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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
8cee99202dc0874a | Immured | Lily A. Long | Within this narrow cell that I call "me", I was imprisoned ere the worlds began, And all the worlds must run, as first they ran, In silver star-dust, ere I shall be free. I beat my hands against the walls and find It is my breast I beat, O bond and blind! | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
c17e5cb600f23bd7 | Light Blue | Frank Stanford | The white clothes on the line put the man to sleep.
He was sitting on a soda case
Leaning back on the porch.
He rolled down his sleeves with his eyes shut.
He could feel the sun going into the trees.
He wanted to catch the evening ferry
And meet someone across the river.
He dreamed about her
Putting polish on h... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
689b4b2ce1724d3a | The Gatekeeper’s Children | Philip Levine | This is the house of the very rich.You can tell because it’s taken allThe colors and left only the spacesBetween colors where the absenceOf rage and hunger survives. If you couldGet close you could touch the embersOf red, the tiny beaks of yellow, | [
"S3",
"S4"
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"S3-2",
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
069c8b2b0c34e548 | She | Christopher Gilbert | for Carolyn Grace
When she sits at the kitchen table
while she talks her hands seem to balance
in the air faithful at the level of
her words; she is careful what she says.
The morning sun through the window strikes
her skin, shows how the faint lines in her
palms will come to deepen like corduroy
cloth to fit t... | [
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"S9"
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"Social Commentaries",
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"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
f29daa3423904cf9 | The Sonnets: L | Ted Berrigan | I like to beat people up
absence of passion, principles, love. She murmurs
What just popped into my eye was a fiend’s umbrella
and if you should come and pinch me now
as I go out for coffee
. . . as I was saying winter of 18 lumps
Days produce life locations to banish 7 up
Nomads, my babies, where are you? Life’... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
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"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
a8fdbe11b54bf829 | Dead Man | Kathleen Graber | Some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to endless night.
—William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
We spend our lives trying to grasp the premise. William Blake is not, for instance,
William Blake, but rather a 19th century accountant from Cleveland on the
lam for murder & the theft of a horse. In the closi... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
b3832a9ebbdc1575 | The Misanthropist | James Monroe Whitfield | In vain thou bid’st me strike the lyre, And sing a song of mirth and glee,Or, kindling with poetic fire, Attempt some higher minstrelsy;In vain, in vain! for every thought That issues from this throbbing brain,Is from its first conception fraught With gloom and darkness, woe and pain.From earliest youth my path... | [
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"Social Commentaries",
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"Religion"
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"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
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6e44da090f2fe774 | Death Is Something Entirely Else | Joy Katz | Department of Trance
Department of Dream of Levitation
Department of White Fathom
Department of Winding
Sometimes my son orders me lie down
I like when he orders me lie down close your eyes
Department of Paper Laid Gentry
Department of Sound of Sheets of Paper
... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
093e4b1038986c97 | Protector #2 Your Personal Amulet | Laynie Browne | This sonnet is your personal amulet
To be worn in instance of need
Or constantly held in the mind
Occurring here and elsewhere at this moment
This sonnet is sent without cunning
To cull a particular phrase from your lips
To enlist another protector
In this age of malcontent benefactors
Against an ironclad schoo... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
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e2bfe23215901c7a | England to Germany in 1914 | Thomas Hardy | Autumn 1914
'O England, may God punish thee!' — Is it that Teuton genius flowers Only to breathe malignity Upon its friend of earlier hours?— We have eaten your bread, you have eaten ours, We have loved your burgs, your pines' green moan, Fair Rhine-stream, and its storied towers; Your shining souls of deathless dower... | [
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"S3-11",
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"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b1ffba4a3f2861fb | Kubla Khan | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, ... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
fa5e906b13300df3 | Femme du monde | Patricia Spears Jones | Fat, face the color of blanc on blanc,
smelling of cheap tobacco and many unwashed garments,
from the other end of the car,
the unmistakable melody of La vi en rose
scratched against tender ears of Parisian commuters.
"Not La vi en rose again", said the young Frenchman facing me.
I understood every word he said.
... | [
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"S9",
"S10"
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"Arts & Sciences"
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"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d9e03f4c44cc3273 | The Owl | Matthew Sweeney | 1
No one knows where I’m going,
not even me. Although that owl
I heard outside last night might
lead me to the terrain and call out
the custodians so they can
surround and welcome me, or
do whatever they want to do. I won’t
speak, won’t say my name even if
they try to coerce me, or play
unearthly music, such ... | [
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"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
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"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
4f647c1f4a1d1122 | Elegy IX: The Autumnal | John Donne | No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame; Affection here takes reverence's name. Were her first years the gold... | [
"S1",
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"S3",
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"S8"
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"Love",
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"Living",
"Relationships"
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"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
614fc42c0b552961 | The Kingfishers | Charles Olson | 1
What does not change / is the will to change
He woke, fully clothed, in his bed. He
remembered only one thing, the birds, how
when he came in, he had gone around the rooms
and got them back in their cage, the green one first,
she with the bad leg, and then the blue,
the one they had hoped was a male
Otherwise... | [
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"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
5c0d87542d14fcd9 | Apricot Lament | Tacey M. Atsitty | Just when he thought to loom the backyard for bud &
Just when he came to admire, or thought to dote over
Already he rues stick-thin arms, whose petals brave the late
Whose middles freeze; we’ve gone without
All ramose till now, empty skirts anxious to round back for
It’s the fourth year lips have gone without any ... | [
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"S9"
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"S1-1",
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"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
102dc1eb00126fde | To the Bartholdi Statue | Ambrose Bierce | O Liberty, God-gifted—
Young and immortal maid—
In your high hand uplifted,
The torch declares your trade.
Its crimson menace, flaming
Upon the sea and shore,
Is, trumpet-like, proclaiming
That Law shall be no more.
Austere incendiary,
We're blinking in the light;
Where is your customary
Grenade... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
08a069e3dbc630cc | House and Man | Edward Thomas | One hour: as dim he and his house now lookAs a reflection in a rippling brook,While I remember him; but first, his house.Empty it sounded. It was dark with forest boughsThat brushed the walls and made the mossy tilesPart of the squirrels’ track. In all those milesOf forest silence and forest murmur, onlyOne house—“Lone... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
7b0e1faeedbb0f1f | Give It Back | Don Bogen | Give it back—I made it all up
That alcove where surplus glowed under dust
Unfinished, an attic space with nails poking down
Khaki of sheet metal, orange flickering in tubes
Ephemeral as the smells, which were plywood, solder, and Kents
Color words, smell words—I put them in a book
Everything there is still missin... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-3",
"S10-5"
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"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
322c9e0ad0f3c07a | Speech Therapy | Dean Young | The ugly duckling remained uglyits whole life but found othersas ugly as itself, I guess that’s the message.Smoke rises from the heads in the backyard.Do you think if I hang around here long enoughsomeone will proffer a muffin, one skulking shadow to another?Soon, my shoes will be part of the populous dirt.Have I learn... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
9613008c7f268c48 | Envoy to Palestine | Yusef Komunyakaa | I’ve come to this one grassy hillin Ramallah, off Tokyo Street,to place a few red anemones& a sheaf of wheat on Darwish’s grave.A borrowed line transported me beneatha Babylonian moon & I found myselflucky to have the shadow of a coatas warmth, listening to a poet’s songof Jerusalem, the hum of a red stringCaesar stole... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b59e73f31cea6ace | Confession | Reginald Gibbons | Down in the blue-green water at nightfall some selving shapes float fluorescing, trance-dancing, trembling to the rhythm of theodoxical marching- music that they hear over the mere noise of the breaking tide. Above, stars in certain places; along the shore roads, cars carryin... | [
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"S9",
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] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-1",
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
df1376e179ac275f | Bedtime Reading for the Unborn Child | Khaled Mattawa | Long after the sun falls into the sea
and twilight slips off the horizon like a velvet sheet
and the air gets soaked in blackness;
long after clouds hover above like boulders
and stars crawl up and stud the sky;
long after bodies tangle, dance, and falter
and fatigue blows in and bends them
and sleep unloads its... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-3",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
a142c221ddc7ef81 | Intimate Letters | Rosanna Warren | The last string quartet
(Leoš Janáček and Kamila Stösslová)
She reads romances, she spells poorly, she’s full-breasted,
broad in the beam, matron in a cloche hat,
bulky knee-length skirt, apron, thick calves, white stockings, Mary Janes.
Her heels go click click on the pavement.
She has those dark Gypsy eyes and ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S10-3"
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
40df07f467a565cc | Unromantic Love | J. V. Cunningham | There is no stillness in this wood.
The quiet of this clearing
Is the denial of my hearing
The sounds I should.
There is no vision in this glade.
This tower of sun revealing
The timbered scaffoldage is stealing
Essence from shade.Only my love is love’s ideal.
The love I could discover
In these recesses knows n... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
cacac84cd973ad5e | The Emerald Mosque on the Hill | Raza Ali Hasan | In the lull, the afternoon sun warms
the linseed field. The flowers are quiet,
their bright subdued in the green
while the mind wanders
to the emerald mosque upon the hill,
built around a flowing spring,
the easy absolutions and ablutions
in that mosque where the spring water
has been let loose to meander
over... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
dae0d7c126a36e28 | The End of Television | Sara Nicholson | Covet not the sun its honorarium
nor authorize the stars their grants to write.
The sojournors spotted a forest
adrift with language, but couldn't make sense of it.
The woods at odds with the usual channels
and those neighboring mountains
didn't look like pyramids, no matter the scale.
Read this part as if the s... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
f5e8b0089fe33173 | Caliban upon Setebos | Robert Browning | "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."
(David, Psalms 50.21)
['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.
And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,
And feels about his spine small eft-things ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
bec7d87033eec73a | Sapphics Against Anger | Timothy Steele | Angered, may I be near a glass of water;
May my first impulse be to think of Silence,
Its deities (who are they? do, in fact, they
Exist? etc.).
May I recall what Aristotle says of
The subject: to give vent to rage is not to
Release it but to be increasingly prone
To its incursions.
May I imagine being in the I... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
f80be0c93fa6cade | Prophesy | Eileen Myles | I’m playing with the devil’s cockit’s like a crayonit’s like a fat burnt crayonI’m writing a poem with itI’m writing that downall that rattling heat in this roomI’m using thatI’m using that tingling rattlethat light in the middle of the roomit’s my hostI’ve always been afraid of youscared you’re god and something elseI... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
e3793753b062a1e6 | Three Teenage Girls: 1956 | Steven Orlen | Three teenage girls in tight red sleeveless blouses and black Capri pants And colorful headscarves secured in a knot to their chins Are walking down the hill, chatting, laughing, Cupping their cigarettes against the light rain, The closest to the road with her left thumb stuck out Not looking at the cars goin... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e33e512baafa8649 | Money | Howard Nemerov | an introductory lecture
This morning we shall spend a few minutes
Upon the study of symbolism, which is basic
To the nature of money. I show you this nickel.
Icons and cryptograms are written all over
The nickel: one side shows a hunchbacked bison
Bending his head and curling his tail to accommodate
The circular... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
b2c55817a2547491 | ! katya ! | Chrissy Williams | i want ! to be friends ! with katya ! i want
to dress ! how i want to dress ! like a gale ! full of glitter ! and back alleys ! a seagull
laugh ! to shake our being ! whose secret lies !
perhaps ! in kicking legs upwards in delight !
painted ! an omnivorous harpy ! goofy !
loving our friends ! lig... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
e3f69e8378bb3ed9 | An Introduction to My Anthology | Marvin Bell | Such a book must contain—
it always does!—a disclaimer.
I make no such. For here
I have collected all the best—
the lily from the field among them,
forget-me-nots and mint weed,
a rose for whoever expected it,
and a buttercup for the children
to make their noses yellow.
Here is clover for the lucky
to roll in... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
43152430b81b9c10 | Song: “Come away, come away, death” | William Shakespeare | (from Twelfth Night)
Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid. Fly away, fly away, breath; I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, O, prepare it! My part of death, no one so true Did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
9fe132e2dc975e56 | Your Mother Wears a House Dress | Joseph O. Legaspi | If your house
is a dress
it’ll fit like
Los Angeles
red sun
burning west,
deserts, fields,
for certain it will
drape even
a boy no less
boy in disrepair
wandering from shore
to crest, others
mistake his
searching for
despair, no,
never, but
for thirst,
cloaked as
he is, warm,
radiant in a
house dre... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
300d70f1abeed8d7 | The New Estate | Ciaran Carson | Forget the corncrake’s elegy. Rusty
Iambics that escaped your discipline
Of shorn lawns, it is sustained by nature.
It does not grieve for you, nor for itself.
You remember the rolled gold of cornfields,
Their rustling of tinsel in the wind,
A whole field quivering like blown silk?
A shiver now runs through the ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
5b5d8ce818b8fa1e | Come in from the Rain | Tim Dlugos | Stick that bumbershootin elephant’s-footbrolly stand behindthe big door. Mindyour manners at High Tea.Hi, you. High ve-locity hailstones creampassersby beyond the panes. I dreamof Jeannie, starring Bar-bara Eden, of Eden, star-ring Eve and Adam, of AdamCartwright, a.k.a. the let-' | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
aa774a27ab86cc6d | Falling | James L. Dickey | A 29-year-old stewardess fell ... to her
death tonight when she was swept
through an emergency door that sud-
denly sprang open ... The body ...
was found ... three hours after the
accident.
—New York Times
The states when they black out and lie there rolling when they turn
To s... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
d9f6eefa203b4637 | Beautiful Signor | Cyrus Cassells | All dreams of the soul
End in a beautiful man’s or woman’s body.
—Yeats, “The Phases of the Moon”
Whenever we wake,
still joined, enraptured—
at the window,
each clear night’s finish
the black pulse of dominoes
dropping to land;
whenever we embrace,
haunted, upwelling,
I know
a reunion is taking place—
Hea... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
05b8292e0e2eadb3 | The Scarborough Grace | Michael Lista | An old man on Grace Street is going madIn a Canadian T-shirt he won’t changeAnd red unwrinkling pants I thought had madeHim stylish when I met him in the spring —Five or six times a day I see him walkDown Grace Street to St. Francis church, and knockAnd pull its wooden doors, always shockedThat his entitled holy place ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Aging"
] |
60934351d09bdc0d | Spring Reign | Dean Young | Thank you whoever tuned the radioto rain, thank you who spilledthe strong-willed wine for notbeing me so I’m not to blame. I’m gladI’m not that broken tree althoughit looks sublime. And glad I’m not taking a test and running out of time.What’s a tetrahedron anyway? What’sthe sublime, 3,483 divided by 9,the tenth amendm... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Spring"
] |
78c6344cc94b0de8 | Swimming to the Rock | Mary Atkinson | My father and brothers
are swimming to the Rock.
“Come with us!”
they call to me
and I say,
“Maybe next year.”
The Rock is very, very far away.
I sit on the dock
with my peanut butter sandwich.
I watch them
dive into the water
and swim into the distance
their kicks and
splashes and elbows
getting smaller ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e1079fecb0cf832f | mi'kmaq book of the dead | mIEKAL aND | mIEKAL aND often incorporates alien scripts into his work. These can be undecipherable writing systems of history, scripts unfamiliar to most people, and scripts invented by him or others. He uses these to allow us to see written language with new eyes, to appreciate its visual forms, and to face the process of searchi... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
77f4822a79a3eb01 | [mosquito at my ear] | Kobayashi Issa | Mosquito at my ear— does he think I’m deaf? | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
c4318e5fece1cef1 | About My Very Tortured Friend, Peter | Charles Bukowski | he lives in a house with a swimming pool
and says the job is
killing him.
he is 27. I am 44. I can’t seem to
get rid of
him. his novels keep coming
back. “what do you expect me to do?” he screams
“go to New York and pump the hands of the
publishers?”
“no,” I tell him, “but quit your job, go into a
small room ... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9d4d1f72ac3069f6 | Sunday Afternoon | C. Dale Young | for donald justice
Beyond the strings of water
clinging to the windowpane,
there were no cranes, just rain,
a sky blurred by wet glass,
a pond corrugated by raindrops,
and, inside, the smell of naphthalene bars,
a Victrola with a broken arm,
a spotty daguerreotype, a dusty crinoline—
O mildewed, seersucker sui... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
ba117876ad5fd86c | The Troubles That Women Start Are Men | Rodney Jones | On the porch, unbreeched shotgun dangling
Across one arm, just after the killing,
The murderer, Billy Winkles, made polite
Small talk with my father while we waited
For the sheriff to come. The reek of cordite
Still loomed above the sheeted corpse, his uncle
Ben, whose various dark and viscous organs
Jeweled the... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
a5db657782675569 | The Immigrant's Song | Tishani Doshi | Let us not speak of those days
when coffee beans filled the morning
with hope, when our mothers' headscarves
hung like white flags on washing lines.
Let us not speak of the long arms of sky
that used to cradle us at dusk.
And the baobabs—let us not trace
the shape of their leaves in our dreams,
or yearn for the... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
8a061ae170ee8019 | The Ground | Mario Chard | Say they stilltie ropes to the casketsof immigrants they findin the desert. That a ropesaves time shouldsomeone come looking. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
59e0fd97af4de400 | Hard Night | Christian Wiman | What words or harder gift
does the light require of me
carving from the dark
this difficult tree?
What place or farther peace
do I almost see
emerging from the night
and heart of me?
The sky whitens, goes on and on.
Fields wrinkle into rows
of cotton, go on and on.
Night like a fling of crows
disperses and ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
55b6c55cb068059a | Revival | Bridget Lowe | Here, I am blowing this little streamof blue vapor into your parted lips.Here, I am placing my hands on your chestin an X while my red nails distractthe crowd of impostor lifeguardsclosing in. Here is the place to raisethe tent, I can feel it in my bones.The snake has perfected his skin, he isready to be lifted and pas... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
b0a68661fdb1821d | [Of all that God has shown me] | Jane Hirshfield | Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Nor more than a honey bee
Takes on his foot
From an overspilling jar. | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e26f1421d1678f27 | To His Mistress Going to Bed | John Donne | Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tir’d with standing though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear, That th’eyes of ... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-8"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Classic Love"
] |
4284bccf92c76aa4 | St. Peter Claver | Toi Derricotte | Every town with black Catholics has a St. Peter Claver’s.
My first was nursery school.
Miss Maturin made us fold our towels in a regulation square and nap on army cots.
No mother questioned; no child sassed.
In blue pleated skirts, pants, and white shirts,
we stood in line to use the open toilets
and conserved li... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S5-2",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
ed73750829d400c6 | Why do you stay up so late? | Don Paterson | For Russ
I’ll tell you, if you really want to know:remember that day you lost two years agoat the rockpool where you sat and played the jewelerwith all those stones you’d stolen from the shore?Most of them went dark and nothing more,but sometimes one would blink the secret colorit had locked up somewhere in its stony ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
3aa159800563b6e9 | On the Gift of a Book to a Child | Hilaire Belloc | Child! do not throw this book about!
Refrain from the unholy pleasure
Of cutting all the pictures out!
Preserve it as your chiefest treasure.
Child, have you never heard it said
That you are heir to all the ages?
Why, then, your hands were never made
To tear these beautiful thick pages!
Your little ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
baa2075ae2fe966c | To The Dead in the Graveyard Underneath My Window | Adelaide Crapsey | Written in A Moment of Exasperation
How can you lie so still? All day I watch And never a blade of all the green sod moves To show where restlessly you toss and turn, And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees Stiffened and aching from their long disuse; I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth To take its free... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-4",
"S10-3",
"S10-10",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
460076b509af3618 | Little Aster | Gottfried Benn | A drowned drayman was hoisted on to the slab.
Someone had jammed a lavender aster
between his teeth.
As I made the incision up from the chest
with a long knife
under the skin
to cut out tongue and gums,
I must have nudged it because it slipped
into the brain lying adjacent.
I packed it into the thoracic cavity... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
150bb960edecc849 | Baleen Scrimshaw as 16mm Film | Cathy Tagnak Rexford | Shoot in 16 mm film, capture her sitting underan olive-green archway. Loop the sound of steel striking glass. When you blink, the camera captures the frame of her kin, walking upside down. Loop the sound of tundra grass sprouting.Her hairline marks her shift from caribou to woman. Stand... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
8ee0ff49f55e2a10 | In Goya’s Greatest Scenes We Seem to See . . . | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | In Goya’s greatest scenes we seem to see
the people of the world
exactly at the moment when
they first attained the title of
‘suffering humanity’
They writhe upon the page
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
39fe3681a615f788 | Fever 103° | Sylvia Plath | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
Pure? What does it mean?
The tongues of hell
Are dull, dull as the triple
Tongues of dull, fat CerberusCerberus a hound in Greek and Roman mythology that guards the gates of Hell (Hades), often represented with three heads
Who wheezes at the gate. Incapable
Of lick... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
37cce09d80d70522 | Walsinghame | Sir Walter Ralegh | As you came from the holy land
of Walsinghame
Met you not with my true love
By the way as you came?
How shall I know your true love
That have met many one
As I went to the holy land
That have come, that have gone?
She is neither white nor brown
But as the heavens fair
There is none hath a form so divine
... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
c3ab2ae2fead2675 | Sea Iris | H. D. | I Weed, moss-weed, root tangled in sand, sea-iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken, and you print a shadow like a thin twig. Fortunate one, scented and stinging, rigid myrrh-bud, camphor-flower, sweet and salt—you are wind in our nostrils. II Do the murex-fishers dren... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
bc548d0c7d136d92 | Gradations of Blue | Matthea Harvey | The scent of pig is faint tonight
as the lime trees hang their heads against gradations of blue,
looking at the lone suitcase in the middle of the farmyard
with a sense of solidarity. Also forgotten.
Its owner never once looked up at them and exclaimedI was still soft-fingered when I planted you.
In the plane, her... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Aging",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
919c87d985a88a10 | A Renascence | Robert Graves | White flabbiness goes brown and lean, Dumpling arms are now brass bars, They’ve learnt to suffer and live clean, And to think below the stars. They’ve steeled a tender, girlish heart, Tempered it with a man’s pride, Learning to play the butcher’s part Though the woman screams inside— Learning to lea... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
23469a0d46185c74 | Footnote to Howl | Allen Ginsberg | Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S5-8",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
853c483bee79fce2 | Genius Loci | Brian Teare | (Oakland)
Make it
the place
it was then,
so full it split
vision to live
there in winter
so late & wet
abundance
toppled toward
awful—birds
of paradise
a profusion
the ripe colors
of anodized
metal; in gutters
umbrellas
smashed
like pigeons,
bent ribs bright
among black
slack fluttering;
camellias... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S2-2",
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
7c1a0d3b1db928f0 | DetoNation | Ocean Vuong | There’s a joke that ends with — huh?It’s the bomb saying here is your father.Now here is your father insideyour lungs. Look how lighterthe earth is — afterward.To even write the word fatheris to carve a portion of the dayout of a bomb-bright page.There’s enough light to drown inbut never enough to enter the bones& stay... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e6ea28323ef75d40 | Mother, I cannot Mind my Wheel | Walter Savage Landor | Mother, I cannot mind my wheel;
My fingers ache, my lips are dry:
Oh! if you felt the pain I feel!
But Oh, who ever felt as I!
No longer could I doubt him true;
All other men may use deceit:
He always said my eyes were blue,
And often swore my lips were sweet. | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
e5cb15bf0adc3452 | Hymn for the Third Meal | Yitzhak Luria | Prepare the feast
of perfect faith,
the delight of the Holy King.
Prepare the feast of the King.
This is the feast
of the Lesser Presence;
the Ancient Eminence and Field of Apples
assemble with Him for the feast. | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
cdae59851c7f3cfc | New Hampshire | Howard Moss | 1
When the loons cry,
The night seems blacker,
The water deeper.
Across the shore:
An eyelash-charcoal
Fringe of pine trees.
2
The lake reflects
Indefinite pewter,
And intermittent thunder
Lets us know
The gods are arriving,
One valley over.
3
After the long
Melancholy of the fall,
One longs for the cr... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
a18dbd149fbb8b2c | The Colossus | Sylvia Plath | I shall never get you put together entirely,
Pieced, glued, and properly jointed.
Mule-bray, pig-grunt and bawdy cackles
Proceed from your great lips.
It’s worse than a barnyard.
Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other.
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge t... | [
"S1",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
660b11d6c7aa3066 | Elegy | Anne Stevenson | Whenever my father was left with nothing to do —
waiting for someone to 'get ready',
or facing the gap between graduate seminars
and dull after-suppers in his study
grading papers or writing a review —
he played the piano.
I think of him packing his lifespan
carefully, like a good leather... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
8ff380eefb2497a7 | Sunder | Atsuro Riley | A last rock-skip hurlstorm (crazing river-glass) the closest they ever were. • In right lockstitch snared and split some fire-supper cooked on sticks. • By dawn the older brother took to chucking what bottle-frags he could find and crud-oysters across. The (high-pitched) younger blacked our waters w... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S9-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
9c866736f4bba648 | Poem | David Shapiro | The trees have sex,
Teach,
Focus.
Tohu Bohu
Chaos in a green light.
Alone again.
How alone I twist
at the end of thought
when illness is forgot
and the speaker
is punched on the bark
on the soft models.
The old abbot looked at us and laughed.
He loved electronic gadgets for his tomb.
You were as beautiful... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
fa16aa174bb3057d | Impromptu | J. Allyn Rosser | First there was Jim, clamping to my long black hair that nine-pound Cleopatra wig with nylon bands and bobbie pins.Meanwhile I was on fire for Chad, who coached me a bit impatiently Tuesday nights on my Joan-of-Arc inflection.Then Terence said I’d be perfect for the loun... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7d51c85f17b91293 | Perpetually Attempting to Soar | Mary Ruefle | A boy from Brooklyn used to cruise on summer nights.
As soon as he’d hit sixty he’d hold his hand out the window,
cupping it around the wind. He’d been assured
this is exactly how a woman’s breast feels when you put
your hand around it and apply a little pressure. Now he knew,
and he loved it. Night after night, a... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
20c95b1e9da4aea7 | The Art of Exile | William Archila | On the Pan American Highway, somewhere
between the north and south continent,
you come across a chain of volcanoes,
a coast with a thick growth of palm trees,
crunching waves of the sea; an isthmus
Neruda called “slender earth like a whip.”
When the road bends, turns into a street,
the walls splattered with “Yan... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4b9394e87ceef0f3 | The Indifferent | John Donne | I can love both fair and brown, Her whom abundance melts, and her whom want betrays, Her who loves loneness best, and her who masks and plays, Her whom the country formed, and whom the town, Her who believes, and her who tries, Her who still weeps with spongy eyes, And her who is dry cork, and never cries; I can love h... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
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"S1-1",
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"Living",
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
92410d12a3340eff | the usual rilke | Ernst Jandl | rilke’s separation
the unusual rilke
and the usual rilke
are stuck in their sameness
the unusual rilke
and the usual rilke
would have stayed together
the unusual rilke
and the usual rilke
would have to separate
the unusual rilke
and the usual rilke
both knew it rilke’s breath
1
rilke
breathed
th... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
ffe04b1181ccf79d | Notes on Poverty | Hayden Carruth | Was I so poor
in those damned days
that I went in the dark
in torn shoes
and furtiveness
to steal fat ears
of cattle corn
from the good cows
and pound them
like hard maize
on my worn Aztec
stone? I was. | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
e9e0c6208bc9af7a | The Prelude | Matthew Zapruder | Oh this Diet Coke is really good,though come to think of it it tasteslike nothing plus the idea of chocolate,or an acquaintance of chocolatespeaking fondly of certain timesit and chocolate had spoken of nothing,or nothing remembering a fieldin which it once ate the most wondroussandwich of ham and rustic chambered chee... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
079edde7c26a0884 | The War in the Air | Howard Nemerov | For a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,
Who rarely bothered coming home to die
But simply stayed away out there
In the clean war, the war in the air.
Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their tales
Of hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,
But stayed up there in the relative wind,
Shades fading in the mi... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
05425f6e6b3f69eb | Student Letter | Stephen Sandy | After the declaration by emperor
to stop the war
many people in Tokyo killed themselves,
for instance, in front of the imperial palace.
But few people knows those facts.
Hence you must teach me
where you got the news or what sort of book
gave you the fact that quite few people knows.
To know the fact of our nat... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S9-6",
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
28f712936a1d811b | My Father’s Closet | D. Nurkse | 1 hat
As soon as I put it on
Brooklyn went dark,
but when I took it off
my wooden horse stared at me
with dazzling glass eyes.
2 coat
The shirred hem
swished on the floor.
Huge shoulders sloped
like pines under snow.
A panel in the lapel
read Kuut, Tallinn
in thread letters.
I hid at t... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d40d72f5dceb3471 | A Carafe, that is a Blind Glass | Gertrude Stein | A kind in glass and a cousin, a spectacle and nothing strange a single hurt color and an arrangement in a system to pointing. All this and not ordinary, not unordered in not resembling. The difference is spreading. | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
2fa2a76f4f20a53f | Country of the Proud | Léonie Adams | A fall over rock,
Metal answering to water,
Is the seal of this spot;
A land trodden by music
And the tune forgot.
Of a region savage,
The territory that was broken,
Silver gushed free;
And earth holy, earth meek shall receive it
In humility.
This, not dwelt in, this haunted,
The country of the proud,
Is cu... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
24b10338e28da437 | Redbird Love | Joy Harjo | We watched her grow up.
She was the urgent chirper,
Fledgling flier.
And when spring rolled
Out its green
She’d grown
Into the most noticeable
Bird-girl.
Long-legged and just
The right amount of blush
Tipping her wings, crest
And tail, and
She knew it
In the bird parade.
We watched her strut.
She owned h... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-8",
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
119e59ba2e46a37f | Post-Modernity in Kayenta | Hershman John | after Elizabeth Bishop
for Scott Manning Stevens
The monoliths, sandstone
carvings crest high
in the air, tall like redwoods
with striking wind-eroded,
rain-washed, sunny edges.
Driving from the East,
two lovers from Chicago
discover a new city
made of sand cliffs,
rabbit brush, red soil,
a prairie dog’s ec... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-7",
"S3-8",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b6144df2c6988bab | Child on the Marsh | Andrew Hudgins | I worked the river’s slick banks, grabbling
in mud holes underneath tree roots.
You’d think it would be dangerous,
but I never came up with a cooter
or cottonmouth hung on my fingertips.
Occasionally, though, I leapt upright,
my fingers hooked through the red gills
of a mudcat. And then I thrilled
the thrill my... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
b12cd28c1f1bcace | The Little White Rose | Hugh MacDiarmid | (To John Gawsworth)
The rose of all the world is not for me.
I want for my part
Only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet—and breaks the heart. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
8ea1794a1f35a7bf | Biology | Stephen O’connor | Is this happiness or oyster-life? This flexing of muscular torso-foot joy’s wonder? This sifting of silt from food in the shifting chill-dark? If, in my mind, there is a life of flight in the light beyond the over-swirl, must I unfix my lips from this rock to be right? Or is my apex to worry quartz against my shell? | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
9239e5c435f9c120 | April | Alicia Ostriker | The optimists among ustaking heart because it is springskip alongattending their meetingssigning their e-mail petitionsmarching with their satiric signssinging their we shall overcome songsposting their pungent twitters and blogsbelieving in a better worldfor no good reasonI envy themsaid the old womanThe seasons go ro... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-7",
"S3-11",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Aging"
] |
8230bd033b6f388c | Jackfruit | Ho Xuan Huong | My body is like a jackfruit swinging on a tree
My skin is rough, my pulp is thick
Dear prince, if you want me pierce me upon your stick
Don't squeeze, I'll ooze and stain your hands | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
334525ce74f021eb | Prologue | Linda Bierds | They darken. In the sky over Florence,
the oblong clouds swell and darken.
And hailstones lift back through the updrafts,
thickening, darkening, until, swollen as bird eggs,
they drop to the cobbled streets.Horses! the child Galileo thinks, then
peeks through the doorway
to the shock of ten thousand icy hooves.
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Weather"
] |
0dd1c751841ce019 | Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril (1518) | Emily Dickinson | Glass was the Street - in Tinsel Peril
Tree and Traveller stood.
Filled was the Air with merry venture
Hearty with Boys the Road.
Shot the lithe Sleds like Shod vibrations
Emphacized and gone
It is the Past’s supreme italic
Makes the Present mean - | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f6e3dea884e20057 | The Thin Man Goes Home | Kit Robinson | You are as even tempered as a frying pan
In a sudden downpour
A campsite in disarray
A long time coming
Laughter from two yards over
The neighborhood a claim on space
Involving multiple parties
It must be Father’s Day
Judging by the heightened attentions of daughters and sons
Thus a man enjoys solitude, s... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7cfb7558d540b18b | The Green Linnet | William Wordsworth | Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together.
One have I marked,... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
721d9f105a8b2ee9 | You Were You Are Elegy | Mary Jo Bang | Fragile like a child is fragile.
Destined not to be forever.
Destined to become other
To mother. Here I am
Sitting on a chair, thinking
About you. Thinking
About how it was
To talk to you.
How sometimes it was wonderful
And sometimes it was awful.
How drugs when drugs were
Undid the good almost entirely
But not entirel... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
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