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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4643474f3327a103 | The Blade of Grass from Ponar | Abraham Sutzkever | I kept a letter from my hometown in Lithuania, from onewho still holds a dominion somewhere with her youthful charm.In it she placed her sorrow and her affection:A blade of grass from Ponar.This blade of grass with a flickering puff of dying cloudignited, letter by letter, the faces of the letters.And over letter-faces... | [
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
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"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7341ce56c5a3c7b6 | Eel | Eric Gansworth | 1
I don’t understand this kindergarten
assignment: “Draw Your Clan.”
The three letters live in abstraction.
A friend suggests mine looks like his, minus
legs, and that day I believe my clan is
a species of amputee Snipes, birds
forced to fly the skies forever, and I
wonder if we are meant to symbolize
enduranc... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-8",
"S8-3"
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"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
684d6a7eab6ca6bc | Misreading Housman | Linda Pastan | On this first day of spring, snow
covers the fruit trees, mingling improbably
with the new blossoms like identical twins
brought up in different hemispheres.
It is not what Housman meant
when he wrote of the cherry
hung with snow, though he also knew
how death can mistake the seasons,
and if he made it all soun... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-6",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
45ebee4ad9ca869c | August 1914 | Isaac Rosenberg | What in our lives is burntIn the fire of this?The heart's dear granary?The much we shall miss?Three lives hath one life—Iron, honey, gold.The gold, the honey gone—Left is the hard and cold.Iron are our livesMolten right through our youth.A burnt space through ripe fields,A fair mouth's broken tooth. | [
"S3",
"S6"
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"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
caa40b4e1089eaaf | The Good Wife Taught Her Daughter | Medbh McGuckian | Lordship is the same activity
Whether performed by lord or lady.
Or a lord who happens to be a lady,
All the source and all the faults.
A woman steadfast in looking is a callot,
And any woman in the wrong place
Or outside of her proper location
Is, by definition, a foolish woman.
The harlot is talkative and wandering
B... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
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5b2db92843894824 | Romanticism 101 | Dean Young | Then I realized I hadn’t secured the boat.Then I realized my friend had lied to me.Then I realized my dog was goneno matter how much I called in the rain.All was change.Then I realized I was surrounded by aliensdisguised as orthodontists having a conventionat the hotel breakfast bar.Then I could see into the life of th... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
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d754bdaad151206a | "Love my enemies, enemy my love" | Rebecca Seiferle | Oh, we fear our enemy’s mind, the shape
in his thought that resembles the cripple
in our own, for it’s not just his fear
we fear, but his love and his paradise.
We fear he will deprive us of our peace
of mind, and, fearing this, are thus deprived,
so we must go to war, to be free of this
terror, this unremitting... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
5ba90552b959fe81 | Tía Lucia Enters the Nursing Home | Deborah Paredez | All morning my daughter pleading, outsideoutside. By noon I kneel to button hercoat, tie the scarf to keep her hood in place.This is her first snow so she strains againstthe ritual, spooked silent then whining, restless under each buffeting layer,uncertain how to settle into thisleashing. I manage at last to tunnelher ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-7",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
32bb2f3ad07b8ba4 | Over the Dead Flatness of the Fens | William Logan | Like columns of mistin some temple to a vanished god,the late cloud-stacks mass over a Junereduced to the sickly greens of the Norfolk broads;and, above the steam-soiled messwhere earthworms grovel, where lumpish toadsset up the resistances of grace,where badgers undermine the tarred road,I watch the canvas of that und... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
d7eb63d82b7214e4 | My Brother | Marci Ridlon | My brother’s worth about two cents,
As far as I can see.
I simply cannot understand
Why they would want a “he.”
He spends a good part of his day
Asleep inside the crib,
And when he eats, he has to wear
A stupid baby bib.
He cannot walk and cannot talk
And cannot throw a ball.
In fact, he can’t do anything—
H... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
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"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
05fe073f96eae897 | A Beautiful Young Nymph Going to Bed | Jonathan Swift | Corinna, pride of Drury-Lane For whom no shepherd sighs in vain; Never did Covent Garden boast So bright a battered, strolling toast; No drunken rake to pick her up, No cellar where on tick to sup; Returning at the midnight hour; Four stories climbing to her bow’r; Then, seated on a three-legged chair, Takes off her ar... | [
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"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
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"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
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] |
83918e997b2ec0df | Ritual X. : The Evening Pair of Ales | Paul Blackburn | EAST OF EDEN is mountains & desert until you cross the passes into India . It is 3 o’clock in the afternoon or twenty of 8 at night, depending which clock you believe . AND WEST IS WEST It’s where the cups and saucers are, the plates, the knives and forks . The turkey sandwi... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
d007e88f05c9c046 | How Is It That the Snow | Robert Haight | How is it that the snow amplifies the silence, slathers the black bark on limbs, heaps along the brush rows? Some deer have stood on their hind legs to pull the berries down. Now they are ghosts along the path, snow flecked with red wine stains. This silence in the timbers. A woodpecker on one of the trees ta... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
fb1a078bd501d348 | The Stags | Kathleen Jamie | This is the multitude, the beasts you wanted to show me, drawing me upstream, all morning up through wind-scoured heather to the hillcrest. Below us, in the next glen, is the grave calm brotherhood, descended out of winter, out of hunger, kneeling like the signatories of a covenant; their weighty, antique-polished antl... | [
"S1",
"S2"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
fa409c218948df95 | Rosetta Stone Serious Study of Love Song (from the British Museum) | Ed Roberson | To Iretha
A textbook photograph most likelyled me to think the Rosetta Stone the sizeof a library’s old Webster’s Third Editionor two loaves of bread on a side board,but here it stands, three tongues, or one mindthat can say three ways we say the one thing,the breaths and sights of each way in rock,a milestone in inta... | [
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"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
91678407396fa10b | For the Last Wolverine | James L. Dickey | They will soon be down
To one, but he still will be
For a little while still will be stopping
The flakes in the air with a look,
Surrounding himself with the silence
Of whitening snarls. Let him eat
The last red meal of the condemned
To extinction, tearing the guts
From an elk. Yet that is not enough
For me... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
930be86ca8a3a37c | The Snowmass Cycle | Stephen Dunn | for Laure-Anne Bosselaar and Kurt Brown
1. RETREAT
The sailor dreamt of loss,
but it was I who dreamt the sailor.
I was landlocked, sea-poor.
The sailor dreamt of a woman
who stared at the sea, then tired
of it, advertised her freedom.
She said to her friend: I want
all the fire one can have
without being c... | [
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
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9b4b8c276be49c89 | Spring Snow | Linda Gregerson | A kind of counter- blossoming, diversionary, doomed, and like the needle with its drop of blood a little too transparently in love with doom, takes issue with the season: Not (the serviceberry bright with explanation) not (the redbud unspooling its silks) I know I've read the book but not (the lilac, the larch) quite y... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-8",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
5b1b45865a270fc8 | There Is A Garden In Her Face | Thomas Campion | There is a garden in her face
Where roses and white lilies grow;
A heav'nly paradise is that place
Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow.
There cherries grow which none may buy,
Till "Cherry ripe" themselves do cry.
Those cherries fairly do enclose
Of orient pearl a double row,
Which when her lovely laughter show... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
f98bb4b4722fa876 | Psalm 114 | Christopher Smart | When Israel came from Egypt’s coast, And Goshen’s marshy plains, And Jacob with his joyful host From servitude and chains; Then was it seen how much the Jews Were holy in his sight, And God did Israel’s kingdom choose To manifest his might. The sea beheld it, and with dread Retreated to make way; And Jor... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
9a8988e2c50a0852 | "John Anderson my jo, John" | Robert Burns | John Anderson my jo, John, When we were first acquent, Your locks were like the raven, Your bonie brow was brent; But now your brow is beld, John, Your locks are like the snaw, but blessings on your frosty pow, John Anderson, my jo! John Anderson my jo, John, We clamb the hill thegither, And... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
e1008d92813abbdb | The Prisoner of Chillon | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white
In a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears:
My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are... | [
"S2",
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"S6",
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] | [
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"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
509613a443b0ab7e | Sonnet | Frances Anne Kemble | Cover me with your everlasting arms,
Ye guardian giants of this solitude!
From the ill-sight of men, and from the rude,
Tumultuous din of yon wild world’s alarms!
Oh, knit your mighty limbs around, above,
And close me in for ever! let me dwell
With the wood spirits, in the darkest cell
That ever with... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
f987cc1745ecd97e | Many Scientists Convert to Islam | Nomi Stone | Conversations with a Muslim friend
1
So, if you don’t believe in full it means you don’t
believe. Words tumble onto the rock. A book
happens.Okay then tell me about heaven’s beautiful
food and women. Who are these women? | [
"S5",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-3",
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"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/Islam",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
87f7cf1a817e0816 | Eating Sin | Michael Sharkey | A man began to eat his order of fish, and the ghost of the fish arose and spoke. Forgive me, it said, please hear me. I died in despair, which is, as you know, the worst of the deadly sins. As I slowly suffocated in the alien air, I gave up hope of salvation, and so died without the consolation of religion. In your com... | [
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"Living",
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"Nature/Animals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
22f17da11ae0fe43 | The Canterbury Tales: General Prologue | Geoffrey Chaucer | Here bygynneth the Book of the tales of Caunterbury
Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, an... | [
"S1",
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"S10-5",
"S10-6",
"S10-8",
"S10-9",
"S11-4"
] | [
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/... |
dcdffab8e514d981 | Singing School | Seamus Heaney | Fair seedtime had my soul, and I grew up
Fostered alike by beauty and by fear;
Much favoured in my birthplace, and no less
In that beloved Vale to which, erelong,
I was transplanted ...
—WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, The Prelude
He [the stable-boy] had a book of Orange rhymes, and the days when we read them together in the... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
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"S3-11",
"S5-2",
"S6-3",
"S9-6",
"S9-7",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0ae17a6aca647006 | The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire | Stéphane Mallarmé | The buried temple empties through its bowels, Sepulchral sewer spewing mud and rubies, Abominably some idol of Anubis, Its muzzle all aflame with savage howls. Or if the recent gas the wick befouls That bears so many insults, it illumines In haggard outline an immortal pubis Flying along the streetlights on its prowl... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
33fc624ad26ddfd2 | New Stanzas for Amazing Grace | Allen Ginsberg | I dreamed I dwelled in a homeless place
Where I was lost alone
Folk looked right through me into space
And passed with eyes of stone
O homeless hand on many a street
Accept this change from me
A friendly smile or word is sweet
As fearless charity
Woe workingman who hears the cry
And cannot spare a dime
Nor lo... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S5-4",
"S10-3"
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"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
518aa4f4355f8ae9 | From a Rooftop | Timothy Steele | At dawn, down in the streets, from pavement grills,
Steam rises like the spent breath of the night.
At open windows, curtains stir on sills;
There’s caging drawn across a market’s face;
An empty crane, at its construction site,
Suspends a cable into chasmed space.
The roof shows other rooftops, their plateaus
Ma... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
e71ca376b941e449 | Night Feeding | Muriel Rukeyser | Deeper than sleep but not so deep as death
I lay there dreaming and my magic head
remembered and forgot. On first cry I
remembered and forgot and did believe.
I knew love and I knew evil:
woke to the burning song and the tree burning blind,
despair of our days and the calm milk-giver who
knows sleep, knows growt... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
e4af139a6121d0b9 | The Red Wheelbarrow | William Carlos Williams | so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens | [
"S2",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S8-8",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
33bf450377c297cd | Search & Recovery | Shin Yu Pai | For James Kim (1971 — 2006)
it could have
happened to any
of us
a wrong turn
down a logging road
tires tunneled
into snow
a man’s undying
love for his children
moves satellites
maps aerial images
eighteen care packages
dropped over 16
miles of the Siskiyou,
bearing handwritten
notes from a father
to hi... | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
91402436f3d50a34 | Wichita Triptych | Stephen Yenser | Sometimes the rain shinesJust when the sun reigns,And that was the way it isBeyond those French doorsThat late afternoon hereIn this mind’s early eveningWhere they still fade inThat cool color Polaroid,Pastel shades of her prom dress,A bowl of double peonies,Promising, precocious,Trying, trying to open. ... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
5d5498ba511745fe | A Perfect Mess | Mary Karr | For David Freedman
I read somewhere
that if pedestrians didn’t break traffic laws to cross
Times Square whenever and by whatever means possible,
the whole city
would stop, it would stop.
Cars would back up to Rhode Island,
an epic gridlock not even a cat
could thread through. It’s not law but the sprawl
... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
80fa70db64df2497 | Milton by Firelight | Gary Snyder | Piute Creek, August 1955
“O hell, what do mine eyes
with grief behold?”
Working with an old
Singlejack miner, who can sense
The vein and cleavage
In the very guts of rock, can
Blast granite, build
Switchbacks that last for years
Under the beat of snow, thaw, mule-hooves.
What use, Milton, a silly st... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-7",
"S5-2",
"S9-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
15e5e5fdde3a4fd4 | People Getting Divorced | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | People getting divorced
riding around with their clothes in the car
and wondering what happened
to everyone and everything
including their other
pair of shoes
And if you spy one
then ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
66eaeefa6da406d4 | Better to Marry Than to Burn | Traci Brimhall | Home, then, where the past was.Then, where cold pastorals repeatedtheir entreaties, where a portrait of Christhung in every bedroom. Then was a differentcountry in a different climate in a time whensouls were won and lost in prairie tents. It was.It was. Then it was a dream. I had no will there.Then the new continent a... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S5-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
e16b2f98694641da | River of Milk | Kaveh Akbar | bear with me it wasn’t long ago I was brainless
lazily pulling fireflies into my teeth chewing them
into pure light so much of me then was nothing
I could have fit into a sugar cube my body burned
like a barnful of feathers nothing was on fire
but fire was on everything the wild ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e706abe0a8c98bde | Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest | William Shakespeare | Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest,
Now is the time that face should form another,
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-3"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss"
] |
c09f7b409b700901 | Time of the Missile | George Oppen | I remember a square of New York’s Hudson River glinting between warehouses.
Difficult to approach the water below the pier
Swirling, covered with oil the ship at the pier
A steel wall: tons in the water,
Width.
The hand for holding,
Legs for walking,
The eye sees! It floods in on us from here to Jersey tangled i... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
51324c2a9cbfe5b9 | This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong | Edward Thomas | This is no case of petty right or wrong That politicians or philosophers Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers. Beside my hate for one fat patriot My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:— A kind of god he is, banging a gong. But I have not to choose between the two, Or ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
224e469c53385840 | Absences | Donald Justice | It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers.
There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote,
Like the memory of scales descending the white keys
Of a childhood piano—outside the window, palms!
And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining,
Soon to let down its white or yellow-white.
Now, only these ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S2-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
9433cc05075c0bf0 | America | Allen Ginsberg | America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956.
I can’t stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don’t feel good don’t bother me.
I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind.
America when wil... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
1b802e121c924fd6 | Small Moth | Sarah Lindsay | She's slicing ripe white peaches into the Tony the Tiger bowl and dropping slivers for the dog poised vibrating by her foot to stop their fall when she spots it, camouflaged, a glimmer and then full on— happiness, plashing blunt soft wings inside her as if it wants to escape again. | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
2c3def9cf510a64e | If We Must Die | Claude McKay | If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
21dc47f3e0b60a98 | Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798 | William Wordsworth | Five years have past; five summers, with the length Of five long winters! and again I hear These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs With a soft inland murmur.—Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, That on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape wi... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-3",
"S9-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
cce577c8ba94cb54 | Poem of Disconnected Parts | Robert Pinsky | At Robben Island the political prisoners studied.
They coined the motto Each one Teach one.
In Argentina the torturers demanded the prisoners
Address them always as “Profesor.”
Many of my friends are moved by guilt, but I
Am a creature of shame, I am ashamed to say.
Culture the lock, culture the key. Imagination
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-11",
"S5-7",
"S5-8",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
eaf99e8ab7220455 | Vines | Kaveh Akbar | there are fat wet vines creeping into myhouse through the pipes and throughthe walls gentle as blue flames they curl into
my living there is ice in my attic sugar on mytile I am present and useless like a nose tornfrom a face and set in a bowl whenI saw God I used the wrong pronounsGod bricked up my mouthholehis fists... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
5a2b9eefbf1c5d59 | Witness | Philip Lamantia | Because the dark suit is worn it is worn warm
with a black tie
and a kiss at the head of the stairs
When you hear the dark suit rip
on the heart’s curb the hurt is big
rose flesh caught on the orange woman’s buttons
As you talk metropole monotone
antique intelligence
as you dress woun... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
ed8db51944b97e12 | First Time In [“After the dread tales ... ”] | Ivor Gurney | After the dread tales and red yarns of the LineAnything might have come to us; but the divine | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
4cca07716af7b967 | On the Yard | Tom Sleigh | After lockdown, tier by tier undresses to sleep:
Each skull nestles in its mattress-hollow.
Wall facing wall inside of wall shrinks to a keyhole:
A fly creeps through and starts to buzz, reeling through bars
Down steel corridors. A dreamer’s eye follows the fly,
And wherever the fly lands, the eye touches down
Wi... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
01423e78a51aba3d | Sad Wine (I) | Cesare Pavese | It’s a fine fact that whenever I sit in a tavern corner
sipping a grappa, the pederast’s there, or the kids
with their screaming, or the unemployed guy,
or some beautiful girl outside—all breaking
the thread of my smoke. That’s how it is, kid,
I’m telling it straight, I work at Lucento. | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S8-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
9e7b08ad560d0661 | Ilulissat | Lesley Harrison | Outside
outside myself
there is a world,
he rumbled, subject to my incursions
—William Carlos Williams, Paterson
i.
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
faad7ac6cd9e2fe4 | The Cows on Killing Day | Les Murray | All me are standing on feed. The sky is shining.
All me have just been milked. Teats all tingling still
from that dry toothless sucking by the chilly mouths
that gasp loudly in in in, and never breathe out.
All me standing on feed, move the feed inside me.
One me smells of needing the bull, that heavy urgent me,
... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
8a2d59f74ac82934 | My New Job | Catherine Wagner | I am Invested in
by a Huge Fund
Heavy highquality
furniture
Sense of heavy
Addiction glossy pleasance
I was lying Down on a yoga mat
My bones
basketing air Barely draped in
skin
the basket Effulged by local
Air Highquality scented
humid air
to supp... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
f60addfaa52a030d | 30th Birthday | Alice Notley | May I never be afraid
especially of myself
but
Muhammed Ali are you telling
the truth?
Well you’re being true aren’t you and
you talk so wonderfully in your body
that protects you with physique of... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
15b551ccf9897005 | Hard Work | Roddy Lumsden | Tricky work sometimes not to smell yourself, ferment being constant—constant as carnival sweat (a non-stock phrase I palmed from a girl from Canada, a land where I once saw this graffiti: life is great). And I have tasted myself, especially when I spilled sinigang all down my arm in a Pinoy workers' caff in Little Mani... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
a8e7ca934e06c836 | What the Lyric Be | Alison C. Rollins | b-boy Wordsworth beatbox vocal cord
code switching through the wheat fields at daybreak
clicking his teeth against the corn’s high yellow thighs
prying open like the sunlight’s tear ducts
on the morning the moon forgot how to speak Twi
the cicadas having screeched all night in Old English
like a man who has forgo... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S3-8",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
72deca3928c5c10d | Me and My Pharaoh . . . | Charles Bernstein | [facsimile] He awoke, fully charged. You can bring water to a horse but you can’tmake it ride. All poetry is conceptual ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
80d9ee461417f01a | The Dead of Winter | Samuel Menashe | In my coat I sit
At the window sill
Wintering with snow
That did not melt
It fell long ago
At night, by stealth
I was where I am
When the snow began | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
c41d698e0d52336a | “Yet to die. Unalone still.” | Osip Mandelstam | Yet to die. Unalone still.
For now your pauper-friend is with you.
Together you delight in the grandeur of the plains,
And the dark, the cold, the storms of snow.
Live quiet and consoled
In gaudy poverty, in powerful destitution.
Blessed are those days and nights.
The work of this sweet voice is without sin.
Mi... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a2d694f491b3d9c8 | As If the Trees By Their Very Roots Had Hold of Us | Charles Bernstein | Strange to remember a visit, really not so
Long ago, which now seems, finally, past. Always, it’s a
Kind of obvious thing I guess, amazed by that
Cycle: that first you anticipate a thing & it seems
Far off, the distance has a weight you can feel
Hanging on you, & then it’s there – that
Point – whatever – which,... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
cb5563aaeeadbd96 | Econo Motel, Ocean City | Daisy Fried | Korean monster movie on the SyFy channel,lurid Dora the Explorer blanket draped tentlikeover Baby’s portacrib to shield us from unearnedinnocence. The monster slings its carapace in reverse swan dive up the embankment, triple-jointed bug legs clattering, bathroom door ajar, exhaust roaring, both of us naked, monster ch... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
526e2a85f9326d78 | Sea Sickness | Ilya Kutik | O mer!O mœurs!O merde contemporaine!
What’s left of my battles and my turmoilis in my seaside cabin: this roiling air.And yet it’s what’s outside that makes me shiver.Not the ocean coldness — something heavier.Hot black tea might help — it revives.Two kinds of glass are at hand for my thirst:that windowpane, this tumb... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
7b9f58b374c4f908 | Alaska | Dan Taulapapa McMullin | is a fairy-tale queendom
with monsters whom I don’t know
I only know my friends the fairies
of Alaska, the Yupik, I mean
fairies and white mountains
that disappear into the sky
bonfire at Drew’s when
Jerrod said, Dan is
lovely, except when
... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S8-4",
"S8-6",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
d6cc7f7253cdf3b6 | You’re | Sylvia Plath | Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo’s mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools’ Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.
Vague as fog a... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-8",
"S6-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
8226bd6958ebbdd9 | Tabernacle | Dean Browne | Castaways, we hit the forest — our camping stoveturned low, I gripped my tent close for its trialin virgin attitudes of stiffness whilelamps fluttered on the dark. My roof sank waveon wave accordion-like, the only sinwe knew; and soon the Jameson appeared.I’d burned one back and by the thirdshe laid her hand on mine, l... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S9-5",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
2ecb0baacbc4056c | The Inkspots | Gerald Stern | The thing about the dove was how he cried in
my pocket and stuck his nose out just enough to
breathe some air and get some snow in his eye and
he would have snuggled in but I was afraid
and brought him into the house so he could shit on
the New York Times, still I had to kiss him
after a minute, I put my lips to ... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-8",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
a9a3cddf3bd719b3 | Tenderness and Rot | Kay Ryan | Tenderness and rot share a border. And rot is an aggressive neighbor whose iridescence keeps creeping over. No lessons can be drawn from this however. One is not two countries. One is not meat corrupting. It is important to stay sweet and loving. | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
9ef823562e40cdf5 | The Sun Used to Shine | Edward Thomas | The sun used to shine while we two walked Slowly together, paused and started Again, and sometimes mused, sometimes talked As either pleased, and cheerfully parted Each night. We never disagreed Which gate to rest on. The to be And the late past we gave small heed. We turned from men or poetry To rumours of the war... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-9",
"S3-11",
"S8-4",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
ab418df2e32b36d9 | from Stanzas in Meditation: Stanza 15 | Gertrude Stein | Should they may be they might if they delight
In why they must see it be there not only necessarily
But which they might in which they might
For which they might delight if they look there
And they see there that they look there
To see it be there which it is if it is
Which may be where where it is
If they do no... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
ffcb5113face23a4 | Interview by a Guggenheim Recipient | Charles Bukowski | this South American up here on a Gugg
walked in with his whore
and she sat on the edge of my bed and
crossed her fine legs
and I kept looking at her legs
and he pulled at his stringy necktie
and I had a hangover
and he asked me
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE AMERICAN
POETS?
and I told him I didn’t think very much
... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
a5f504f7aacd5049 | On the Loss of Energy (and Other Things) | June Jordan | no more the chicken and the egg come
one of them
before the other
both
be fadin (steady)
from the supersafeway/a&p/giant
circus
uh-huh
the pilgrim cornucopia
it ain’ a pot to pee in
much
(these days)
gas is gone
and alka seltza runnin gas
a close race
outasigh... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
fa27f2e10cbb16f6 | Out of Water | Marie Ponsot | A new embroidery of flowers, canary color, dots the grass already dotty with aster-white and clover.I warn, “They won’t last, out of water.”The children pick some anyway.In or out of waterchildren don’t last either.I watch them as they pick.Still free of what’s next ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
4593fb9dc312c908 | Crepuscule with Muriel | Marilyn Hacker | Instead of a cup of tea, instead of a milk-
silk whelk of a cup, of a cup of nearly six
o'clock teatime, cup of a stumbling block,
cup of an afternoon unredeemed by talk,
cup of a cut brown loaf, of a slice, a lack
of butter, blueberry jam that's almost black,
instead of tannin seeping into the cracks
of a pot, ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S3-1",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Aging"
] |
2c163f18def07c5e | Night Shifts at the Group Home | Mary Szybist | for Lily Mae
The job was easy: I tucked
them in, kicked off my shoes, listened for
the floor to go quiet. Everyone
slept except one: outside her door,
she paced, she hummed, holding
the edge of her torn
nightgown. Pointing, I told
her: to bed. Your bed. But she would not
stay there. She was old,
older than my... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
e6b282a680cc34c2 | Spree | Maxine Kumin | My father paces the upstairs hall
a large confined animal
neither wild nor yet domesticated.
About him hangs the smell of righteous wrath.
My mother is meekly seated
at the escritoire. Rosy from my bath
age eight-nine-ten by now I understand
his right to roar, hers to defy
the bill from Wanamaker’s in his hand
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
86d0d98219e1b642 | Something’s Coming but Never Does | Rebecca Gayle Howell | I follow locusts. I think they’re loyal, but it’s a story.In morning’s bleached streets and nightsof tungsten glinting, their fretted steel legsticker the minutes. What do I know, except I needa thing to walk behind. The lot tagged The Devil,red spray paint, two concrete steps. This is where I gowhen the heat comes, wh... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
42f83872fafc4d30 | A Poet to His Baby Son | James Weldon Johnson | Tiny bit of humanity,
Blessed with your mother’s face,
And cursed with your father’s mind.
I say cursed with your father’s mind,
Because you can lie so long and so quietly on your back,
Playing with the dimpled big toe of your left foot,
And looking away,
Through the ceiling of the room, and beyond.
Can it be t... | [
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S9-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7787925bd9282f92 | A Ball Rolls on a Point | Kay Ryan | The whole ball
of who we are
presses into
the green baize
at a single tiny
spot. An aural
track of crackle
betrays our passage
through the
fibrous jungle.
It’s hot and
desperate. Insects
spring out of it.
The pressure is
intense, and the
sense that we’ve
lost proportion.
As though bringing
too much to... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [] |
176971b849e28500 | Red String | Minnie Bruce Pratt | At first she thought the lump in the road
was clay thrown up by a trucker’s wheel.
Then Beatrice saw the mess of feathers:
Six or seven geese stood in the right-of-way, staring
at the blood, their black heads rigid above white throats.
Unmoved by passing wind or familiar violence, they fixed
their gaze on dead fl... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
93e31ac04a89ce7b | Inordinate Desires | Michael Schmidt | 'I believe it would go ill with many of us, if we were faced with a
strong temptation, and I suspect that with many of us it does go ill.'
—Ivy Compton Burnett
He set out on the innocent exodus. He went at Easter
In a lengthening dawn, and ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
74d85f18e8cb3ca3 | Nuit Blanche | Amy Lowell | I want no horns to rouse me up to-night,
And trumpets make too clamorous a ring
To fit my mood, it is so weary white
I have no wish for doing any thing.
A music coaxed from humming strings would please;
Not plucked, but drawn in creeping cadences
Across a sunset wall where some Marquise
Picks a pale rose amid st... | [
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural"
] |
82b644344dbb04a4 | Statocyst underfoot and we, returning: | Knar Gavin | The news, descriptive. Rhetoric, void. It’s finally here: inarticulate brachiopods have no matching teeth and socketsand their valves are held together only by muscles — | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
58fa7a71ed44f541 | Thorn | Deena Metzger | Everything dies. Without you
I saw one million flamingos
ignite a lake in Africa.
The same darkness
descended everywhere.
When you dropped your body,
I hoped you would tremble
for the beak of God.
Why did we wash you three times
tearing off the girl’s white dress
to swaddle you in an austere shroud?
Some say... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
c431a91c014cae8f | A Few Rules for Beginners | Katherine Mansfield | Babies must not eat the coal
And they must not make grimaces,
Nor in party dresses roll
And must never black their faces.
They must learn that pointing’s rude,
They must sit quite still at table,
And must always eat the food
Put before them—if they’re able.
If they fall, they must not cry,
Though it’s known ho... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
d92468e2de5c1ea5 | What the Ventriloquists Said | Cole Swensen | amid the growing craze for automatons
The voice within the device that moves is not
(as if nothing human
could be quite that moving) My precious edgling: though ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [] |
418983ab17b4ad41 | Memphis Resurrection | Honorée Fanonne Jeffers | Who died and made you Elvis?
—Bumper sticker
The big rock by my door
is a plaster prop, after
all. I’m back to hear
screams for what I can’t
do, couldn’t do forty
years ago. Awkward
pelvic thrusts fooled
the camera and virgins,
but I have no more fish-
fry tunes left to dress
up on brand new plates.
... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S6-4",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
622649d726fc6d05 | Fæsulan Idyl | Walter Savage Landor | Here, where precipitate Spring with one light bound
Into hot Summer’s lusty arms expires;
And where go forth at morn, at eve, at night,
Soft airs, that want the lute to play with them,
And softer sighs, that know not what they want;
Under a wall, beneath an orange-tree
Whose tallest flowers could tell the lowlier ones
... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-2",
"S2-7",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
e68837ca0447aa7f | Nephelidia | Algernon Charles Swinburne | From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are they looks of our lovers that lustrously lean from a marvel of mystic miraculous moonshine, These that... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
dc6e1760297c81ee | Interview | Dorothy Parker | The ladies men admire, I’ve heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They’d rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints ...
So far, I... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
41c2ec24de252579 | The Blind Man | Théophile Gautier | A blind man, on the thoroughfare,
Startle-eyed as an owl by day,
Piping a dismal little air,
Taps here and there, loses his way,
Tootles awry his time-old ditty
Undauntedly, as by his side
Lopes his dog, guides him through the city,
Specter diurnal, sleepy-eyed.
Days, stark, wash over him, unlit;
He hears the ... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
0f8df58ec62e629d | Coquí | Carmen Bernier-Grand | One tiny tree frog
with big eyes
sings happily,
“Kokee! Kokee!”
His brother comes to bother.
Coquí doesn't push him.
Coquí doesn't bite him.
Coquí tells him,
“Kokee-Kee! Kokee-Kee!”
Two tiny tree frogs
with big eyes
sing happily,
“Kokee! Kokee!” | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
fb8e76523235378b | Marching | Isaac Rosenberg | My eyes catch ruddy necksSturdily pressed back.All a red-brick moving glint.Like flaming pendulums, handsSwing across the khaki—Mustard coloured khaki—To the automatic feet. We husband the ancient gloryIn these bared necks and hands.Not broke is the forge of Mars;But a subtler brain beats ironTo shoe the hoofs of d... | [
"S3",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
ef1a5cd05e1c9c71 | Waiting for This Story to End Before I Begin Another | Jan Heller Levi | All my stories are about being left,
all yours about leaving. So we should have known.
Should have known to leave well enough alone;
we knew, and we didn’t. You said let’s put
our cards on the table, your card
was your body, the table my bed, where we didn’t
get till 4 am, so tired from wanting
what we shouldn’t... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
3e637038bb957831 | The Imperfect Enjoyment | John Wilmot Earl of Rochester | Naked she lay, clasped in my longing arms, I filled with love, and she all over charms; Both equally inspired with eager fire, Melting through kindness, flaming in desire. With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace, She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face. Her nimble tongue, love’s lesser lightning, p... | [
"S1"
] | [] | [
"Love"
] | [] |
cb04f555656784da | Tendency toward Vagrancy | Philip Nikolayev | I’ve long had what Soviet psychiatrists
called “a tendency toward vagrancy.”
At four I would run away from home
repeatedly for a whole day, alone
or sometimes with a friend named Boris
of like age. Knew full well we “just can’t do this,”
but nudge for nudge and wink for wink,
we’d board the trolleybus #10, I thi... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-3",
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S8-5",
"S9-7",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
66f0d7bacb435830 | October, Remembering the Ride No One Saw | Rick Noguchi | Steel horses nodding
In the petroleum field are beasts
That suck
The crude of earth.
They have lived here for as long as I
Remember. This moment,
I smell wild incense:
Heather, abducted by a desert wind.
Its growth hides
The rain-carved ribs of the foothills.
Evening swallows
The city fasting on late fall.
... | [
"S2",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
9fd0da5042f2f0cc | Snowy Owl Near Ocean Shores | Duane Niatum | A castaway blown south from the arctic tundra
sits on a stump in an abandoned farmer’s field.
Beyond the dunes cattails toss and bend as snappy
as the surf, rushing and crashing down the jetty.
His head a swivel of round glances,
his eyes a deeper yellow than the winter sun,
he wonders if the spot two hundred fee... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
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