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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4129b6805a7015e4 | Held in the Arms of St. Francis & the Virgin | Jasmine Gibson | It tastes like all my night
when I'm at the bottom of the borough
sheets burn around me
through the night
Consecrate me
Consecrate me
Conserve me lover
In the sills of your love
in the cells of your palms
from the womb to cell
break me from the belly of ship
let me crash upon you
Consecrate me my lover in y... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
00fb79a2cd1bbb5e | If a Garden of Numbers | Cole Swensen | If a garden is the world counted
and found analogue in nature
One does not become two by ever ending
so the stairs must be uneven in number
and not exceed
thirteen without a pause
... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
a3a4ca44ab3d7286 | Hydrangea Agenda | Don Mee Choi | Beauty=Nation
Ugly=Nation
Ladies Garden in Progress
The American Visitors
The New American Word
The Beauty of Publicity
Mother’s Mop Head
Ring spots
Sway Me
Yes, Ma’am
Gossamer=Blouse
Yankee=Blouse
Yes, Ma’am
Sway Me
Father, nice to see you
Major, it’s been a hell of a ride
General M & General H
Mother... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
64b8a6d8ed76c59d | The Despairing Man Draws a Serpent | Pablo Antonio Cuadra | I went up the hill At moonrise. She swore that she would come By the south way. A dusky hawk Caught up the path In his talons. | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
0585e615479a9b56 | To Be Worn Openly at the Wrist, or at the Chest and Hidden | Carl Phillips | If I believed in a god, he would be a sea god, like the sea
in its predictability—now approach, now recede—beneath
such a god I would not mind, I think, being the shore, say of the sea
what you will, it’s the shore that endures the routine loss
without which what strategies would there be for softening
the hollown... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-6",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
7b0459004c7b2f72 | The Song of the Feet | Nikki Giovanni | It is appropriate that I sing
The song of the feet
The weight of the body
And what the body chooses to bear
Fall on me
I trampled the American wilderness
Forged frontier trails
Outran the mob in Tulsa
Got caught in Philadelphia
And am still unreparated
I soldiered on in Korea
Jungled through Vietman sweated ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
025bb6e3dc50ed6c | Psalm 150 | Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke | Oh, laud the Lord, the God of hosts commend, Exalt his pow’r, advance his holiness: With all your might lift his almightiness; Your greatest praise upon his greatness spend. Make trumpet’s noise in shrillest notes ascend; Make lute and lyre his loved fame express; Him let the pipe, him let... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
4e7e3c2c4e57f943 | On the Departure of Sir Walter Scott from Abbotsford, for Naples | William Wordsworth | A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain,Nor of the setting sun's pathetic lightEngendered, hangs o'er Eildon's triple height:Spirits of Power, assembled there, complainFor kindred Power departing from their sight;While Tweed, best pleased in chanting a blithe strain,Saddens his voice again, and yet again.Lift up your... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
5dfb0b52c60168eb | The Phantom Horsewoman | Thomas Hardy | I
Queer are the ways of a man I know:
He comes and stands
In a careworn craze,
And looks at the sands
And the seaward haze
With moveless hands
And face and gaze,
Then turns to go...
And what does he see when he gazes so?
II
They say h... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
04c4a0ff9cb5cddc | Among the Rocks | Robert Browning | Oh, good gigantic smile o’ the brown old earth,
This autumn morning! How he sets his bones
To bask i’ the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet
For the ripple to run over in its mirth;
Listening the while, where on the heap of stones
The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet.
That is the doctrine, simple, a... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
a45352ae145a800a | Human Cylinders | Mina Loy | The human cylinders
Revolving in the enervating dusk
That wraps each closer in the mystery
Of singularity
Among the litter of a sunless afternoon
Having eaten without tasting
Talked without communion
And at least two of us
Loved a very little
Without seeking
To know if our two miseries
In the lucid rush-toge... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
0bc4ed7503d4bf4e | Something Something Something Grand | Sandra Lim | I adore you: you’re a harrowing event.
I like you very ugly, condensed to one
deep green pang. You cannot ask the simplest
question, your hold is all clutch and sinker.
Cannibal old me,
with my heart up my throat, blasting on all sides
with my hundred red states. ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
32bfceae0f57bbb8 | Boundary Issues | John Ashbery | Here in life, they would understand. How could it be otherwise? We had groped too, unwise, till the margin began to give way, at which point all was sullen, or lost, or both. Now it was time, and there was nothing for it. We had a good meal, I and my friend, slurping from the milk pail, grabbing at newer ve... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b83cdf17680104b7 | where our protest sound | Lenelle Moïse | jazz is underwater
vodou atlantis mute
aborted ultrasound
fetal fish in flood
haiti's first cousin
forcibly kissed
by a hurricane called
katrina. hot winds
come one fat
tuesday.
old levee leak
explodes. fixing funds gone
to homeland
security. soldiers
stationed in iraq. said,
jazz is underwater
days lik... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
89bbb0e373b243c2 | The Rescue | Robert Creeley | The man sits in a timelessness
with the horse under him in time
to a movement of legs and hooves
upon a timeless sand.
Distance comes in from the foreground
present in the picture as time
he reads outward from
and comes from that beginning.
A wind blows in
and out and all about the man
as the horse ran
and r... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
55a83507c692bd0e | Making Enchiladas | Linda Rodriguez | We set up an assembly line.
I heat the tortillas in manteca
after Crystal dips them in chile ancho
and drains them. Niles carries full plates
of hot tortillas to his father,
who rolls them around spoonfuls of filling.
When we’ve finished the hot, greasy work,
I pour the last of the sauce over neat rows
of stuff... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-7",
"S8-1",
"S8-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
11899055633a60d7 | Rapproachement | Sarah Gambito | The art of war teaches us to rely not on the chance of the enemy not attacking but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.
—Sun Tzu
My father called me a chink
so I’d know how to receive it.
So I wouldn’t be surprised.
Therefore the good soldier will be terrible in his onset and ... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
e54e53d91e55cfee | Zwijgen | Saskia Hamilton | I slept before a wall of books and theycalmed everything in the room, eventheir contents, even me, wokenby the cold and thrill, and stillthey said, like the Dutch verb for falling silent that English has no accommodation forin the attics and rafters of its intimacies. | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
97d68786278cd881 | Etching of the Plague Years | Mary Karr | In the valley of your art history book,
the corpses stack in the back of a cart
drawn by an ox whose rolling shoulder muscles
show its considerable weight.
He does this often. His velvet nostrils
flare to indicate the stench.
It’s the smell you catch after class
while descending a urine-soaked
subway stair on a... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
cd6db29a8a94bf93 | A Plague of Poets | C. D. Wright | A question posed to Flannery O'Connor, as to whether writing programs stifled writers, drew the famous, tart rejoinder that in her opinion they didn't stifle nearly enough.
Even if, as it is often said, there are too many of us—poets, that is—that the field is too crowded (as opposed to too many hedge-fund managers or... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
43f96925282caca1 | Sympathy | Paul Laurence Dunbar | I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
a5ae1f9d41d7d1a0 | Song | Mark Defoe | I make the drive, walk the corporate walk,
To do what I must and give what I got.
I turn the chrome knob and I fill my slot.
I talk and I joke, a regular guy
I input and output and rarely ask why.
It's pasta and wine at home in my flat.
It's voice mail and e-mail, then feed the stray cat.
Sometimes I go out and chat up... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
09cc76beafa1facb | Choice | J. V. Cunningham | Allegiance is assigned
Forever when the mind
Chooses and stamps the will.
Thus, I must love you still
Through good and ill.
But though we cannot part
We may retract the heart
And build such privacies
As self-regard agrees
Conduce to ease.
So manners will repair
The ravage of despair
Which generous love invi... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
353efbb6b4c8563a | Tuning | Diane Glancy | It was a life of exile under the trees.
My father came to the stockyards.
My mother from a farm.
In 1952 or 2 my parents flew from Kansas City to Indianapolis
to look for a house when my father was transferred.
I think of them far above me
small as birds when they flew,
and the earth to them was a sandbox in our... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d8b5e803d8517dd9 | St. Agnes' Eve | Kenneth Fearing | The dramatis personae include a fly-specked Monday evening,
A cigar store with stagnant windows,
Two crooked streets,
Six policemen and Louie Glatz.
Bass drums mumble and mutter an ominous portent
As Louie Glatz holds up the cigar store and backs out with
$14.92.
Officer Dolan noticed something suspi... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
3f7429348f82a9d0 | Hoodlum Birds | Eugene Gloria | The fearless blackbirds see me again
at the footpath beside the tall grasses
sprouting like unruly morning hair.
They caw and caw like vulgar boys
on street corners making love to girls
with their “hey mama
this” and their “hey mama that.”
But this gang of birds is much too slick.
They are my homeys of the air
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
af63bfb1fccb408f | To Althea, from Prison | Richard Lovelace | When Love with unconfinèd wings
Hovers within my Gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the Grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fettered to her eye,
The Gods that wanton in the Air,
Know no such Liberty.
When flowing Cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with Ros... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S3-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
ebd11782a8716c88 | From “Case Comparison” | Patrick Durgin | How do I compare the costs
Of leaving one system
Of cooperation
For another
System of cooperation?
How do I loosen the tongue
Enough to inhabit
The temple incognito?
What are the people to me
Until I condense my hesitations
And drink in stillness with
The rest of us, slightly drunk
But pacing moderately
Ar... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-6",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
944bc1d5a1a6a02e | I Shall not Care | Sara Teasdale | When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Tho' you should lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.
I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough,
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
588039d176b2f15c | Lines for Winter | Dave Lucas | Poor muse, north wind, or any god who blusters bleak across the lake and sows the earth earth-deep with ice. A hoar of fur stung across the vines: here the leaves in full flush, here abandoned to four and farther winds. Bless us, any god who crabs the apples and seeds the leaf and needle evergreen. What... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter"
] |
21ed401f3ef3b926 | The Sign-Post | Edward Thomas | The dim sea glints chill. The white sun is shy,And the skeleton weeds and the never-dry,Rough, long grasses keep white with frostAt the hilltop by the finger-post;The smoke of the traveller’s-joy is puffedOver hawthorn berry and hazel tuft.I read the sign. Which way shall I go?A voice says: You would not have doubted s... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e376592490092459 | The Grass | Jeffrey Yang | Bouteloua blackgrama grass red
chino side-
oats blue grama grasshairy buffalo-grass toboso three-awn
land’s dawn 旦 sun
over sand, tumble
wind-mill witch- cup- saltgrass
plains love- indiangrass, prairie
cordgrass, pink pappusgrass, sprangle-top green knotrootbristle, bluestem, tangle-
head, sacaton
paniclesope... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
6933a9a1c3b7bd26 | Friendly Stripes | Elaine Equi | are all that’s left of Gray’s Papaya on 8th St. | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
0168a1792e456edb | When She Wouldn’t | Wesley McNair | When her recorded voice on the phone said who she was again and again to the piles of newspapers and magazines and the clothes in the chairs and the bags of unopened mail and garbage and piles of unwashed dishes.When she could no longer walk through the stench of it, in her don’t-need-nobody-to-help-me way of walking, ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
5d584da8622b0f07 | [The wild and wavy event] | Lorine Niedecker | The wild and wavy event
now chintz at the window
was revolution . . .
Adams
to Miss Abigail Smith:
You have faults
You hang your head down
like a bulrush
you read, you write, you think
but I drink Madeira
to you
and you cross your Leggs
while sitting.
(Later:)
How are the children?
If in danger run to th... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
9730cef5eb71d24e | The sun changed colors | Marjorie Agosín | The sun changed colors
The moon enamored even the most elderly,
The tomatoes blushed with joy upon seeing you pass by. | [
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Relationships"
] | [] |
6667667b9bc92e20 | Ash Wednesday | Louis Untermeyer | (Vienna)
I
Shut out the light or let it filter through
These frowning aisles as penitentially
As though it walked in sackcloth. Let it be
Laid at the feet of all that ever grew
Twisted and false, like this rococo shrine
Where cupids smirk from candy clouds and where
The Lord, with polished nails and perfumed ha... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
347bd2cd83137009 | Ode on the Poetical Character | William Collins | I As once, if not with light regard I read aright that gifted bard (Him whose school above the rest His loveliest Elfin Queen has blest), One, only one unrivaled fair Might hope the magic girdle wear, At solemn tourney hung on high, The wish of each love-darting eye; Lo! to each other nymph in turn applied, As if, ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
31f79333f3db80bc | Slavery | Hannah More | If Heaven has into being deigned to call
Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all;
Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray
To earth distribute only partial day?
Since no resisting cause from spirit flows
Thy universal presence to oppose;
No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed,
Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
Not ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
9648b8ff86826058 | from A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle | Hugh MacDiarmid | The function, as it seems to me,
O’ Poetry is to bring to be
At lang, lang last that unity ...
But wae’s me on the weary wheel!
Higgledy-piggledy in’t we reel,
And little it cares hoo we may feel.
Twenty-six thoosand years ’t’ll tak’
For it to threid the Zodiac
—A single roond o’ the wheel to mak’!
Lately it t... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
9f9d5b3c159e1025 | To Kill a Deer | Carol Frost | Into the changes of autumn brush
the doe walked, and the hide, head, and ears
were the tinsel browns. They made her.
I could not see her. She reappeared, stuffed with apples,
and I shot her. Into the pines she ran,
and I ran after. I might have lost her,
seeing no sign of blood or scuffle,
but felt myself part o... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
24a889d0d59e6696 | Banana Palace | Dana Levin | I want you to knowhow it felt to hold it,
deep in the well of my eye. You, future person: star of one of mycomplicated dooms — This one’s called Back to the Dark.Scene 1: Death stampedes through the server-cities.Somehow we all end up living in caves, foraging in civic ruin.Banana Palace — the last
of the last of my... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
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"S9"
] | [
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d95b439a2bd236c3 | Hendecasyllabics | Algernon Charles Swinburne | In the month of the long decline of roses I, beholding the summer dead before me, Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent, Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions Half divided the eyelids of the sunset; Till I heard as it were a noise of waters Moving tremulous under feet... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
d8c17ef92c87d2aa | Harold's Chicken Shack #1 | Nate Marshall | i was born by a lake, chicken shack,
& a church
— Common, “The Morning”
1st defense against food deserts.
when the whitefolk wouldn't sling
us burgers you gave no fuck.
stuck your golden-ringed hand
into the flour & fixed the bird.
you 1st example... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
5535f6b3cd3b81bd | Margaret | Spencer Reece | I remember she rented a room on the second floor from Jenny Holtzerman, an Austrian widow. The two women lived on Girard Avenue South, in Kenwood, an elegant suburb of Minneapolis. Any promise of husbands had disappeared long ago. From the kitchen I often remember the jelly smell of a linzer torte. I was in high school... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
e15cb5d4467a1b57 | Night of Battle | Yvor Winters | Europe: 1944
as regarded from a great distance
Impersonal the aim
Where giant movements tend;
Each man appears the same;
Friend vanishes from friend.
In the long path of lead
That changes place like light
No shape of hand or head
Means anything tonight.
Only the common will
For which explosion spoke;
And st... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
c3a6e910af8e9c66 | Bilingual/Bilingüe | Rhina P. Espaillat | My father liked them separate, one there,
one here (allá y aquí), as if aware
that words might cut in two his daughter’s heart
(el corazón) and lock the alien part
to what he was—his memory, his name
(su nombre)—with a key he could not claim.
“English outside this door, Spanish inside,”
he said, “y basta.” But w... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
bbdc68046a462bea | ['Joy of my life, full oft for loving you'] | Edmund Spenser | Joy of my life, full oft for loving you I bless my lot, that was so lucky placed: But then the more your own mishap I rue, That are so much by so mean love embased.For had the equal heavens so much you graced In this as in the rest, ye might invent Some heavenly wit, whose verse could have enchased Yo... | [
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"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
5583d669a3df4a5e | lucky number 7 (or indications that I’d be a lesbian) | T'ai Freedom Ford | when i was 7, i hoped rocks would whisper
the secret to being hard. fascinated by Keisha’s skin
so soft, i seduced her into humping even though she
was five years my senior and my babysitter—click of the light
covers snatched away like a magic trick reveal
i could hear Keisha wail one floor up
through the radiato... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
7d902d34eb28a21a | My Father | Peter Oresick | My father was four years in the war,
and afterward, according to my mother,
had nothing to say. She says he trembled
in his sleep the next four years.
My father was twice the father of sons
miscarried, and afterward said nothing.
My mother keeps this silence also.
Four times my father was on strike,
and accordi... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d028510f9b8644eb | My House is the Red Earth | Joy Harjo | My house is the red earth; it could be the center of the world. I’ve heard New York, Paris, or Tokyo called the center of the world, but I say it is magnificently humble. You could drive by and miss it. Radio waves can obscure it. Words cannot construct it, for there are some sounds left to sacred wordless form. For in... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
07d354fb23006c92 | Song of the Round Man | Michael Palmer | (for Sarah when she’s older)
The round and sad-eyed man puffed cigars as if
he were alive. Gillyflowers
to the left of the apple, purple bells to the right
and a grass-covered hill behind.
I am sad today said the sad-eyed man
for I have locked my head in a Japanese box
and lost the key.
I am sad today he told m... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
904ecc00935f2b2b | Host | Jericho Brown | We want pictures of everythingBelow your waist, and we wantPictures of your waist. We can'tTalk right now, but we will text youInto coitus. All thumbs. All biCoastal and discreet and masculineAnd muscular. No whites. EveryBody a top. We got a careerTo think about. No face. We gotKids to remember. No one over 29.No one ... | [
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"S8"
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"S1-1",
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
dba9d9e6a6e275a7 | Madam’s Past History | Langston Hughes | My name is Johnson—
Madam Alberta K.
The Madam stands for business.
I’m smart that way.
I had a
HAIR-DRESSING PARLOR
Before
The depression put
The prices lower.
Then I had a
BARBECUE STAND
Till I got mixed up
With a no-good man.
Cause I had a insurance
The WPA
Said, We can’t use you
Wealthy that way.
I... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-8",
"S4-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
2ff21f6cd7d40480 | The Cloister | William Matthews | The last light of a July evening drained
into the streets below: My love and I had hard
things to say and hear, and we sat over
wine, faltering, picking our words carefully.
The afternoon before I had lain across
my bed and my cat leapt up to lie
alongside me, purring and slowly
growing dozy. By this ritual I co... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
6d7cdbef4059d94f | Bronzed | Dean Young | That dusty bubble gum, once ubiquitous as starlings, is no more, my love. Whistling dinosaurs now populate only animation studios, the furious actions of angels causing their breasts to flop out in mannerist frescos flake away as sleet holds us in its teeth. And the bus-station's old urinals go under the grindsto... | [
"S1",
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"S9"
] | [
"S1-8",
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"Love",
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"Time & Brevity",
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"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Classic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
fa6877866ec1cce3 | Decline | Joshua Edwards | It is not pain that holds me back, but time
With its sad prefigurations and smell,
Its flowers and echoes, rivers and crime.
Even now, without a future, I tell
Myself lies in future tense. As my hair
Thins, I collect combs. When clocks chime, I groan.
The falling world finds pleasure in despair
Because to suf... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
779c8ddc65df2e86 | Two Aunts | Thomas James | When I feel the old hunger coming on,
I think of my two great-aunts,
A farmer’s daughters,
Speaking into the dusk in North Dakota.
I imagine the dark baron
Riding out of their mouths,
Thick-skinned and girded
Against disaster, swathed
In cuirass and chainmail and a curse.
My hunger was theirs
Too long ago. It... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
8fad75d67ac8db9a | The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants | Paul Muldoon | At four in the morning he wakes
to the yawn of brakes,
the snore of a diesel engine.
Gone. All she left
is a froth of bra and panties.
The scum of the Seine
and the Farset.
Gallogly squats in his own pelt.
A sodium street light
has brought a new dimension
to their black taxi.
By the time they force an entry
... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
cc4a2d3913919095 | At the Vietnam Memorial | George Bilgere | The last time I saw Paul Castle
it was printed in gold on the wall
above the showers in the boys’
locker room, next to the school
record for the mile. I don’t recall
his time, but the year was 1968
and I can look across the infield
of memory to see him on the track,
legs flashing, body bending slightly
beyond ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b226cc421875a63d | Bereavement | William Lisle Bowles | Whose was that gentle voice, that, whispering sweet, Promised methought long days of bliss sincere! Soothing it stole on my deluded ear, Most like soft music, that might sometimes cheat Thoughts dark and drooping! ’Twas the voice of Hope. Of love and social scenes, it seemed to speak, Of truth, ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
c569ef114822704a | The End of Summer | Rachel Hadas | Sweet smell of phlox drifting across the lawn—
an early warning of the end of summer.
August is fading fast, and by September
the little purple flowers will all be gone.
Season, project, and vacation done.
One more year in everybody’s life.
Add a notch to the old hunting knife
Time keeps testing with a horny thu... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-8",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
106604eabe822e5f | Cozy Apologia | Rita Dove | For Fred
I could pick anything and think of you— This lamp, the wind-still rain, the glossy blue My pen exudes, drying matte, upon the page. I could choose any hero, any cause or age And, sure as shooting arrows to the heart, Astride a dappled mare, legs braced as far apart As standing in silver stirrups will al... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
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"S8"
] | [
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
73ab53fb0a04c133 | April Inventory | W. D. Snodgrass | The green catalpa tree has turned
All white; the cherry blooms once more.
In one whole year I haven’t learned
A blessed thing they pay you for.
The blossoms snow down in my hair;
The trees and I will soon be bare.
The trees have more than I to spare.
The sleek, expensive girls I teach,
Younger and pinker every ... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S9-4",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
4c0f4e15ee22f1d1 | On Hearing Your News | Kate Buckley | My eyes lie flat in my skull,
darkened, bruised
lashes whip-stitched to swollen lids –
sleep has once again been elusive.
My organs weigh more
than they did the day before,
swollen with unhappiness,
gorged on regret:
tiny fists in my stomach pummeling
the hanging ball of my heart. | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
820d53192b4b45b3 | Death in Parentheses | Yuki Tanaka | He came home with his right leg made a bit shorter
but they didn’t notice. A landmine did it, he said
to himself, and I was the only one who heard him
because I followed him everywhere like a son.
He hobbled when no one was looking,
and I hobbled behind him.
When he plucked an iris, I plucked the one next to it,
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
62c6c48d6e1974f9 | Evening | Gail Mazur | Sometimes she’s Confucian—resolute in privation. . . .
Each day, more immobile,
hip not mending, legs swollen;
still she carries her grief
with a hard steadiness.
Twelve years uncompanioned,
there’s no point longing for
what can’t return. This morning,
she tells me, she found a robin
hunched in the damp dirt
... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b18b113a4fa0dd36 | Peril Sonnet | David Baker | Where do you suppose they’ve gone the bees now that you don’t see themanymore four-winged among flowers lowsparks in the clover even at nightfallare they fanning have they gone anotherplace blued with pollen stuck to their bristleswaiting beyond us spring dwindle is whatwe call it collapsing neonicotinoids“high lev... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b89afd8c7f045cdf | Lincoln | Delmore Schwartz | Manic-depressive Lincoln, national hero!
How just and true that this great nation, being conceived
In liberty by fugitives should find
—Strange ways and plays of monstrous History—
This Hamlet-type to be the President—
This failure, this unwilling bridegroom,
This tricky lawyer full of black despair—
He grew a b... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S4-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
dd31a35e05d758a1 | Hans Christian Ørsted 1777–1851 | Cole Swensen | saw the magnet grow electric
and the fixed points
become a field in rural Denmark
as the needle moved through various materials
all the while remaining parallel:
the u... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
7e33c44e30a118d1 | Manufacturing | Alan R. Shapiro | Up in the billboard, over old South Station,
the Captain, all wide grin and ruddy cheek,
held up a golden shot of Cutty Sark
high as the skyline where the sunset spread
a gold fan from the twig-like spars and rigging
of a departing clipper ship. Above
the picture the dull haze of a real sun rose,
dragging the da... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-3",
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"S10-5"
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"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
b7b876926c934289 | Sonnet 111: O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, | William Shakespeare | O, for my sake do you with Fortune chide, The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, That did not better for my life provide Than public means which public manners breeds. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand, And almost thence my nature is subdu'd To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. Pity me then and wish ... | [
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
f349497afef50363 | On Normandy | Suzanne Buffam | Fate piles up
On the bloody Norman shore.
If you must swim there
Swim on your back. | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e36721451ad96794 | It Is There | Babette Deutsch | These are the streets where we walked with war and childhood
Like our two shadows behind us, or
Before us like one shadow.
River walks
Threaded by park rats, flanked by battleships,
Flickering of a grey tail on the bank,
Motionless hulls
Enormous under a dead grey sky.
Far... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
6b63f882408d4edf | Bach and the Sentry | Ivor Gurney | Watching the dark my spirit rose in flood On that most dearest Prelude of my delight.The low-lying mist lifted its hood, The October stars showed nobly in clear night.When I return, and to real music-making, And play that Prelude, how will it happen then?Shall I feel as I felt, a sentry hardly waking, With a du... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
41c6b52c46010e2a | The Highland | Linda Bierds | —Zelda Fitzgerald, 1939
Dear One,
Do you have the time? Can you take
the time? Can you make
the time?
To visit me? The hospital doors have opened to spring,
and its land is high, dear one, each slope
with a vapor of crocuses. Its citizens, alas,
are low. Despondent, in fact, though a jar of sun tea
tans on the... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-3",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
c10ebabb911b9610 | Humanities Lecture | William E. Stafford | Aristotle was a little man with
eyes like a lizard, and he found a streak
down the midst of things, a smooth place for his feet
much more important than the carved handles
on the coffins of the great.
He said you should put your hand out
at the time and place of need:
strength matters little, he said,
nor even ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
9bc9b51ce8c47fa9 | At 14 | Don Welch | To be shy, to lower your eyes after making a greeting. to know wherever you go you’ll be called on, to fear whoever you’re near will ask you, to wear the softer sides of the air in rooms filled with angers, your ship always docked in transparent slips whose wharves are sheerer than membranes. | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
1e4c9fb5823d9970 | The Landlord's Tale. Paul Revere's Ride | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the N... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
7bea5589aeddcc28 | Some San Francisco Poems: Sections 1-4 | George Oppen | 1Moving over the hills, crossing the irrigation
canals perfect and profuse in the mountains the
streams of women and men walking under the high-
tension wires over the brown hills
in the multiple world of the fly | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
7ab7a1099b780386 | Peach | Jennifer Tonge | Come here’s
a peach he said
and held it out just far
enough to reach beyond his lap
and off-
ered me
a room the one
room left he said in all
of Thessaloniki that night
packed with
traders
The peach was lush
I hadn’t slept for days
it was like velvet lips a lamp
he smiled
patted
the bed for me
I knew it... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7de8109acf030fa1 | The Attic | Cynthia Huntington | It’s September: I’ve moved into town,
into the attic of an old barn—a big open room I reach
by climbing a ladder that rises through a hole in the floor.
The room is long and high, with windows at each end,
a row of skylights that leak rain, and shake
and chatter in the northeast winds. I sleep beneath
the roof’s ... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S5-8",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
a083e646f14f1941 | I am the Living Bread: Meditation Eight: John 6:51 | Edward Taylor | I kening through Astronomy Divine
The Worlds bright Battlement, wherein I spy
A Golden Path my Pensill cannot line,
From that bright Throne unto my Threshold ly.
And while my puzzled thoughts about it pore
I finde the Bread of Life in't at my doore.
When that this Bird of Paradise put in
This Wicker... | [
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
2bb40b81887c928d | the library of t-shirts | joanne burns | in order to upgrade the community’s appreciation of poetry during the international year of cultural enrichment stage 2, members of the state’s library progress committee decided to establish a small library of t-shirts on which would be printed quality verse in vivid, bold colours and lettering. the poems would be sel... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
16fdb34a488408b3 | Between the House and the Hill | Xochiquetzal Candelaria | This boy lying face down
in my sleep pushes around jars of jelly,
waking me the night he is found
so I can drag him from the wet ground
and clean his blackened belly,
this boy lying face down
who is somehow bound
to me, this hunted herdsman, refugee
waking me the night he is found.
Am I to dress him in an open... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
fa3697d13c03714d | Song of Napalm | Bruce Weigl | for my wife
After the storm, after the rain stopped pounding,
We stood in the doorway watching horses
Walk off lazily across the pasture’s hill.
We stared through the black screen,
Our vision altered by the distance
So I thought I saw a mist
Kicked up around their hooves when they faded
Like cut-out horses
Awa... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
468deffe835509de | The Street of Heavens | Philip Raisor | Tell me how you die and I will tell you
who you are.
Octavio Paz
I stand in line. The woman ahead of me, blowzy-haired and angry, is told that grace is the act of restraint and road-kill is not a sport. She can choose to wait or test the judgment at another entrance.... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
6c5016b28a85f66c | My Father Sings, to My Embarrassment | Sandra M. Castillo | at Las Villas, a small Carol City bar with a makeshift stage,
where he spends too much time drinking,
pretending he can learn to play the guitar at forty-five,
become a singer, a musician,
who writes about "Que Difícil Es...."
to live in Spanish in Miami,
a city yet to be translated,
in a restaurant where he has... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-2",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d286bab1d76f46cc | Granadilla | Amy Lowell | I cut myself upon the thought of youAnd yet I come back to it again and again,A kind of fury makes me want to draw you outFrom the dimness of the presentAnd set you sharply above me in a wheel of roses.Then, going obviously to inhale their fragrance,I touch the blade of you and cling upon it,And only when the blood run... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
a475c9e7832c77dc | Compound Hibernation | Will Alexander | Those who glance about me
who cease to see inside the Sun
who cease to imagine its destabilized pre-quanta
cannot know me
cannot know my ethos as pumice
as mingled apparition or flare
my perception through the prior sun that I ingest
like a blackened pre-existence
or collected hawks through assignation
the Sun... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
6dd44baa03320e1f | My Pa | J. Patrick Lewis | Emma Wallace, 23
Farm Hand
Seymour, Iowa
I came hungry
into the world,
and for that,
look no further
than my Pa.
A history buff
and a small-p
poet, he built
so many book-
shelves, our house
became the local
lending library.
At least to those few
who knew a book
to be a friend. | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
6247eea0efa8d1ba | Barter | Sara Teasdale | Life has loveliness to sell,
All beautiful and splendid things,
Blue waves whitened on a cliff,
Soaring fire that sways and sings,
And children's faces looking up
Holding wonder like a cup.
Life has loveliness to sell,
Music like a curve of gold,
Scent of pine trees in the rain,
Eyes that l... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
86575ec66815fd80 | The Underwings of War | Linda Bierds | National Pigeon Association, England, 1940
Notch.
Web.
And then,
down the shaft,
lesser wing coverts
and marginal coverts, and soft,
greater underwing coverts — although never as great
as greater under-primary
coverts, gray-coated
and down-plumped,
trailing
what
might
reveal
a pattern
just over the down... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-11",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
a641893c3e412ee3 | Body & Isn't | Bruce Covey | I have a hard time making my mind take place.
Every input adjusts the chemistry—water, peppermint stick, analogue.
Kisses are circles. With eyes closed, every taste buds almond orange.
Ceiling defines the segment; door, the vector. Exits & entrances.
My location’s ribcage is beneath the changing spectrum’s breast.
... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
4ef63458421c40a8 | Cane | Cleopatra Mathis | When the mule balked, he hit him
sometimes with the flat of a hand
upside the head; more often
the stick he carried did its angry trick.
The mule’s job was to power the press,
iron on iron that wrung the sugar
out of cane, circling under the coarse
beam attached to his shoulders and neck.
That mule of my childh... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S9-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
e7c0952bdf42bf5b | Sonnet 12: I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs | John Milton | I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs By the known rules of ancient liberty, When straight a barbarous noise environs me Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs: As when those hinds that were transform'd to frogs Rail'd at Latona's twin-born progeny Which after held the sun a... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [] |
3961738987551fb6 | A Rod for a Handsome Price | Nicole Brossard | (from her to ravish meaning ravine On the other side
artifice slumbers in the green. The shadow follows hour
by hour hollow and gloomy and which call me forth)
……………………………….grafted onto the sentenceo a long time distant to hang on my belly obscure parallel
images and tattoos age suggestive of the fingernail grazing... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
4e90944e72e2ec6d | You Didn’t Hear It From Me | D. A. Powell | the bare-backed barback
in the bear bar’s back bar
barebacked with a bare bear
who was also a barback back there | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-6",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
298dbcadba349aba | Noisy Noisy | Jack Prelutsky | It's noisy, noisy overhead,
the birds are winging south,
and every bird is opening
a noisy, noisy mouth.
They fill the air with loud complaint,
they honk and quack and squawk—
they do not feel like flying,
but it's much too far to walk. | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
3b5401ed96fdb0fc | Group Home Before Miss Edna's House | Jacqueline Woodson | The monsters that come at night don't
breathe fire, have two heads or long claws.
The monsters that come at night don't
come bloody and half-dead and calling your name.
They come looking like regular boys
going through your drawers and pockets sayingYou better not tell Counselor else I'll beat you down.
The monst... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
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