm always with you in my sleep!
The world is all one's own.
But then one wakes, and where am I?... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
8177a5ed20c6b7c7 | Sonnets from the Portuguese 14: If thou must love me, let it be for nought | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way Of speaking gently, ... for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'— For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may Be ch... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
231900c5f0c6d9e0 | Itinerary | James McMichael | The farmhouses north of Driggs,
silos for miles along the road saying
BUTLER or SIOUX. The light saying
rain coming on, the wind not up yet,
animals waiting as the front hits
everything on the high fiats, hailstones
bouncing like rabbits under the sage.
Nothing running off. Creeks clear.
The river itself a shal... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S2-9",
"S9-7",
"S10-9",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
75d421c04005c43a | from Deaf Republic: 11 | Ilya Kaminsky | It is December 8 and my brother Tony was killed by the soldiers. December 8 and the police are reopening the Southern Trolleyways. December 8 when my wife lifts Tony’s body from the ground, his arm tied over her shoulder—her face is damp, her hair dirty. And the soldiers unveil the damn Trolleyways, and I stand feeling... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
4176ec094ecfd99b | Heard Said | James McMichael | I’m four
at the hospital I was born in.
From behind the nurse’s
white gown and mask:
I want you to count backward from
ten for me now
out loud.
*
My stepmother
with a stack of my father’s papers.
What do I
do with it,
Jimmie?
*
It was a beautiful suit of clothes,
very expensive.
I saw it han... | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
9a6e64ffbf7c91a0 | Good People | W. S. Merwin | From the kindness of my parents I suppose it was that I held that belief about suffering imagining that if only it could come to the attention of any person with normal feelings certainly anyone literate who might have gone to college they would comprehend pain when it went on before them and would ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
940f34b7840028f5 | One Kind of Hunger | Lehua M. Taitano | The Seneca carry stories in satchels.
They are made of pounded corn and a grandmother’s throat.
The right boy will approach the dampness of a forest with a sling, a modest twining wreath for the bodies of birds. A liquid eye.
When ruffed from leaves, the breath of flight is dissolute.
What else, the moment of w... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
67791d023172b185 | To have without holding | Marge Piercy | Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.
It hurts to love wide open
stretching ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
6e965ea32633084a | Happy Hour | Alan R. Shapiro | The gregarious dark is shifting
when she puts her second drink,
the free one, half on the coaster.
The tipped wine poised at the brim
is the beginning of the bad girl
she’ll promise never to be again
tomorrow, who can taunt him now
to prove he doesn’t love her
and never could: her hand slides
up his thigh unti... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1",
"S8-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
ce49d82674f1cf21 | The Time I’ve Lost in Wooing | Thomas Moore | The time I’ve lost in wooing, In watching and pursuing The light, that lies In woman’s eyes, Has been my heart’s undoing. Though Wisdom oft has sought me, I scorn’d the lore she brought me, My only books Were woman’s looks, And folly’s all they’ve taught me. Her smile when Beauty granted, I hung with gaze enchanted, Li... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
a65f2238c8a925e8 | The Way We Were Made | Marcus Wicker | But you made everydelicate, elegant wrist& glistening ankle.But you made thembeautifulin braided rope& dime store gold. But you made everynecklace clasp.But you made themcaress the napelike an errant windafter a shower. But you made everyeyelash erotic. Everysingle strand of hairsoft.But you made themfrom dust & bone.M... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
13b31be0e7739929 | From Imhotep's Kundalini | Yolanda Wisher | what thoughts I have of you tonight, Du Bois
of bodies rocked and minds embalmed in bark
our blanched arrival—seethin with scandal's mark
nowadays I peep you in the bean-pie seller's poise
with that silhouette fit for bust or cameo
I can't always divine your debonair birth
or your boocoo brain laborin like an ear... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
9c5bf4d693286c4a | Fra Lippo Lippi | Robert Browning | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
[Florentine painter, 1412-69]
I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.Zooks,Zooks! word of emphasis, from “Gadzooks”, as in “God’s hooks” – referring to the nails that held Christ to the Cross what's to blame? you think you se... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S10-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
8ea7c8680cd70cfb | Seventh Sphere (Saturn: The Contemplatives) | Sun Yung Shin | No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their dna from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind. | [
"S4"
] | [] | [
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
1b3a9539205cd749 | Adieu to Norman, Bon Jour to Joan and Jean-Paul | Frank O'Hara | It is 12:10 in New York and I am wondering
if I will finish this in time to meet Norman for lunch
ah lunch! I think I am going crazy
what with my terrible hangover and the weekend coming up
at excitement-prone Kenneth Koch's
I wish I were staying in town and working on my poems
at Joan's studio for a new book by ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-7",
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
4b294ab5c7ef2766 | mom and dad in a photo | Edmund Berrigan | a tiny blue metal race car grandma
gave to me when I was 32. There’s
an obelisk now in Skeleton Canyon.
Maybe you’re too close to the speaker.
Tell the Arthur Lee of Love confrontation
story. The tender does not approve of our
vulgarity. Double vocal for airports,
weekends and holidays. Numb grids
that represe... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b36c1465fca48261 | Men Say They Know Many Things | Henry David Thoreau | Men say they know many things;But lo! they have taken wings, —The arts and sciences,And a thousand appliances;The wind that blowsIs all that any body knows. | [
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
5c2b8bbe7e15cc28 | The Long Voyage | Malcolm Cowley | Not that the pines were darker there,
nor mid-May dogwood brighter there,
nor swifts more swift in summer air;
it was my own country,
having its thunderclap of spring,
its long midsummer ripening,
its corn hoar-stiff at harvesting,
almost like any country,
yet being mine; its face, its speech,
its hill... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-7",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c3a35f065dff825f | The Mare of Money | Roger Reeves | Another dead mare waits in the shoals of some body of water, waits to be burden, borne into a foaming ocean, where it might become food for whales, or, simply empty signifier—hair latched to the sea’s undulation like Absalom’s beauty caught in the playful branches of a tree desiring union, entanglem... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
6db9869eee572729 | The Truth | Ross Gay | Because he was 38, because this
was his second job, because
he had two daughters, because his hands
looked like my father's, because at 7
he would walk to the furniture warehouse,
unload trucks 'til 3 AM, because I
was fourteen and training him, because he made
$3.75 an hour, because he had a wife
to look in th... | [
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"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
c2c082d730ffb5ae | In a Daydream of Being the Big House Missus | Justin Phillip Reed | I rocked in a chair of charred Grand Dragon’s bones,
legs silent as molasses drooling from a cloud of linen.
My fat white maid in her potholder hat
did not watch me watch her sons
molt like dandelions in la-di-da noon
standing squarely on the blacks of their own shadows as they willed.
She crushed lemons in her b... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
180c0523e0a0fc36 | Trailer Park Études | Conor O'Callaghan | the stars
The nights midweek are secrets kept.
No soul on site, no signal/bars,
and zilch for company except
a zillion bright disarming stars.
I’ll flit through ambers, quicker, higher.
I’ll break each hamlet’s stop or yield.
I’ll fix some noodles, start a fire
and climb up to the topmost field.
The stars at f... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-4",
"S2-9",
"S2-10",
"S3-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
d7c373996e7b967e | How to Continue | John Ashbery | Oh there once was a woman
and she kept a shop
selling trinkets to tourists
not far from a dock
who came to see what life could be
far back on the island.
And it was always a party there
always different but very nice
New friends to give you advice
or fall in love with you which is nice
and each grew so perfec... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
2385ceb21fcf1ae9 | habitual | Nate Marshall | i be but i don’t is. i been & i
am one who be on my own biz. i love
not a b____. but see know i been loved. i’m
one who been that & then not deserved much
cuz i been on my own dirt. i don’t know
love. i been a lie but don’t be a lie
i be fly sometimes but don’t be a fly
sometimes i be addict-like but not high
l... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
ab6e47bcca66b1d3 | Getting the Child to Bed | Allen Grossman | Getting the child to bed is awful work,
Committing that rage to sleep that will not sleep.
The lie rots in my throat saying, “O.K.
There is balm in Gilead. Go to bed.
Honey of generation has betrayed us both.”
And truly it is no wild surmise of darkness
Nor Pisgah purview of Canaan drowned in blood
But only my c... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-6",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
4c23fedfe6264d0f | Yeast | Roddy Lumsden | A word you can’t quite saywithout itching, flinching; it’s not easyto ignore its squirming appetite, stayyour primal juddering. And yes, atnight, each microbe gurns in the salty seaof gut and gullet, born again, boldly eatsas you ate it, brews its own queasy teaof proto-raunch which it will quickly sate,birthing wander... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
e372b1bc0dd6b1b4 | An Extraordinary Morning | Philip Levine | Two young men—you just might call them boys—waiting for the Woodward streetcar to get | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
28ab805258b71549 | Lullaby for the Second Millennium | J. Allyn Rosser | From the point of view of all time,
these recent changes signal
more a return to nature
than a departure, than degradation.
In the beginning, after all,
there was boiling rock.
Then waters arranging their bodies
around an era of softer forms:
lichen, grassland, swaying treetops.
Then creatures, movingly fleshed,
treadi... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Weather"
] |
adb23cfebcd0ed5d | The Echo Elf Answers | Thomas Hardy | How much shall I love her?
For life, or not long?
“Not long.”
Alas! When forget her?
In years, or by June?
“By June.”
And whom woo I after?
No one, or a throng?
“A throng.”
Of these shall I wed one
Long hence, or quite soon?
“Quite soon.”
And which will my bride be?
The right... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
3cc794c23fa44d8b | Madonna and Child | Rafael Campo | By menopause, it’s not just estrogen
my mother lacks. She’s lost her eldest son—
that’s me, the one who’s queer—the doctor who
once made her very proud. These days, I do
my own wash when I’m home, I cook for her
so she can take a break from all the chores
she now refuses to assign to me.
She sits, half-watching ... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d2d8d5fbdd2508b5 | Poem [“This poem is not addressed to you”] | Donald Justice | This poem is not addressed to you.
You may come into it briefly,
But no one will find you here, no one.
You will have changed before the poem will.
Even while you sit there, unmovable,
You have begun to vanish. And it does not matter.
The poem will go on without you.
It has the spurious glamor of certain voids.
... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
6b6fe8037947e7c5 | We Wear the Mask | Paul Laurence Dunbar | We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the m... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
963ad90445d1eff5 | The Sound of One Fork | Minnie Bruce Pratt | Through the window screen I can see an angle of grey roof
and the silence that spreads in the branches of the pecan tree
as the sun goes down. I am waiting for a lover. I am alone
in a solitude that vibrates like the cicada in hot midmorning,
that waits like the lobed sassafras leaf just before
its dark green turn... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
945138fed24001ea | The World Below the Brine | Walt Whitman | The world below the brine, Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves, Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf, Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water, Dumb swimmers there among the rocks,... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
d4a2edac59cc7f81 | The Destruction of Sennacherib | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Li... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
39def8561a3c052d | The Wreck on the A-222 in Ravensbourne Valley | Jonathan Williams | There are more things to love
than we would dare to hope for.
—Richard of St. Victor
where the car hit him, fireweed sprang with
blazons of fennel
and umbels
of dill fell
through the spokes of a wheel
on Whistun holiday to the sun, Denton
Welch spun a web in his crushed cycle,
sat in the seat, spine curled ... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
fc96f08fc1acff2a | Sophia Nichols, | Robin Blaser | the wind hits and returns it is easy to personify
a new place and language, but the new body stings
these men with green eyelids, drawing their worth,
it was rumoured, from Egypt, knew
the work is part of it a power arrived at the
same thirst
he borrowed a head for a day
but which ... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
41b21203317e30f3 | North of Santa Monica | Carter Revard | It’s midnight in a drizzling fog
on Sunset Avenue and we are walking
through the scent of orange blossoms and past
a white camellia blown down or flung by someone
onto rainblack asphalt waiting
for the gray Mercedes sedan to run over
and smash its petals and leave us walking in
the smell of Diesel exhaust with
... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
8b1a1c10500de799 | In Memoriam | Léopold Sédar Senghor | Today is Sunday.I fear the crowd of my fellows with such faces of stone.From my glass tower filled with headaches and impatient Ancestors,I contemplate the roofs and hilltops in the mist.In the stillness—somber, naked chimneys.Below them my dead are asleep and my dreams turn to ashes.All my dreams, blood running freely... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
2022782f44ac7715 | An Irish Airman foresees his Death | William Butler Yeats | I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My country is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, no... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
2ae157b5793deaf8 | Memories of West Street and Lepke | Robert Lowell | Only teaching on Tuesdays, book-worming
in pajamas fresh from the washer each morning,
I hog a whole house on Boston’s
“hardly passionate Marlborough Street,”
where even the man
scavenging filth in the back alley trash cans,
has two children, a beach wagon, a helpmate,
and is a “young Republican.”
I have a nine... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-6",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
702bc1e385800644 | The Eemis Stane | Hugh MacDiarmid | I’ the how-dumb-deid o’ the cauld hairst nicht
The warl’ like an eemis stane
Wags i’ the lift;
An’ my eerie memories fa’
Like a yowdendrift.
Like a yowdendrift so’s I couldna read
The words cut oot i’ the stane
Had the fug o’ fame
An’ history’s hazelraw
No’ yirdit thaim. | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
87ac8f637fe5c8c6 | The Asians Dying | W. S. Merwin | When the forests have been destroyed their darkness remains
The ash the great walker follows the possessors
Forever
Nothing they will come to is real
Nor for long
Over the watercourses
Like ducks in the time of the ducks
The ghosts of the villages trail in the sky
Making a new twilight
Rain falls into the open... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
052674656eb2e679 | Disgraceland | Mary Karr | Before my first communion, I clung to doubt
as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden
for a wormhole into paradise.
God had formed me from gel in my mother’s womb,
injected by my dad’s smart shoot.
They swapped sighs until
I came, smaller than a bite of burger.... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
5c96b94264e3b422 | In the Mushroom Summer | David Mason | Colorado turns Kyoto in a shower, mist in the pines so thick the crows delight (or seem to), winging in obscurity. The ineffectual panic of a squirrel who chattered at my passing gave me pause to watch his Ponderosa come and go— long needles scratching cloud. I’d summited but knew it only by the wildflower meadow, the ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
0cc1225656fe8384 | Drinking under the Moon She Goes Laughing: | Margo Tamez | When the end was near
He threatened hands tremblingThere is no end never his hands reaching to my faceYou can’t leave taking off his shirt going for his pants
The trickle of sweat beading off his nose
Moon-orb spray metallic shimmer slicklove
Tripping numb night shadows
Crows perched on a streetl... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
4e4707207a5ac2c6 | Three Women | Olivia Maciel | Three women survive.
One hides in a bedroom of a house,
sharpening blades in the bathroom, her night.
Another disinfects the cloth her older sister contaminates.
The third, more tender and insecure, proud and serene,
takes her first steps,
surrounded by palm trees, lemon trees, pomegranate trees,
... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
505eae7cadd8e649 | An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations | Simon Armitage | Compiling this landmark anthology of poetry in English about dogs and musical instruments is like swimming through bricks. To date, I have only, “On the Death of Mrs. McTuesday’s Pug, Killed by a Falling Piano,” a somewhat obvious choice. True, an Aeolian harp whispers alluringly in the background of the anonymous s... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
fec84538018a4d9d | Counterman | Paul Violi | What’ll it be?
Roast beef on rye, with tomato and mayo.
Whaddaya want on it?
A swipe of mayo.
Pepper but no salt.
You got it. Roast beef on rye.
You want lettuce on that?
No. Just tomato and mayo.
Tomato and mayo. You got it.
…Salt and pepper?
No salt, just a little pepper.
You got it. No salt.
You want tom... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
a5768a0b14d1f5ab | Backdrop addresses cowboy | Margaret Atwood | Starspangled cowboy
sauntering out of the almost-
silly West, on your face
a porcelain grin,
tugging a papier-mâché cactus
on wheels behind you with a string,
you are innocent as a bathtub
full of bullets.
Your righteous eyes, your laconic
trigger-fingers
people the streets with villains:
as you move, the ai... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
98f9c6408c21dff2 | In What Sense I Am I | Carl Rakosi | In what sense
I am I
a minor observer
as in a dream
absorbed in the interior,
a beardless youth
unaccountably
remote yet present
at the action
reminding me faintly
... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
83ba1fd4ca5b75bf | Night Heron Maybe | Fred Marchant | I woke to more rain, and felt in the dark
for how wet the sill was, then rolled back
to my radio, and a midnight preacher
in my earphone teaching about sin.
I learned that punishment would come
like lightning that surprises an innocent shore.
Thunder would follow me all my days,
stern reminder and sharp rebuke.
... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-10",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
504d4ad97fcabf4a | The Unauthorized Autobiography of Jung Thug | Cortney Lamar Charleston | The fools nearly killed me trying to make me one of them:
a loaded word of bond with dress codes and penal codes,
postured allegiant to the culture as with the flying of flags
from knots tied on the back of head wraps worn hoods over.
I can’t gunpoint when the life of this alter ego began though
the possibility ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S8-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
430f729edaa26d57 | The Hypno-Domme Speaks, and Speaks and Speaks | Patricia Lockwood | I was born as a woman, I talk you to death, or else your ear off,or else you to sleep. What do I have, all the timein the world, and a voice that swings brass backand forth, you can hear it, and a focal point wheremy face should be. What do I have, I have absolutepower,... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
d8c12add41c3d34b | Ashes of Life | Edna St. Vincent Millay | Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, — and would that night were here!
But ah! — to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! — with twilight near!
Love has gone and left me and I don't know what to do;
This or that or what you wil... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-8",
"S6-5",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
ae2c3b24958b4a87 | The Years | Wendy Xu | Such were they, a dumb stuffed thing
to say, if truth is we all grow old un-
observed, limbs flail only halfway up
a flight, where does dark begin settling
my little bones. I dream and do love
to have them, blue fish
in a lake, my head more tipped up than down
under damp earth. Some days others like deer
from t... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
aa084e1784c7f4db | In the Cold Country | Barbara Howes | We came so trustingly, for love, but these
Lowlands, flatlands, near beneath the sea
Point with their cautionary bones of sand
To exorcize, submerge us; we stay free
Only as mermaids glittering in the waves:
Mermaids of the imagination, young
A spring ago, who know our loveliness
Banished, like fireflies at wint... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-10",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
1667ec69362ffbae | Blood Soup | Mary Ruefle | The last time I saw father alive he was using
a black umbrella, closed, to beat off some pigeons
hanging outside the marble portals of a museum.
We were visitors, walking very slowly, so father
could stoop and examine everything. We had not been
in the museum, but were resting on its steps.
We saw it all—the foun... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
10029d8790643c95 | Astrophil and Stella 102: Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes? | Sir Philip Sidney | Where be the roses gone, which sweetened so our eyes? Where those red cheeks, which oft with fair increase did frame The height of honor in the kindly badge of shame? Who hath the crimson weeds stolen from my morning skies? How doth the color vade of those vermilion dyes, Which Nature's self did make, and s... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
0f9ef7701f19efde | Arrow Breaking Apart | Jason Shinder | While lovers sleep, I dig my nails into the earth,
holding up traffic. Just now a cloud has pulled up
while I was talking to the Emptiness
of the Universe and my voice plugged into the waves
at the bottom of the ocean.
My heart is taped up like a child’s drawing
of the moon over the broken window of the sky
wher... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
d1f9f6ce808b8910 | Aubade | Philip Larkin | I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what’s really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: ... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e3c5d495acbf7ff8 | Sunday Brunch at the Old Country Buffet | Anne Caston | Madison, Wisconsin, 1996
Here is a genial congregation, well fed and rosy with health and appetite, robust children in tow. They have come and all the generations of them, to be fed, their old ones too who are eligible now for a small discount, having lived to a ripe age. Over the heaped and steaming plates, one by on... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
436f4f537294ec7c | Weighing Light | Geoffrey Brock | Often the slightest gesture is most telling,
As when he reaches tenderly in passing
To pluck the yellow leaf from the dark fall
Of her hair, or even the absence of all gesture:
The way she doesn’t need to turn to know
Who, in this gathering of friends, has touched her.
It was as if he dreamed some private garden.... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
ccf7dc056cd9853b | Bedtime Story #1 | Sjohnna McCray | —Seoul, Korea 1971
Father gave her a little extra. How could she not
fall for him? He was handsome
but still a boy. In the depot where soldiers
took such women, his skinny body clung
too close to hers and his narrow ass still
belonged to his mother. The other men
knew the routine an... | [
"S1",
"S3"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
4beb3c47bbf76780 | Dog Music | Paul Zimmer | Amongst dogs are listeners and singers.
My big dog sang with me so purely,
puckering her ruffled lips into an O,
beginning with small, swallowing sounds
like Coltrane musing, then rising to power
and resonance, gulping air to continue—
her passion and sense of flawless form—
singing not with me, but for the art ... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
d28e9db7056497eb | One in Three or Four | Karenne Wood | There are too many of us for youto believe you are either alone or responsible. No woman asks for this. Some are children. Some areboys. Every one of us should havebeen heard. This is for Anna, age 17,who was then beaten and left to die;for Nathan, who at 11 admired the basketball coach; for Rosaline, whosees in her ba... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
73e07001808931ff | A Youth Mowing | D. H. Lawrence | There are four men mowing down by the Isar; I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I Am sorry for what's in store. The first man out of the four that's mowing Is mine, I claim him once and for all; Though it's sorry I am, on his young feet, knowing None of the trouble he's led to... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S8-6",
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
4f1797323d209d04 | On Beauty | Beth Bachmann | Where there’s blood, there are birds.
After the war, many of the men’s faces are missing parts: an eye, a nose, a mouth.
One doctor uses a man’s own rib to construct a new jaw.
They call him the-man-who-fixes-faces.
A body might stay whole in the trench, but who can resist looking up, sometimes, at the birds?
You ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-9",
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ab28f04ff499aa8c | Heart | Rick Campbell | My heart was suspect. Wired to an EKG, I walked a treadmill that measured my ebb and flow, tracked isotopes that ploughed my veins, looked for a constancy I’ve hardly ever found. For a month I worried as I climbed the stairs to my office. The mortality I never believed in was here now. They say my heart’... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
b308015b7f8fe994 | Marco Polo at Finisterre | Matthew Brenneman | For R. L. B.
For all the far-flung continents he'd crossed,
Revealing lands they found beyond belief;
For all the roads that lay behind him, lost
In caverns of some atavistic grief
He'd carried with him since he was a boy;
For all the years, he should be weary now.
How then could he explain this welling joy,
A old man... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d8971ba43c257e03 | Thinking about the Enemy | J. P. White | In the beginning we could hear their swords cutting jewels
From the protected orchard while our children heard fine teeth
Dragging along empty granary floors. Between us and them
Stands the great wound, swallowing all tears, all voices.
Transfixed or transformed by this pain? We never know because
Who can slip through ... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
181f789ae3ee930f | OVERNIGHT GUEST | Ruth Stone | Waiting for your ride in front of the house
where you spent the night,
where, as a third ear
during their endless intimate,
important, and kinky phone calls,
you pretended to rinse glassware;
you were a dog from the pound,
grateful, sniffing the upholstery.
Later, lying in the center of their
king-sized bed, a... | [
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Relationships"
] | [] |
882ae0db17a733e7 | A Story About Chicken Soup | Louis Simpson | In my grandmother’s house there was always chicken soup
And talk of the old country—mud and boards,
Poverty,
The snow falling down the necks of lovers.
Now and then, out of her savings
She sent them a dowry. Imagine
The rice-powdered faces!
And the smell of the bride, like chicken soup.
But the Germans killed t... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
6b9d352d37bd0d6a | Eating the Avocado | Carrie Fountain | Now I know that I’ve never described
anything, not one single thing, not
the flesh of the avocado which darkens
so quickly, though if you scrape
what’s been exposed to the air it’s new-green
beneath like nothing ever happened.
I want to describe this evening, though
it’s not spectacular. The baby babbling
in th... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
41b4aadd6f00a268 | January 6 | Vicki Hearne | We must stop bragging. There are limits
For us to the cold and the twelfth night
Marks them all. Just off the coast of Maine
The lobster boats pass, dragging their nets.
Capsize once in a while, in water
Like that you die, that’s all, that water
Isn’t even frozen. Not even
Frozen, and that’s as cold as it gets.
... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S8-5",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
ca1f50a8607a2c9c | Meditations in an Emergency | Frank O'Hara | Am I to become profligate as if I were a blonde? Or religious as if I were French?
Each time my heart is broken it makes me feel more adventurous (and how the same names keep recurring on that interminable list!), but one of these days there’ll be nothing left with which to venture forth.
Why shou... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-1",
"S8-1",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
5632602574894bbe | Memorial Day | Michael Anania | It is easily forgotten, year to
year, exactly where the plot is,
though the place is entirely familiar—
a willow tree by a curving roadway
sweeping black asphalt with tender leaves;
damp grass strewn with flower boxes,
canvas chairs, darkskinned old ladies
circling in draped black crepe family stones,
fingers c... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5a6c8fa3fcbb214c | Maple Syrup | Donald Hall | August, goldenrod blowing. We walk
into the graveyard, to find
my grandfather’s grave. Ten years ago
I came here last, bringing
marigolds from the round garden
outside the kitchen.
I didn’t know you then.
We walk
among carved names that go with photographs
on top of the piano ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
20d856c3e4cd90ba | CXIV | Sonnet L'Abbé | I’m not sure whether it happened in Manitoba or Alberta: go home, they complained, go back, wherever pakis or niggers come from. Was
I seven years old? Was I five? The day was cloudy; there was wind, and a sidewalk underfoot — a path of cement on which we kids marched. In whose place was I a guest, if home wasn’t this... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-3",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
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