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 |
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ba3dac17a298a701 | The Ship Pounding | Donald Hall | Each morning I made my way
among gangways, elevators,
and nurses’ pods to Jane’s room
to interrogate the grave helpers
who tended her through the night
while the ship’s massive engines
kept its propellers turning.
Week after week, I sat by her bed
with black coffee and the Globe.
The passengers on this voyage
... | [
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"Living",
"Relationships"
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"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
315795dcc7c690e6 | Uneasy Rider | Diane Wakoski | Falling in love with a mustache
is like saying
you can fall in love with
the way a man polishes his shoes
which,
of course,
is one of the things that turns on
my tuned-up engine
those trim buckled boots
(I feel like... | [
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"S1-6",
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d9c40973335af32d | The Heavenly City | Stevie Smith | I sigh for the heavenly country,
Where the heavenly people pass,
And the sea is as quiet as a mirror
Of beautiful beautiful glass.
I walk in the heavenly field,
With lilies and poppies bright,
I am dressed in a heavenly coat
Of polished white.
When I walk in the heavenly parkland
My feet on the pasture are bar... | [
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"S3"
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"S2-8",
"S2-9"
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
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"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
7e5e62a3ce093408 | Soft Money | Rae Armantrout | They’re sexybecause they’re needy,which degrades them.They’re sexy becausethey don’t need you.They’re sexy because they pretendnot to need you,but they’re lying,which degrades them.They’re beneath youand it’s hot.They’re across the border,rhymes with dancer—they don’t needto understand.They’re content to be(not mean),w... | [
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
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"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
907e03dc16b27661 | Dear Bryan Wynter | W. S. Graham | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
1
This is only a noteThis is only a note / To say Echoes the title of William Carlos Williams’s poem, “This Is Just To Say”To sayThis is only a note / To say Echoes the title of William Carlos Williams’s poem, “This Is Just To Say” how sorry I amYou diedYou died Bryan... | [
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7af8e44f79b1a207 | how to get over ["be born: black..."] | T'ai Freedom Ford | be born: black
as ants on a chicken bone black
as Nina Simone and Mahalia’s moan black
as rock pile smile and resilience black
as resistance and rhythm and Sonny’s blues black
as no shoes and dirt floors black
as whore and Hottentot foxtrot Lindy Hop
and Watusi pussy and pyramids black
as darkness under your ey... | [
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ccd40d89d3ed017e | N | Randall Mann | has crawled out of the ocean to carry us from sleep, like sleep, the gray of outer Sunset portending the gray of inner Sunset. And so on. On the N, one should invent intricate fictions for the lives of the passengers: time is a game. Soon we will be underground. But first, the long lush green of Duboce Park, t... | [
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"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
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d410f4655a005078 | Of Darker Ceremonies | Phillip B. Williams | After “E. 1999 Eternal” by Bone Thugs-n-Harmony
Dear god of armed robberies and puff-puff-pass,a chalk outline unpeels from the street, smashes every windshield, and leaves florid temples of crack on porches. Burnt-black pleats of joint-pressed lipsprophesied your return. Please accept these nickel bags as offerings... | [
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b8bcf8fa4ccce5d2 | December 30 | Richard Brautigan | At 1:03 in the morning a fart
smells like a marriage between
an avocado and a fish head.
I have to get out of bed
to write this down without
my glasses on. | [
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da55df1ee6ec5b86 | And as in Alice | Mary Jo Bang | Alice cannot be in the poem, she says, because She's only a metaphor for childhood And a poem is a metaphor already So we'd only have a metaphor Inside a metaphor. Do you see? They all nod. They see. Except for the girl With her head in the rabbit hole. From this vantage, Her bum looks like the flattened backside Of a... | [
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4ce555edc17ecb9b | Transplanting | Lee Ann Roripaugh | For my mother, Yoshiko Horikoshi Roripaugh
1. X-Ray
My mother carried the chest x-ray
in her lap on the plane, inside
a manila envelope that readDo Not Bend and, garnished
with leis at the Honolulu Airport,
waited in line—this strange image
of ribcage, chain-link vertebrae,
pearled milk of lung, and the murky
... | [
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"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
bb70d59e51a9f46c | Knees of a Natural Man | Henry Dumas | for Jay Wright
my ole man took me to the fulton fish market
we walk around in the guts and the scales
my ole man show me a dead fish, eyes like throat spit
he say “you hongry boy?” i say “naw, not yet”
my ole man show me how to pick the leavings
he say people throw away fish that not rotten
we scaling on our kne... | [
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18bd61ae9e73d5ec | New Netherland, 1654 | Grace Schulman | Pardon us for uttering a handful
of words in any language, so cut loose
are we from homes, and from His name that is still
nameless, blessed be He. We raised a prayer house—
that is, we broke new wood for one, but some
tough burned it, snarling: “Carve only stones for the dead.”
Damp ground, no fire, no psalm we ... | [
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"Religion/Judaism",
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] |
d7244c5890318d7e | Testament in Barcelona | Nathalie Handal | History can't be rushed.
We didn't have time to see the village,
we didn't have time to see the house fall
to build light out of mud,
nor did we see time burning.
The city is missing,
and we've saved others,
our backs turned.
What happened
is a different reality in everyone's mind,
but the direction we took
... | [
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786de5ff55cbc10f | The World Had Fled | Rachel Wetzsteon | The world had fled, with all its silly caresand questionable aches, and in one swoonwe rose above its stupefying airslike flying lovesick pigs up to the moon. In that blue light where two lives equaled all, our souls looked down upon a spinning ball.The world returned, and this was a surpriseI raged against lik... | [
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49af7f127856bf8b | Subway Ride, Spring 2002 | Liz Countryman | The train moved me, clothes kept me seated.
I watched the tunnel walls blur and my face appear, nicer on black plexiglass.
The people carried off like I almost was
in the old childhood dream, my mother’s hand, the tornado in the parking lot.
Flooring soda and rain, a humble poser, a composed consumer.
Come back to... | [
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ef0c4a345d769df4 | Doña Josefina Counsels Doña Concepción Before Entering Sears | Maurice Kilwein Guevara | Conchita debemos to speak totalmente in English
cuando we go into Sears okay Por qué
Porque didn’t you hear lo que pasó It say
on the eleven o’clock news anoche que two robbers
was caught in Sears and now this is the part
I’m not completely segura que I got everything
porque channel 2 tiene tú sabes tha... | [
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] |
f23c9f6d9e9e80a8 | Jealousy | Mary Elizabeth Coleridge | ‘The myrtle bush grew shady
Down by the ford.’
‘Is it even so?’ said my lady.
‘Even so!’ said my lord.
‘The leaves are set too thick together
For the point of a sword.
‘The arras in your room hangs close,
No light between!
You wedded one of those that see unseen.’
‘Is it even so?’ said the King’s Majesty.
‘Even so!’ sa... | [
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"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
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eb755bc8a45f1aef | Tigris Song | Ibn Al-`Arabi | Moringa of the flood bed
on the banks of the river Tigris.
A dove on a swaying bough's mournful cooing
has turned me sad,
Her song like the song
of the queen of the gathering—
When she touches her triple chord
you can forget the maestro brother of the caliph al-Hádi!
And when she sings!—who was Ánjash
that cam... | [
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"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
c05b7597e7563582 | Salt | Melissa Broder | How can you go swimming in another human being?I am swimming and asking for light.Once I paddled into dust and fuckingand the horsemen and ruinand the poisonous hollows of a projected blue eyeand cracked my skull on all and caught more diseasein my already dread mind and entered the medicinesof no human power, the fore... | [
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f8efe3c51ac9f020 | Right Justly | Diane Glancy | When he movd into the house
he wanted us to stomp & pray
out the evil spirits
just in case they’d be there.
How cld they
when a medicine woman lived on the place
& left it to the church when she went to happier
grounds?
But a truck hauling brush
turnd on the road
& he jumped up screaming—
deer ... | [
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fe25a4c9fd157e5f | Daffodils | Alicia Ostriker | —for David Lehman
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
—William Wordsworth
Going to hell so many times tears it
Which explains poetry.
—Jack Spicer
The day the war against Iraq begins
I’m photographing the yellow daffodils
With their outstretched arms and ruffled cups
Blowing... | [
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cc0ac32f7d0f2fd1 | The Guest Ellen at the Supper for Street People | David Ferry | The unclean spirits cry out in the body
Or mind of the guest Ellen in a loud voice
Torment me not, and in the fury of her unclean
Hands beating the air in some kind of unending torment—
Nobody witnessing could possibly know the event
That cast upon her the spell of this enchantment.
Almost all the guests are unde... | [
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"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
d2aa17c207f9e448 | Le sporting-club de Monte Carlo (for Lena Horne) | James Baldwin | The lady is a tramp
a camp
a lamp
The lady is a sight
a might
a light
the lady devastated
an alley or two
reverberated through the valley
which leads to me, and you
the lady is the apple
of God's eye:
He's cool enough about it
but He tends to strut a little
when she passes ... | [
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7f4f3798c1d33e3f | Everything | Fanny Howe | Infinite nestingpushes all mattertowards emptiness:child-nodes,tree-droppingswith a root element of null.None is always includedin every clusterof children.Nothing in nothingprepares us.Yet a fresh light was shed on immortalityfor me climbing the stairsfirm foot first.Everything was in the banister:crows on branches, c... | [
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"Living",
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"Living/Death & Dying"
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8de65f2b2bc10071 | Act | León Salvatierra | I’m going to say what love signifies
My grandfather said it was the desire of the I for another I
And since then I began to search for you
My father said the number of love was seven
Because creation lasted seven days
Seven days making love to its seven nights
I looked for you in each seven that ciphered my lif... | [
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"Relationships"
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"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5c2e2d2f601441a8 | The New Colossus | Emma Lazarus | Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The ... | [
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"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
8ed1fdf7fb992906 | Zugzwang | Claudine Toutoungi | I am unhappy about your description of my life as dull.
It is dull but I dislike you using the word dull.
If I could I would unhook the receiver from the wall and
place it on your dirty mouth. I don’t feel able to elucidate.
If you hadn’t known the German for lose/lose, if you
hadn’t the face of Dürer as Christ in... | [
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] |
6ec3910ba9aac858 | Cathay | Joshua Edwards | Wrongheaded and obsequious
on vacation, unnerved
by new surroundings, I miss
the bright feeling of belonging
and the familiar patterns of my country,
its virginity and schizophrenia,
my several stolen bicycles. | [
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1dca55dfdd63eff8 | Caterpillars | Brod Bagert | They came like dewdrops overnight
Eating every plant in sight,
Those nasty worms with legs that crawl
So creepy up the garden wall,
Green prickly fuzz to hurt and sting
Each unsuspecting living thing.
How I hate them! Oh, you know
I’d love to squish them with my toe.
But then I see past their disguise,
Somed... | [
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"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
41edc780e8f758dd | Simplify the Universe with a Pie Chart | Geraldine Clarkson | Daily, daily scathing roughens the psyche
and veils are unhinged. I too was a planet,
planed and waterless. Wolf-roved. Our roofs
leaked, mischievous sisters locked the Mother General
out in the garth where she prayed to the Foundress
and the dead and the living looked on, entombed
and disapproving. Gray nuns, gr... | [
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"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
1a2bf1b29a730626 | Whistler | Katharine Coles | I might have married a painter,
Therefore his mother. A radar
Detector, a snow-covered
Mountain, a novel
By John Grisham not even
Out yet. No, I wed
The cop directing my rush,Toot toot, a trainer to test
Agility, a kettle calling
Time to steep. Yes,
But I married this bird you must
Close your eyes to know
At... | [
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"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
6ef56c21612b908f | New Endymion | W. S. Di Piero | She visits still too much, dressed in aromasof fir needles, mango, mold: I still get lostknowing she’s close, me not getting youngeror more conscious. Sometimes I fantasticateI’m broad awake: her witchy presence waitsfor me to jump into her arms, but then she’s justan incoherent ache in sleep’s freaked scenes.I feel he... | [
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"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
08ef7ac4e55055c4 | The Argument | Jane Kenyon | On the way to the village store
I drive through a down-draft
from the neighbor’s chimney.
Woodsmoke tumbles from the eaves
backlit by sun, reminding me
of the fire and sulfur of Grandmother’s
vengeful God, the one who disapproves
of jeans and shorts for girls,
dancing, strong waters, and adultery.
A moment lat... | [
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"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
0d090636680e8fa1 | Reflective | A. R. Ammons | I found a
weed
that had a
mirror in it
and that
mirror
looked in at
a mirror
in
me that
had a
weed in it | [
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32f347a7aa7d1d9e | The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 | Alexander Pope | Close by those meads, for ever crown'd with flow'rs, Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow'rs, There stands a structure of majestic frame, Which from the neighb'ring Hampton takes its name. Here Britain's statesmen oft the fall foredoom Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home; Here thou, great Anna! whom thre... | [
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"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
958a19e47df2e058 | Resistance | Traci Brimhall | I must be the heavy globe
of hydrangea, always bowing
by summer’s end. Must be salt,
like sadness at a burning city,
an ethical disobedience. I must be
a violet thorn of fire. These days
I don’t taste good, but I must
be singing and boneless, a lily.
I must beg for it, eyes flashing
silver as a fish. Must be a... | [
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"S6"
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] | [
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98619803eb3bedc9 | Man Roulette | Brian Blanchfield | What booth is this? The last was a plastic gallows.
In the teach me to kiss booth, you paid your dollar
to promote, when prompted, a theory. Advised me about
standing close and touching him who might next enter
in such a way that draws contrast, rough and smooth,
cool and warm, maybe the heel of the hand and thumb... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
a88c4de724c40b4b | Severed Head Floating Downriver | Alice Oswald | It is said that after losing his wife, Orpheus was torn to
pieces by Maenads, who threw his head into the River
Hebron. The head went on singing and forgetting,
filling up with water and floating way.
Eurydice already for... | [
"S2",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
e9afa4d42ac322b3 | Layabout | John Brehm | Do nothing and everything will be done, that's what Mr. Lao Tzu said, who walked around talking 2,500 years ago and now his books practically grow on trees they're so popular and if he were alive today beautiful women would rush up to him like waves lapping at the shores of his wisdom. That's the way it i... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
d418b2a92ec29f0c | Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking | Walt Whitman | Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander’d alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining an... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-5",
"S1-8",
"S2-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/New Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
bd8a1f0dbd9d56f4 | Poem Written with Bashō [“The sound of the water jar”] | Matthew Rohrer | The sound of the water jarempties in the open graveswhere the refugees live.Because it does not touch menear my pillowI can sleep and dream of the clean linesof summer. What I thoughtwere faces turn outto be elaborate plates of sweetsnot this human sadness.One or two inches abovemy head until the mosquitosticks his s... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
bb9073aaa0c726ba | Hidden | Keith Waldrop | I propose
turning the key
useless to
conceal from you that
strange things
take place
it used to
ring of its
own accord
chair by
the window and thedoor closed
saw the curtain
detach
falling
when I weary of
looking, something is
bound to appear
walking
backwards
she is frightened
by the sound but
can... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
af7c68e23fdab376 | The White Campion | Donald Revell | If we meet each other in Hell it’s not Hell.
— Geoffrey Hill
i
How is it I can never find
Or call to mind
One image of Christ walking slowly in the rain,
In a steady, gentle rain,
The kind that shapes an afterimage
Just for a moment of the man
Like a cloak of shadow following
Or like a blank page
After it’s ... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
9aa00942899326a5 | from "Company" | Emily Hunt | At the top of a hill each morning,
I wait for the bus by the donut store.
Its pink sign looks hot,
curls, like a rope, a stem to a brain.
You turn toward a jade
at the height of your neighborhood,
stop at a light in its gut.
The sun starts to seep up,
reaching all grasses and grooves of the city.
A white bus w... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
f9d65a85c1a333b5 | A Shadow on the Wall | Gottfried Benn | A shadow on the wall
boughs stirred by the noonday wind
that’s enough earth
and for the eye
enough celestial participation.
How much further do you want to go? Refuse
the bossy insistence
of new impressions—
lie there still,
behold your own fields,
your estate,
dwelling especially
on the poppies,
unforgett... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
9af55478d428b600 | Dear — | Donika Kelly | I am not land or timber
nor are you
ocean or celestial body,
but rather we are
the small animals
we have always been.
The land and the sea
know each other
at the threshold
where they meet,
as we know something
of one another,
having shown,
at different times,
some bit of flesh,
some feeling.
We call the... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
27f976fd15821051 | The Tragedy of Hats | Clarinda Harriss | is that you can never see the one you're wearing,
that no one believes the lies they tell,
that they grow to be more famous than you,
that you could die in one but you won't be buried in it.
That we use them to create dogs
in our own image. That the dogs
in their mortarboards and baseball caps and veils
crush ou... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
8e2191c203004e00 | One Love Story, Eight Takes | Brenda Shaughnessy | Where you are tender, you speak your plural.
Roland Barthes
1
One version of the story is I wish you back—
that I used each evening evening out
what all day spent wrinkling.
I bought a dress that was so extravagantly feminine
you ... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8497a174e3824a81 | The Lobster | Carl Rakosi | Eastern Sea, 100 fathoms,
green sand, pebbles,
broken shells.
Off Suno Saki, 60 fathoms,
gray sand, pebbles,
bubbles rising.
Plasma-bearer
and slow-
motion benthos!
The fishery vessel Ion
drops anchor here
collecting
plankton smears and fauna.
Plasma-bearer, visible
sea purge,
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
6b61df4a6f3374b0 | A Night in Brooklyn | D. Nurkse | We undid a button, turned out the light, and in that narrow bed we built the great city— water towers, cisterns, hot asphalt roofs, parks, septic tanks, arterial roads, Canarsie, the intricate channels, the seacoast, underwater mountains, bluffs, islands, the next continent, using only the palms of our hands and the t... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
37c491f12a7b5ecb | Notes for Echo Lake 4 | Michael Palmer | Who did he talk to
Did she trust what she saw
Who does the talking
Whose words formed awkward curves
Did the lion finally talk
Did the sleeping lion talk
Did you trust a north window
What made the dog bark
What causes a grey dog to bark
What does the juggler tell us
What does the juggler’s redness tell us
Is... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
33a3ecfbb26b3109 | Whole 30 | Kiki Petrosino | After a winter of gluttony & grief
I'm back on plan for good this time.
I’ve ballooned to a specific kind of ugly
the kind you hope to hide
with body spray. But it gets worse
after a winter of gluttony & grief.
I’ve shown up for meatballs. For lemons
whipped to weeping. Now I land my balloon
for the specific ki... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
6c274fbd17a4db0f | There Is | Louis Simpson | Look! From my window there’s a view
of city streets
where only lives as dry as tortoises
can crawl—the Gallapagos of desire.
There is the day of Negroes with red hair
and the day of insane women on the subway;
there is the day of the word Trieste
and the night of the blind man with the electric guitar.
But I ha... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
536621e4ccc819a5 | Elegy for the Quagga | Sarah Lindsay | Krakatau split with a blinding noise and raised from gutted, steaming rock a pulverized black sky, over water walls that swiftly fell on Java and Sumatra. Fifteen days before, in its cage in Amsterdam, the last known member of Equus quagga, the southernmost subspecies of zebra, died. Most of the wild ones, not wild eno... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
188495b210c28ddb | A Dirge | Christina Rossetti | Why were you born when the snow was falling?
You should have come to the cuckoo’s calling,
Or when grapes are green in the cluster,
Or, at least, when lithe swallows muster
For their far off flying
From summer dying.
Why did you die when the lambs were cropping?
You should have died at the apples’ dropping,
When th... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss"
] |
8310d547b22493a0 | Effort at Speech Between Two People | Muriel Rukeyser | : Speak to me. Take my hand. What are you now?
I will tell you all. I will conceal nothing.
When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair :
a pink rabbit : it was my birthday, and a candle
burnt... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
bd63a5579b95db45 | Tempo for a Winged Instrument | Katharine Coles | Full of light and music, the beating air. Light like a bird, Calvino says, not a feather. Over the water the shags come in to landAll wings, uh-ohing over the cliffs.Rock, their nests, and bare the rookeries. Blue eye, blue eye, the wind plays fast and sharp.They lift and ride and do not pick their fights. Oh, blue... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
69305a292adcccd0 | How to Tie a Knot | James Kimbrell | If I eat a diet of rain and nuts, walk to the P.O.
in a loincloth, file for divorce from the world of matter,
say not-it! to the sea oats, not-it! to the sky
above the disheveled palms, not-it! to the white or green oyster boats
and the men on the bridge with their fishing rods
that resemble so many giant whiskers... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-9",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
9abfc082665bb301 | Beirut Tank | Tom Sleigh | Staring up into the tank's belly lit by a bare bulb hanging down off the exhaust, a mechanic's hands are up inside the dark metallic innards doing something that looks personal, private. This tank is nothing like the ones the Americans deploy. Those have uranium piercing shells that could melt right through this tank's... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
94834fb26f24b3ce | Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude | Ross Gay | Friends, will you bear with me today,
for I have awakened
from a dream in which a robin
made with its shabby wings a kind of veil
behind which it shimmied and stomped something from the south
of Spain, its breast aflare,
looking me dead in the eye
from the branch that grew into my window,
coochie-cooing my chin... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
cf99f1ffb9956d7f | Trail of Tears: Our Removal | Linda Hogan | With lines unseen the land was broken.
When surveyors came, we knew
what the prophet had said was true,
this land with unseen lines would be taken.
So, you who live there now,
don't forget to love it, thank it
the place that was once our forest,
our ponds, our mosses,
the swamplands with birds and more lowly cr... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
921186f67bd21c97 | Raking | Tania Rochelle | Anna Bell and Lane, eighty, make small leaf piles in the heat, each pile a great joint effort, like fifty years of marriage, sharing chores a rusty dance. In my own yard, the stacks are big as children, who scatter them, dodge and limbo the poke of my rake. We’re lucky, young and straight-boned. And I feel sorry for th... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-1",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
dede40523cf9cb48 | Envy | Mary Lamb | This rose-tree is not made to bear The violet blue, nor lily fair, Nor the sweet mignionet: And if this tree were discontent, Or wished to change its natural bent, It all in vain would fret. And should it fret, you would suppose It ne’er had seen its own red rose, Nor after gentle shower Had ever smelled its r... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
c208c774039273f1 | Belongings | Sandra M. Gilbert | —in memory of Angela Marie Incoronata Caruso Mortola,
May 21, 1903–January 14, 2001
1
In-and-out sun like the light of her mind that knows
and doesn’t feels and forgets pelts of rain
hid and seek of thought first gray then rose
but still a steady backlight (sometimes hidden):
“Remember Woody Allen’... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
40030d02f06bf2d1 | Bird-Shaped Cliff | Dean Young | Sometimes I think about climbing
a telephone pole but then what?
Telephone poles now have almost nothing
to do with telephones but I liked
how a curly cord went into the receiver
then a sturdier black wire went into the wall
through the wall out to a pole then
miles and miles of wire pole wire pole
sometimes un... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
502bd20d37f63fa9 | First Thought | Lorna Dee Cervantes | best thought, you had taught
me — a river runs through it,
the foot of the soul standing
stubbornly in the freeze, all
the shards of ice crumpling up
the banks, what survives
in the ignorance. Play it away.
Be ceremony. Be a lit candle
to what blows you. Outside,
the sun gives a favorite present,
mountain nes... | [
"S1"
] | [] | [
"Love"
] | [] |
2a65c6526b98e6e4 | The Burdens | Stephen Sexton | Before any of it, a goat appeared
in a piebald sweater, beardless
and tethered at the collar
on half a tennis court of land
up a rutted lane above the road.
Doubtless a horse once clip-clopped there
before a trap, a whip, a tweed of farmer
with bushels and crates
of cabbages, parsnips, blue duck eggs
to pay th... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-9",
"S6-6",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
99a69d556b46650f | Phantom | Ali Power | She says she had a baby
but I don’t believe her
Let me tell you the feeling
of relief when I started to believe her
baby wasn’t real
“What’s she getting out of it?”
I surrender without a fight
Ok, you can have your baby
Sometimes all you can do is reify your worst fears
What if I can’t have healthy relationshi... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
071f1101aa22711a | Strindberg Gray | Knar Gavin | He was trying to teach me to economize with my language. Strindberg grayhe said, instead of and I thought, sad stuff; plays. Okay: born, rented room, to Dad & Mom business & bar, how could you not? Or thought,I cannot be your Lithuania nor her other Armenia,emptied into river if not skein-tangled senseless. He won’t sa... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
d1bf3ccb83bacdbc | Dog Days of Summer | Meena Alexander | In the dog days of summer as muslin curls on its own heat
And crickets cry in the black walnut tree
The wind lifts up my life
And sets it some distance from where it was.
Still Marco Polo Airport wore me out,
I slept in a plastic chair, took the water taxi.
Early, too early the voices of children
Mimicking the c... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
ef9ae7806bce511a | On Being a Grid One Might Go Off Of | Justin Phillip Reed | The first step is to stop just beyond the weight of organs.
The sense of gravity sitting in tissue is like the space between
carcass and curb, before the reek worms into rock pores:
a sleeplessness there, that continual niche-trash. You too
once knew what it was to feel impressive. As the bed dissolves
into the wa... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
2cffb964db2a8a3b | Outbound | Hieu Minh Nguyen | Past the congested interstate, past the long lines
outside the Dorothy Day Center, past the cheering bleachers,
the steam rising from the coach’s face, the fathers straining in prayer,
past the rusting letters on the marquee, the dim lights along Main,
the couples who will fuck during the movie & the couples who wo... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
51a4dce2fb91f99e | Things of the Past | Theodore Weiss | “Your great-grandfather was . . .”
And Mrs. C, our tart old Scots
landlady, with her stomping legs,
four bristles sprouted from her chin-
wart, she who briskly
chats away
about Montrose, founder of her clan,
as though she’s just now fresh
from tea with him,
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c7bb8bb4b232607f | “An Archive of Confessions, A Genealogy of Confessions” | Joshua Clover | Now the summer air exerts its syrupy drag on the half-dark
City under the strict surveillance of quotation marks.
The citizens with their cockades and free will drift off
From the magnet of work to the terrible magnet of love.
In the far suburbs crenellated of Cartesian yards and gin
The tribe of mothers calls the... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S3-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Summer",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
f4cd5d69369f1ec8 | I Found a Four-Leaf Clover | Jack Prelutsky | I found a four-leaf clover
and was happy with my find,
but with time to think it over,
I’ve entirely changed my mind.
I concealed it in my pocket,
safe inside a paper pad,
soon, much swifter than a rocket,
my good fortune turned to bad.
I smashed my fingers in a door,
I dropped a dozen eggs,
... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
7ebf0592aadc6b52 | Aubade Ending with the Death of a Mosquito | Tarfia Faizullah | —at Apollo Hospital, Dhaka
Let me break
free of these lace-frail
lilac fingers disrobing
the black sky
from the windows of this
room, I sit helpless, waiting,
silent—sister,
... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
16d1c3a4321850b5 | Bones and Shadows | John Philip Johnson | She kept its bones in a glass casenext to the recliner in the living room,and sometimes thought she heardhim mewing, like a faint background music;but if she stopped to listen, it disappeared.Likewise with a nuzzling around her calves,she’d reach absent-mindedly to scratch him,but her fingers found nothing but air.One ... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-2"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
9753b287954135e9 | “A furnace in my father’s voice; I prayed for the coal stove’s” | Ishion Hutchinson | A furnace in my father’s voice; I prayed for the coal stove’sroses, a cruise ship lit like a castleon fire in the harbor we never walked,father and son, father drifting downthe ferned hell his shanty shone, where,inside, in my head, the lamp was the lamp.The market, the park, the library not a soulbut grandmother’s mor... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f2762950f8d1159e | H | Ciaran Carson | The Powers-that-Be decreed that from the—of—the sausage rolls, for reasons
Of security, would be contracted to a different firm. They gave the prisoners no reasons.
The prisoners complained. We cannot reproduce his actual words here, since their spokesman is alleged
To be a sub-commander of a movement deemed to be i... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S9-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
8fdfdfd111172041 | To the Blank Spaces | W. S. Merwin | For longer than by now I can believe
I assumed that you had nothing to do
with each other I thought you had arrived
whenever that had been
more solitary than single snowflakes
with no acquaintance or understanding
running among you guiding your footsteps
somewhere ahead of me
in your own time oh... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books"
] |
c708a8a40cf4c2b3 | The Bush | Chris Wallace-Crabbe | for Seamus Heaney
Overture:
violins:
it is all scraggy,
wideawake,
ironical,
decked out
in denim fatigues.
Witty and welcoming,
leathery-evergreen,
bemedalled with beercans,
cowpat and wallaby-dung,
flap,
nub,
hinge,
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
cef04763a9ef953f | Spring, the sweet spring | Thomas Nashe | Spring, the sweet spring, is the year’s pleasant king, Then blooms each thing, then maids dance in a ring, Cold doth not sting, the pretty birds do sing: Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo! The palm and may make country houses gay, Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day, And we hear aye birds tune thi... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-7",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
dfd69c008c7890b9 | Logic | Alice Notley | It was a poem
men took because it said ovary
didn’t take my
political poems
they took the one that said ovary
Are you sure it was because it
said ovary?
Yes, for them that’s logical.
---------------------------
Destroy another
city
What
else
is war for? So
you’ll go down
each of you ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
4a0c80503fc975b8 | The Dream | John Donne | Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream; It was a theme For reason, much too strong for fantasy, Therefore thou wak'd'st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok'st not, but continued'st it. Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice To make dreams truths, and fables histories... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
07a92c101d3bf9e0 | Poem for My Father | Quincy Troupe | for Quincy T. Trouppe Sr.
father, it was an honor to be there, in the dugout
with you, the glory of great black men swinging their lives
as bats, at tiny white balls
burning in at unbelievable speeds, riding up & in & out
a curve breaking down wicked, like a ball falling off a table
moving away, snaking down, scr... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
851f9a1506dad805 | A Sheep Dog Locked in Photograph | Hershman John | All the old photographs, hidden like buried
Treasure. Broken prayer sticks under my dreams
And my worn mattress. Each one like a postcard sent back
Home; wonders only seen in slick travel magazines.
Boxed up under my bed, colored souls on Kodak paper—
I can still see Grandma’s smile next to her resting sheep dog.
... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
089ee451cce10eb5 | In Colorado My Father Scoured and Stacked Dishes | Eduardo C. Corral | in a Tex-Mex restaurant. His co-workers,unable to utter his name, renamed him Jalapeño. If I ask for a goldfish, he spits a glob of phlegm into a jar of water. The silver letters on his black belt spell Sangrón. Once, borracho, at dinner, he said: Jesus wasn’t a snowman. Arriba Durango. Arriba Orizaba. Packed into a ca... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5bb499497f6d7d6c | Expat | Andrew Shields | The barstool's capacious, then ever more enclosed,
with every beer, as evening erodes.
A few capricious tourists off the cozy track
propose unbeaten toasts. He'll soon be going back.
Mannequin musicians play mandolins or thumb pianos,
bleat out a reggae air on ragged banjos.
The booths patter with the local lingo... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
72d1f282a4459e39 | Friendship’s Mystery, To my Dearest Lucasia | Katherine Philips | 1 Come, my Lucasia, since we see
That Miracles Mens faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
To the dull angry world let’s prove
There’s a Religion in our Love.
2 For though we were design’d t’ agree,
That Fate no liberty destroyes,
But our Election is as free
As Angels, who with greedy choice
Ar... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
b934b7cddd0cf46a | Dawn at St. Patrick's | Derek Mahon | There is an old
statue in the courtyard
that weeps, like Niobe, its sorrow in stone.
The griefs of the ages she has made her own.
Her eyes are rain-washed but not hard,
her body is covered in mould,
the garden overgrown.
One by one
the first lights come on,
those that haven’t been on all night.
Christmas, the... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-6",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
932c5a695dbe5011 | Those Seventy-Two Bodies Belong to Us | Roy G. Guzmán | After the 2010 San Fernando massacre
Para Luis
You novelize a route with flesh dumped at the ranch, can’t backtrack
the courage of miles we traversed in the dark, on a sighing speedboat,
through jungles that spat only shoes, calzones, bodies twisted
as guitarras when there’s no grito left in them to pluck. Back ho... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c6275c571d526260 | Marigold | Mahogany L. Browne | Each flower a wilting sun
The death of a new day is never kind
Grief ain’t no song
No loss is this romantic | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
b4f128f7ea32fc86 | For My Father, Karachi 1947 | Meena Alexander | Mid-May, centipedes looped over netting at the well's mouth.
Girls grew frisky in summer frocks, lilies spotted with blood.
You were bound to meteorology,
Science of fickle clouds, ferocious winds.
The day you turned twenty-six fighter planes cut a storm,
Fissured air baring the heart's intricate meshwork
Of want... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-3"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
b2cafca2481f63e4 | An Altogether Different Language | Anne Porter | There was a church in Umbria, Little Portion,
Already old eight hundred years ago.
It was abandoned and in disrepair
But it was called St. Mary of the Angels
For it was known to be the haunt of angels,
Often at night the country people
Could hear them singing there.
What was it like, to listen to the angels,
To... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
39dc9843d0ffc034 | Tam O 'Shanter | Robert Burns | When chapman billies leave the street, And drouthy neebors neebors meet, As market-days are wearing late, And folk begin to tak the gate; While we sit bousin, at the nappy, And gettin fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles, The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, That lie between us and our hame, Whare ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
35dfe1a5568cde6b | Infighting | Roddy Lumsden | Take this: for nothing here’s chiming, vibrating
and all this vainglory and self-deprecating
just goads at the tender parts, gets irritating.
You’ll make no advance advocating monopoly
on any vocabulary; even cacophony
needs the needle to make its point properly.
It’s true that you find yourself fey and bewitchin... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
021e6ee9315bb6a2 | Farewell Love and all thy Laws for ever | Sir Thomas Wyatt | Farewell love and all thy laws forever;Thy baited hooks shall tangle me no more.Senec and Plato call me from thy loreTo perfect wealth, my wit for to endeavour.In blind error when I did persever,Thy sharp repulse, that pricketh aye so sore,Hath taught me to set in trifles no storeAnd scape forth, since liberty is lever... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
30ac85336067c906 | The Mother | Ruth Stone | Here where the rooms are dryly stillWho is this dustily asleepWhile juicy children run the field?Where is her ever deepening wellWhose buckets to a fullness dipFor needs compassion must fulfill?Like freshets they themselves may yieldA little to the turned up cup,But death is in the long dry spell.Run children, run, the... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
d86067abcecc72b3 | Book | Mark Levine | I lost my book. It’s got the names in it.
Names for things and goods; structures,
Types, boundaries, procedures, goads.
My girl is in it, she who carried it
Within her like a rare worm
Until the untended bird came
And tore its leaves from her
As she lay there,
Pencil pressing page,
Taking it all down.
Then th... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
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