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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4014403882c417c1 | The Boatman | Carolyn Forché | We were thirty-one souls all, he said, on the gray-sick of sea
in a cold rubber boat, rising and falling in our filth.
By morning this didn’t matter, no land was in sight,
all were soaked to the bone, living and dead.
We could still float, we said, from war to war.
What lay behind us but ruins of stone piled on ru... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e8bdea134752019c | The Big Bad | David Orr | At last we decoded the terminal message,Only to find the pattern we had expectedWas false — a false trail of false bread crumbsDesigned to leave pitfalls undetected.We found a new pattern. We found a handMoving pieces we had thought were onlyPart of the board, and shifting them to vantage pointsWe had ignored. We rewr... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
48d8c413cd17afb9 | "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man," | Mother Goose | Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
Bake me a cake, as fast as you can;
Pat it, prick it, and mark it with B,
Put it in the oven for baby and me. | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
99bc2ff3dc5e8871 | For the Anniversary of My Death | W. S. Merwin | Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of me... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8d028b3c8bba34a6 | The Glass Bubbles | Samuel Greenberg | The motion of gathering loops of water Must either burst or remain in a moment. The violet colors through the glass Throw up little swellings that appear And spatter as soon as another strikes And is born; so pure are they of colored Hues, that we feel the absent strength Of its power. When they begin they gather Like ... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
c124051008688609 | Mi Historia | David Dominguez | My red pickup choked on burnt oil
as I drove down Highway 99.
In wind-tattered garbage bags
I had packed my whole life:
two pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts,
an a pair of work boots.
My truck needed work, and through
the blue smoke rising from under the hood,
I saw almond orchards, plums,
and raisins spread out ... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f25a4e3d36c4c78d | Portrait d'une Femme | Ezra Pound | Your mind and you are our Sargasso Sea, London has swept about you this score years And bright ships left you this or that in fee: Ideas, old gossip, oddments of all things, Strange spars of knowledge and dimmed wares of price. Great minds have sought you — lacking someone else. You have been second a... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
04f0726ae7020421 | Leap In The Dark | Roberta Hill | “The experience of truth is indispensible
for the experience of beauty and the sense
of beauty is guided by a leap in the dark.”
Arthur Koestler
I.
Stoplights edged the licorice street with ribbon,
neon embroidering wet sidewalks. She turned
into the driveway and leaped in the dark. A blackbird
perched on the b... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S2-2",
"S2-10",
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
9a83aa595429e5d3 | Night Thoughts | Carl Rakosi | After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.
My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.
The night is cold for love,
a chamber for the c... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
287aafd8083c2b2e | Home [“Fair was the morning, fair our tempers, and”] | Edward Thomas | Fair was the morning, fair our tempers, and We had seen nothing fairer than that land, Though strange, and the untrodden snow that made Wild of the tame, casting out all that was Not wild and rustic and old; and we were glad. Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to pass Were we that league of snow, next the north wind... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
a6663c6b01ec551e | Elegy in an Abandoned Boatyard | Dave Smith | ... mindful of the unhonored dead
—Thomas Gray
Here they stood, whom the Kecoughtan first believed
gods from another world, one pair of longjohns
each, bad-yellow, knotted with lice,
the godless, bandy-legged runts
with ear bit off, or eye gouged,
who killed and prayed
over ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
67193f3b722ea0a8 | Conversation | Ai | for Robert Lowell
We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don’t tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
56f91d52a19ad3e9 | A Description of Such a One As He Would Love | Sir Thomas Wyatt | A face that should content me wondrous well
Should not be fair but lovely to behold,
With gladsome cheer all grief for to expel;
With sober looks so would I that it should
Speak without words such words as none can tell;
Her tress also should be of crisped gold;
With wit; and thus might chance I might be tied,
And knit... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
7fdc320e18000020 | The Widows’ House | Sarah Orne Jewett | [At Bethlehem, Pennsylvania]
What of this house with massive walls And small-paned windows, gay with blooms? A quaint and ancient aspect falls Like pallid sunshine through the rooms. Not this new country’s rush and haste Could breed, one thinks, so still a life; Here is the old Moravian home, A placid foe ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
0f84ecd326439b8e | Private Eye Lettuce | Richard Brautigan | Three crates of Private Eye Lettuce,
the name and drawing of a detective
with magnifying glass on the sides
of the crates of lettuce,
form a great cross in man’s imagination
and his desire to name
the objects of this world.
I think I’ll call this place Golgotha
and have some salad for dinner. | [
"S5",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
81b335638a31d70e | Eden, Then and Now | Ruth Stone | In ’29 before the dust storms
sandblasted Indianapolis,
we believed in the milk company.
Milk came in glass bottles.
We spread dye-colored butter,
now connected to cancer.
We worked seven to seven
with no overtime pay;
pledged allegiance every day,
pitied the starving Armenians.
One morning in the midst of pl... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
32a5044d14f386a9 | In Memory of the Utah Stars | William Matthews | Each of them must have terrified
his parents by being so big, obsessive
and exact so young, already gone
and leaving, like a big tipper,
that huge changeling’s body in his place.
The prince of bone spurs and bad knees.
The year I first saw them play
Malone was a high school freshman,
already too big for any bed... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
1f9ef95e44a5de9d | The Forsaken Merman | Matthew Arnold | Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go—
Cal... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
82d510c8481ad6f1 | Five Yellow Roses | Matthew Sweeney | What stopped her bawling was the doorbellringing, and a man standing there with fiveyellow roses, bulked up with green frondsand tied in a dinky knot with olive twine.There was no card to say who the flowerscame from. The man’s uniform was bluewith a brown insignia of a spider on his righttop pocket that she saw he kep... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
4b24cb27262e7b66 | Translation | Jon Pineda | We thought nothing of it, he says,though some came so close to where we slept.
I try to see him as a boy,
back in the Philippines, waking
to the sound of machine guns.
His family would spend their morningspreading a paste over the sores
of the house’s thick walls.He tells how he touched
points where bullets enter... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
46f7b300e38715ef | We Never Know | Yusef Komunyakaa | He danced with tall grass
for a moment, like he was swaying
with a woman. Our gun barrels
glowed white-hot.
When I got to him,
a blue halo
of flies had already claimed him.
I pulled the crumbled photograph
from his fingers.
There's no other way
to say this: I fell in love.
The morning cleared again,
except ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
d1e77ed84c1f87fd | Consecration | Susan Stewart | The man in the yellow hard hat, the one with the mask across his nose and mouth, pulls the lever that turns the great arm of the crane up and over and sideways toward the earth; then the wrecking ball dangles crazily, so delicately, like a silver fob loosened from a waistcoat pocket: shocking to see the dust fly ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S3-1",
"S6-1",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Aging"
] |
9ae406ed774ad3cf | Some San Francisco Poems: Sections 5-10 | George Oppen | 5
THE TRANSLUCENT MECHANICS
Combed thru the piers the wind
Moves in the clever city
Not in the doors but the hinges
Finds the secret of motion
As tho the hollow ships moved in their voices, murmurs
Flaws
In the wind
Fear fear
At the lumber mastheads
And fetched a message out of the sea again
Say an... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
6936c5ca0b9c166c | Undivided attention | Taylor Mali | A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers, tied up
with canvas straps—like classical music’s birthday gift
to the criminally insane—is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.
It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers’ crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares and d... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S9-3",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Winter",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
f2d5c72f52e059f7 | Eve | Ella Higginson | Close to the gates of Paradise I flee; The night is hot and serpents leave their beds, And slide along the dark, crooking their heads,— My God, my God, open the gates to me! My eyes are burning so I cannot see; My feet are bleeding and I suffer pain; Let me come in on the cool grass again—My God, my God, op... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
d6ba89ab65564aca | Ozette | Megan Snyder-Camp | After a while the 500-year-old village became a secret,carved into the wall of the forest where it met the Pacific,eleven long houses and their racks of drying fish, theirdogs. No roads to this town, only boats and the memory ofboaters. Blankets made from woodpecker feathers, cattailfluff, cedar bark and dog hair woven... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
da5d41e5636b6d13 | To A— | Brian Kim Stefans | Thinking.
Wondering if
my trot to Paris
to suffer you
wasn’t all wrong.
My amour fou
precise as a shark
collecting scents
miles off,
exact as a saint
cowed before
invisible wings
rustling
abstract sheets?
Your eyes
green, and red
your hair,
iconic in this
television universe
of one man
let nothing o... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-1",
"S9-7",
"S10-2",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
98f3aa6be533ab15 | Old Love | Pat Mora | When my aunt died,
my uncle raised his hands
like a prophet in the Bible.
“I've lost my girl,” he said,
“I've lost my girl,” over and over,
shaking his head.
I didn't know what to say,
where to look,
my quiet uncle raising his voice
to silence.
My aunt was eighty-seven.
“Listen,” my uncle said, sighing
like... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
6fce3a2e48105668 | The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students | Galway Kinnell | Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
“Clinical Sonnets”; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment i... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
ae0ce6442bd3cc16 | from Oracles for Youth | Caroline Gilman | Directions Let some one hold the book, and ask one of the questions. The answers being all numbered, the girl or boy who is questioned chooses a number, and the person who holds the book reads the answer to which that number belongs, aloud. For instance: Question. What is your character? Answer. I choose No. 3 Quest... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
adae8690b10b2670 | Psalm 55 | Mary Sidney Herbert Countess of Pembroke | My God, most glad to look, most prone to hear, An open ear, oh, let my prayer find, And from my plaint turn not thy face away. Behold my gestures, hearken what I say, While uttering moans with most tormented mind, My body I no less torment and tear. For, lo, their fearful t... | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
7b50e0ff4952208f | Where They Lived | Marjorie Saiser | One last time I unlock the house where they lived and fought and tried again: the air of the place, carpet with its unchanging green, chair with its back to me. On the TV set, the Christmas cactus has bloomed, has spilled its pink flowers down its scraggly arms and died, drying into paper. At the round oak table, ghost... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
9ebd654b7bf64c4e | The Watergaw | Hugh MacDiarmid | Ae weet forenicht i’ the yow-trummle
I saw yon antrin thing,
A watergaw wi’ its chitterin’ licht
Ayont the on-ding;
An’ I thocht o’ the last wild look ye gied
Afore ye deed!
There was nae reek i’ the laverock’s hoose
That nicht—an’ nane i’ mine;
But I hae thocht o’ that foolish licht
Ever sin’ syne;
An’ I thi... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
cb506b53b1a4a208 | Prophecy | Jules Supervielle | One day the Earth will be
just a blind space turning,
night confused with day.
Under the vast Andean sky
there’ll be no more mountains,
not a rock or ravine.
Only one balcony will remain
of all the world’s buildings,
and of the human mappa mundi,
limitless sorrow.
In place of the Atlantic Ocean,
a little sal... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
594b8790130466e4 | The Jester | Margaret Widdemer | I have known great gold Sorrows: Majestic Griefs shall serve me watchfully Through the slow-pacing morrows: I have knelt hopeless where sea-echoing Dim endless voices cried of suffering Vibrant and far in broken litany: Where white magnolia and tuberose hauntingly Pulsed their regretful sweets along the air-— Al... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
8f04686952cca11e | Sonnet: On Receiving a Letter Informing Me of the Birth of a Son | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | When they did greet me Father, sudden AweWeigh'd down my spirit! I retired and kneltSeeking the throne of grace, but inly feltNo heavenly visitation upwards drawMy feeble mind, nor cheering ray impart.Ah me! before the Eternal Sire I broughtThe unquiet silence of confused ThoughtAnd shapeless feelings: my o'erwhelmed H... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S6-2",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
3f61b503598f45fa | From the Headland at Cumae | John Peck | People expected that the evil would finally drain away.
—Aleksander Wat, My Century
Faded and baked here to a tawny grit,
spills of blood and seed from humanity
called from it for its crimes against mute earth
gully in footpaths, dribble down to the sea,
payment now and forever drawn from birth
through flesh’s s... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
8ea2f8d9b2b7bd5d | Year’s End | Ellen Bryant Voigt | The fingers lie in the lap,
separate, lonely, as in the field
the separate blades of grass
shrivel or grow tall. | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
dc61e15ce64acb2c | Steel | Joseph Bruchac | for Rick Hill and in memory of Buster Mitchell
I
Steel arches up
past the customs sheds,
the bridge to a place
named Canada,
thrust into Mohawk land.
A dull rainbow
arcing over
the new school,
designed to fan
out like the tail
of the drumming Partridge—
dark feathers of the old way's pride
mixed in with b... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S9-4",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
cb1a806f42c4bb28 | Peanut Butter | Eileen Myles | I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
you know. And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know. All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S9-1",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
3c15a9ada9c56d9e | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 22 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | The path by which we twain did go, Which led by tracts that pleased us well, Thro' four sweet years arose and fell, From flower to flower, from snow to snow: And we with singing cheer'd the way, And, crown'd with all the season lent, From April on to April went, And glad at heart fro... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
528e70c61d8ae3d0 | Spring and All: XIV [Of death] | William Carlos Williams | Of death
the barber
the barber
talked to me
cutting my
life with
sleep to trim
my hair —
It’s just
a moment
he said, we die
every night —
And of
the newest
ways to grow
hair on
bald death –
I told him
of the quartz
lamp
and of old men
with third
sets of teeth
to the cue
of an old man
who said
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
c010863f83036fdf | Desire’s Persistence | Jay Wright | Yo ave del agua floreciente duro en fiesta.
—“Deseo de persistencia,” Poesía Náhuatl
1
In the region of rain and cloud,
I live in shade,
under the moss mat of days bruised
purple with desire.
My dominion is a song in the wide ring of water.
There, I run to and fro,
braiding the logical ... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
bc6505a9d55ad4c1 | Balance | Alice B. Fogel | Balance is everything, is the only
way to hold on.
I've weighed the alternatives, the hold
as harbor: It isn't safe
to let go. But consider the hover,
choices made, the moment
between later and too late.
Hesitation is later, regret
too late. You can't keep turning
and turning, or expecting
to return. This ear... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
9b34f379ffecd2b8 | In Death Valley | Edwin Markham | There came gray stretches of volcanic plains,
Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone hill
Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw.
Around were heaps of ruins piled between
The Burn o’ Sorrow and the Water o’ Care;
And from the stillness of the down-crushed walls
One pillar rose up dark against the moon.
Th... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
0ef0a60ba78587d8 | Villanelle of Change | Edwin Arlington Robinson | Since Persia fell at Marathon,
The yellow years have gathered fast:
Long centuries have come and gone.
And yet (they say) the place will don
A phantom fury of the past,
Since Persia fell at Marathon;
And as of old, when Helicon
Trembled and swayed with rapture vast
(Long centuries have come and gone),
This ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
178685908e4470cc | Thought Experiment: Mary in the Black-and-White Room* | Anna Moschovakis | Some things lock in competition, like an earthquake and a kiss. While a decision is waiting to be made, neither side of the argument progresses. The earthquake, though eager to prove its claim, shows valiant restraint; the kiss? It knows the power of bitten tongues.
Such stand-offs as these precede most gains (stance ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
974ebcc4ed7e62a0 | Symphony of a Mexican Garden | Grace Hazard Conkling | 1. THE GARDEN Poco sostenuto in A major The laving tide of inarticulate air. Vivace in A major The iris people dance. 2. THE POOL Allegretto in A minor Cool-hearted dim familiar of the dove. 3. THE BIRDS Presto in F major ... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S9-2",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
414169bc8a2942de | Deaf-Mute in the Pear Tree | P. K. Page | His clumsy body is a golden fruit
pendulous in the pear tree
Blunt fingers among the multitudinous buds
Adriatic blue the sky above and through
the forking twigs
Sun ruddying tree’s trunk, his trunk
his massive head thick-nobbed with burnished curls
tight-clenched in bud
(Painting by Generalíc. Primitive.)
I w... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4135e52de23f31ab | dogs! | Danez Smith | scooby-doo was trying to tell us something when every time that monster mask got snatched off it was a greedy white dude.
•
in ’97, a black comic gets on stage,
says, you ever notice how white dogs be like woof woof & black dogs be like ruff ruff motherfuckaaaaa!!
•
the dog upstairs won’t shut up & i’ve thought of... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-5",
"S3-8",
"S6-3",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth"
] |
2946533d5bf407e7 | be careful | Ed Roberson | i must be careful about such things as these.
the thin-grained oak. the quiet grizzlies scared
into the hills by the constant tracks squeezing
in behind them closer in the snow. the snared
rigidity of the winter lake. deer after deer
crossing on the spines of fish who look up and stare
with their eyes pr... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
109c91c012c0b68f | Catfish | Claudia Emerson | It nuzzles oblivion, confuses
itself with mud. A creature
of familiar taste, it ambushes
from its nest of ooze the pond's
brighter fish, clears its palate
with their eggs, lumbers fat
and stagnant into winter, lulled
into dreams of light sinking until
ligh... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
f59915f9104e3094 | Johanna Hirshhorn | Gerard Malanga | I never really knew if Johanna Hirshhorn was actually Joe’s only daughter.
Jim Brodey made the match and claimed as much, and then he left.
It was my last weekend in Labor Day New York
before boarding a one-way Milan Alitalia flight
where I disembarked with less than 10 bucks to my name
and this sense of wonder
... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d3aa8cd4870cb241 | Loves | Scott Cairns | Magdalen’s Epistle
Of Love’s discrete occasions, we
observe sufficient catalogue,
a likely-sounding lexicon
pronounced so as to implicate
a wealth of difference, where reclines
instead a common element,
itself quite like those elements
partaken at the table served
by Jesus on the night he was
betrayed—like th... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
879c6cf9b9463da1 | Planning the Disappearance of Those Who Have Gone | Frank Stanford | Soon I will make my appearance
But first I must take off my rings
And swords and lay them out all
Along the lupine banks of the forbidden river
In reckoning the days I have
Left on this earth I will use
No fingers | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bc8a4fc27efeef79 | The Animals in the Zoo Don’t Seem Worried | Tom Sleigh | Looking at the lion behind the plate glassI wasn’t sure what I was looking at: a lion, OK,but he seemed to come apart, not literallyI mean, but I couldn’t see him whole:Mane. Teeth. The slung belly pumpingas he panted and began to roar. His ballssheathed in fur swaying a little. His tail’s tuftjerking in an arc like an... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
08ed0000106a0974 | Summer | Heather Christle | Today you find yourself guiltyas the rim you splitan egg againstYou press chargesYou spell out your namelike the letters are medalsfor good conduct in a bad warThe night moves in with youinto your roomuntil even your sleepis not your ownThrough the windowthe grass tells youto give upand you are tryingbut on the other h... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
2edca4f8adf805a7 | Dog Head | Benjamin Goldberg | Our mascot was the bulldog. Bulldogs chased me across playgrounds
until I dreamed them. In class, I finished mazes with a green crayon.
Hedges grew skyward from pages, and I ran. My dad once called
this kind of thing my day-head. When my day-head happened,
they called him at his office. I learned the name Daedalus ... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-8",
"S9-5",
"S9-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Living/Youth",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
05699ab57bee1196 | Sonnet 142: Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate | William Shakespeare | Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving.O, but with mine compare thou thine own state,And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;Or if it do, not from those lips of thine,That have profaned their scarlet ornamentsAnd sealed false bonds of love as oft as mine, Robbed others’ b... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S1-9",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
fce9a95e4f73a843 | A Note on My Son’s Face | Toi Derricotte | I.
Tonight, I look, thunderstruck
at the gold head of my grandchild.
Almost asleep, he buries his feet
between my thighs;
his little straw eyes
close in the near dark.
I smell the warmth of his raw
slightly foul breath, the new death
waiting to rot inside him.
Our breaths equalize our heartbeats;
every muscl... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
77a08e2e22775f89 | Nude | Lesley Harrison | from Pia Arke's exhibition Arctic Hysteria at Greenland's
National Museum & Archives, Nuuk, 2010
i.
I am in my body. I am here, in front of you. I am the temperature in this room. I am undressed in my nudity; I am the light and shade you feel. I am more like other people than like you. I have before and after. I am ... | [
"S1",
"S3"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
2828c35978be80de | Angrily Standing Outside in the Wind | Brenda Hillman | —kept losing self control
but how could one lose the self
after reading so much literary theory?
The shorter "i" stood under the cork trees,
the taller "I" remained rather passive;
the brendas were angry at the greed, angry
that the trees would die, had lost interest
in the posturing of the privilege... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
e28bfcc3108c88a5 | Strange Little Prophets | Barbara Perez | When is the smell of a blackberry treea harbinger of violent movementrather than simply the recollection ofa childhood Sunday dress hem-dippedin mud, handprinted with juice and seeds?Hard to say. A mind, when playing tricksis at its most sincere — at home rakingthrough the body’s history, repeatingthe strange and nost... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
08cf29cf0e0e1eed | The Gods Among Us | C. Dale Young | One of them grants you the ability
to forecast the future; another wrenches
your tongue from your mouth, changes you
into a bird precisely because you have been
given this gift. The gods are generous
in this way. I learned to avoid danger, avoid fear,
avoid excitement, these the very triggers that prompt
my wing... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
854a271e2e0f3e1e | Lament for the Feet | H. L. Hix | Except a six-year pony penned from birthinside a barn, I never seen anything worse.
Eleven dobermans and mixed breeds, some still pups,
removed from a residence after anonymous tips
about a dead dog decomposing on the porch.Still and yet, this many dogs almost beats that one horse.
The problem of human freedom one ... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
c855bbc2b95449f2 | 13 December | Kate Greenstreet | She considers a field. She considers a field and buys it. Let her have the fruit of her hands.
We come down from the mountains. Yellow trees, green trees. I was leaving Earth but, before I did, I had to get rid of all my animals. My main one, my main model for behavior, was my snake. He was attached to the bottom of m... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
4fa53829a679f7cb | Dandelions (II) | Henri Cole | He drewthese dandelionsduring oneof the days when the only solacewas derivedfrom the laborof getting the white stemsand blurry seed headsjust right. “Nobody there,”the new diseaseannounced,with black-tie gloom,“nobody there,”after he’d succumbed.Sometimes, sleeping soundly is almost unbearable.Please take care of me,he... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S9-3",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
5a2aff7f4dc1e622 | There was an Old Man on the Border | Edward Lear | There was an old man on the Border,Who lived in the utmost disorder;He danced with the cat, and made tea in his hat,Which vexed all the folks on the Border. | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-8",
"S9-1",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
34f600a3f37f7d21 | The Arsenal at Springfield | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | This is the Arsenal. From floor to ceiling, Like a huge organ, rise the burnished arms; But from their silent pipes no anthem pealing Startles the villages with strange alarms. Ah! what a sound will rise, how wild and dreary, When the death-angel touches those swift keys! What loud lament and dismal M... | [
"S3",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
f1d84f5dce2f0014 | For the Tattooed Man | Sharmila Voorakkara | Because she broke your heart, Shannon’s a badge— a seven-letter skidmark that scars up across your chest, a flare of indelible script. Between Death or Glory, and Mama, she rages, scales the trellis of your rib cage; her red hair swings down to bracket your ankles, whip up the braid of your backbone, cuff your wri... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
ef139655f864f5eb | Telling Fortunes | Alice Cary | ‘Be not among wine-bibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh; for the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty; and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags.’ Proverbs, 23: 20, 21
I’ll tell you two fortunes, my fine little lad, For you to accept or refuse. The one of them good, and the other one bad; No... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
1a5384f151eb21d1 | The Sick Rose | William Blake | O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-8",
"S2-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
6d2f682058046b45 | Translation | Deirdre O'Connor | Though there's no such thing as a "self," I missed it—
the fiction of it and how I felt believing in it mildly
like a book an old love sent with an inscription
in his hand, whatever it meant,
After such knowledge, what forgiveness . . . —the script of it like the way my self felt
learning German words by chance—Mitgef... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
f9accca2fcd111d6 | On Peripheries of the Imperium | Lawrence Joseph | i
Eye of the hurricane the Battery, the Hudson
breached, millions of gallons of it
north on West Street filling Brooklyn–Battery
Tunnel, overflowing into the World Trade Center site,
East River, six-to-eight-foot wall of water on South,
Front, Water, John, Fulton, Pearl,
Brooklyn Bridge’s woven cables lifted del... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-6",
"S4-1",
"S6-6",
"S6-8",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Living/Youth",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
dd6286a5b1a6eac8 | The Tuft of Flowers | Robert Frost | I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the levelled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, ... | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S8-4",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
fa04a0f82b9cd8c8 | Missing Persons | Rae Armantrout | God and Mother went the same way. * * * What's a person to us but a contortion of pressure ridges palpable long after she is gone? * * * A thin old man in blue jeans, back arched, grimaces at the freezer compartment. * * * Lying in the tub, I'm telling t... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [] |
c664e1f48b79080f | Almost Livin' Almost Dyin' | Juan Felipe Herrera | for all the dead
& hear my streets
with ragged beats & the beats
are too beat to live so the graves push out with
hands that cannot touch the makers of light & the
sun flames down through the roofs & the roots that slide
to o... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
a7465c692a9b9d2f | [The challenge: to start] | Anna Moschovakis | The challenge: to start
not with theory but with tangible performance
You and others, approaching
We shall be asked for a way out
to be fed
to keep warm and dry
Starting with experience, magic
genuine science
More than once we have been lost
in a trackless wilderness
dwarfed an... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
37f5dd0eedae533f | Sonnet 10: Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son | John Milton | To Mr. Lawrence
Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire Help waste a sullen day; what may be won From the hard season gaining? Time will run On smoother, till Favonius re-inspire The fr... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
70e41d025fcfd05e | All Thirst Quenched | Lois Red Elk | for my granddaughter, Wahcawin
I didn’t want to scold the sky that year, but
Grandma’s words taunted my senses. If there
is a thirst, then you need to pity the flowers
in a loud voice. Ask the frogs why they are
being punished, stomp on the ground and talk
to the dried clay about cracking open the earth.
I know... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d639076bf1d11430 | Another Plot Cliché | Rebecca Hoogs | My dear, you are the high-speed car chase, and I,
I am the sheet of glass being carefully carried
across the street by two employees of Acme Moving
who have not parked on the right side
because the plot demands that they make
the perilous journey across traffic,
and so they are cursing as rehearsed
as they angle... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-7"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film"
] |
68d997d4bb020f60 | In the Distant Past | Carrie Fountain | Things weren’t very specific
when I was in labor,
yet everything was
there, suddenly: all that
my body had known,
even things I’d only been
reminded of occasionally,
as when a stranger’s scent
had reminded me
of someone I’d known
in the distant past. The few
men I’d loved but didn’t
marry. The time, living
... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
73916598d3f56617 | Consolation | Matthew Arnold | Mist clogs the sunshine. Smoky dwarf houses Hem me round everywhere; A vague dejection Weighs down my soul. Yet, while I languish, Everywhere countless Prospects unroll themselves, And countless beings Pass countless moods. Far hence, in Asia, On the smooth convent-roofs, On the gilt terraces, Of holy Lassa, Bright shi... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-1",
"S6-3",
"S11-3",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
a7ebd042529df1be | A Moment of Silence | Najwan Darwish | And what did the Armenians say?An Umayyad monkspins wheat and wool above usTime is a scarecrow • That’s what the Armenians said | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
da29392734c85b48 | Returning, We Hear the Larks | Isaac Rosenberg | Sombre the night is: And, though we have our lives, we know What sinister threat lurks there. Dragging these anguished limbs, we only know This poison-blasted track opens on our camp— On a little safe sleep. But hark! Joy—joy—strange joy. Lo! Heights of night ringing with unseen larks: Music showering on ou... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
6b7a55d8459b65a9 | Man with Picture Frame | Michele Wolf | 90th and Third, NYC
We almost missed him, although his face,
As blunt as a busy Picasso, all shifting
Planes, was wedged in a picture frame.
We almost missed him, the way one can stop
Seeing hunched-over bodies along the street
Or a favorite picture above the sofa
In the living room, so familiar it seems
Invisi... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
d6a9233b53a39ca9 | Gay Pride Weekend, S.F., 1992 | Brenda Shaughnessy | I forgot how lush and electrified
it was with you. The shaggy
fragrant zaps continually passing
back and forth, my fingertip
to your clavicle, or your wrist
rubbing mine to share gardenia
oil. We so purred like dragonflies
we kept the mosquitoes away
and the conversation was heavy,
mother-lacerated childhoods
... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
8d392abe21fba79f | Suite for Emily | Lynda Hull | 1. The Letter
Everywhere the windows give up nothing
but frost’s intricate veined foliage.
Just engines shrilling pocked and frozen streets
wailing toward some new disaster.
No bright angels’ ladders going to split
heaven this Chicago instant where the pier’s
an iced fantastic: spiked, the glacial floes
seize i... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S5-8",
"S6-1",
"S6-3",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S6-6",
"S8-4",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The... |
a3cc8a80daaaac3d | Guess the Races of Three Boys from Champaign | D. H. Tracy | 1The nineish summer-skinny imp-boy veersthe bicycle he has no notion yet of trustingoff the sidewalk, where the squashed mulberriesform many contusions. Riding as though and as thoughon an animal (maybe his bikeshould have gazelle eyes) he is hatching planssomehow angelically pristine of doubtbetween them and fruition.... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-3",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
fd7022ae04043b79 | Autumn Sky | Charles Simic | In my great grandmother's time, All one needed was a broom To get to see places And give the geese a chase in the sky. • The stars know everything, So we try to read their minds. As distant as they are, We choose to whisper in their presence. • Oh Cynthia, Take a clock that has lo... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Fall"
] |
d00bf970cb0f1ae1 | Sonnet of the Seven Chinese | Franco Fortini | The Augsburg poet once said he had tacked
an image of the Man of Doubt
to the wall of his room. A Chinese print.
The image asked: how ought one to act?
I have a photo on my wall. Twenty years ago
seven Chinese workers looked into my lens.
They look wary or ironic or tense.
They know I do not write for them. I kn... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
6bf7349a36a4cb9a | Science | Alison Hawthorne Deming | Then it was the future, though what’s arrived
isn’t what we had in mind, all chrome and
cybernetics, when we set up exhibits
in the cafeteria for the judges
to review what we’d made of our hypotheses.
The class skeptic (he later refused to sign
anyone’s yearbook, calling it a sentimental
degradation of language)... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-6"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
af337a3cc549eeed | The Rain-bow | Thomas Love Peacock | The day has pass’d in storms, though not unmix’d
With transitory calm. The western clouds,
Dissolving slow, unveil the glorious sun,
Majestic in decline. The wat’ry east
Glows with the many-tinted arch of Heav’n.
We hail it as a pledge that brighter skies
Shall bless the coming morn. Thus rolls the day,
Th... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S5-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e8c7459c26647ae9 | Mighty Pawns | Major Jackson | If I told you Earl, the toughest kid
on my block in North Philadelphia,
bow-legged and ominous, could beat
any man or woman in ten moves playing white,
or that he traveled to Yugoslavia to frustrate the bearded
masters at the Belgrade Chess Association,
you'd think I was given to hyperbole,
and if, at dinnertime... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
4fe20f2eedce0b51 | “I think I should have loved you presently” | Edna St. Vincent Millay | I think I should have loved you presently,
And given in earnest words I flung in jest;
And lifted honest eyes for you to see,
And caught your hand against my cheek and breast;
And all my pretty follies flung aside
That won you to me, and beneath your gaze,
Naked of reticence and shorn of pride,
Spread like a cha... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
927a15e44bf5a88d | Enough | Suzanne Buffam | I am wearing dark glasses inside the house
To match my dark mood.
I have left all the sugar out of the pie.
My rage is a kind of domestic rage.
I learned it from my mother
Who learned it from her mother before her
And so on.
Surely the Greeks had a word for this.
Now surely the Germans do.
The more words a per... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0d7ab80585e950ca | Time and the Garden | Yvor Winters | The spring has darkened with activity.
The future gathers in vine, bush, and tree:
Persimmon, walnut, loquat, fig, and grape,
Degrees and kinds of color, taste, and shape.
These will advance in their due series, space
The season like a tranquil dwelling-place.
And yet excitement swells me, vein by vein:
I long t... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8",
"S9-2",
"S9-4",
"S9-6",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
c6d78356c2a11754 | Love and Life: A Song | John Wilmot Earl of Rochester | All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv’n o’er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.
The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment’s all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.
Then ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
07924e04f176bc10 | Even-Keeled and At-Eased | Alberto Ríos | But the truth is, I am Thursday on a Monday. I
Am the walking calendar alive of mixed-up days and dim hours. I have
A week inside of me, a week or a year, time out of order. I have contracted
With the world to behave, to try, hard, to be Monday on a Monday. I
Look like I am happiness, don’t you think? On Monday, to... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
c414219712fad22b | Garbage Truck | Paul Martínez Pompa | After it lifts the army-green, stuffed
dumpster over its head and the trash
falls to the receptacle, it hulks
backward with a cadenced beep as if
to say, get out the fucking way, please. | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.