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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2f7fffbd8bf3ab01 | July 4, 1974 | June Jordan | Washington, D.C.
At least it helps me to think about my son
a Leo/born to us
(Aries and Cancer) some
sixteen years ago
in St. John’s Hospital next to the Long Island
Railroad tracks
Atlantic Avenue/Brooklyn
New York
at dawn
which facts
do not really prepare you
(do they)
for him
angry
serious
and runnin... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
c284bca58cefed21 | Southern Bred | Charles Ghigna | In the backyard
of my father’s house
a hen’s warm neck
once filled the center
of my pale fist.
Her place on the stump
still wears my shadow
like a stain. | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-9",
"S6-3",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
16fa0034b4cf403d | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (text of 1834) | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Argument How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
PART I I... | [
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"S2-6",
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"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
09e6c76e3970b3a6 | The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5 | Alexander Pope | She said: the pitying audience melt in tears, But Fate and Jove had stopp'd the Baron's ears. In vain Thalestris with reproach assails, For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; Silence ensu'... | [
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"S10"
] | [
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"Social Commentaries",
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"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
9c12f439f998f4b7 | And a Lie | Hannah Sanghee Park | The asking was askance.And the tell all told. So then, in tandem,Anathema, and anthem.The truth was on hold,Seeking too tasking.And the wool was pulledOver as cover.No eyes were kept peeled.My iris I missedThe truth, now mistrustAll things seen, and thisDistrust, the sounded distress signalCalled and called and culled ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
1080ea471742909e | On Marriage | Kahlil Gibran | Then Almitra spoke again and said, And
what of Marriage, master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you
shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white
wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.
But... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
6736346ca4448b5a | from Pamphilia to Amphilanthus: 17 | Lady Mary Wroth | Sweet shades why doe you seeke to give delight To mee who deeme delight in this vilde place Butt torment, sorrow, and mine owne disgrace To taste of joy, or your vaine pleasing sight;Show them your pleasures who saw never night Of greife, wher joyings fauning, smiling face Appeers as day, wher griefe fou... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-9",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
b8721df8933205c1 | Self-Portrait at Twenty | Gregory Orr | I stood inside myself
like a dead tree or a tower.
I pulled the rope
of braided hair
and high above me
a bell of leaves tolled.
Because my hand
stabbed its brother,
I said: Make it stone.
Because my tongue
spoke harshly, I said:
Make it dust.
And yet
it was not death, but
her body in it... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
442bdd5388a8bfc7 | Tract | William Carlos Williams | I will teach you my townspeople how to perform a funeral — for you have it over a troop of artists— unless one should scour the world — you have the ground sense necessary. See! the hearse leads. I begin with a design for a hearse. For Christ's sake not bla... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a023ba5f1cc4f3e6 | Pushing Up Onto Its Elbows, the Fable Lifts Itself Into Fact. | Justin Phillip Reed | after Tafisha Edwards
To disappear Black girls at a low volume of sustained public panic is to insinuate the inconstancy of Black girls. The disposability of Black girls who are prone to disappearance. A body bag somewhere waits with little hoopla about its lot. Absence becomes the lot of Black girls.
_________ will ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
0a24eca18033d488 | Days | Philip Larkin | What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields. | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
09cef5dbc3c71cc5 | The Rose | Jean Valentine | a labyrinth,
as if at its center,
god would be there—
but at the center, only rose,
where rose came from,
where rose grows—
& us, inside of the lips & lips:
the likenesses, the eyes, & the hair,
we are born of,
fed by, & marry with,
only flesh itself, only its passage
—out of where? to where?
Then god th... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
7563b22788bea4c5 | Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children | Jeffrey Jullich | stepping off the curb onto the right foot, the left foot
following in due time, dragging a heavy weight that goes “thud”
as if falls those few inches
collective guilt cannot fit inside individualism
In the cabinet under the bathroom sink, the household
items, bottles and canisters of detergent,... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
ca5c7b771711844e | First Girls in Little League Baseball | J. Patrick Lewis | December 26, 1974
Title IX of the 1972 Education Act is signed, providing for equal opportunity in athletics for girls as well as boys.
The year was 1974
When Little Leaguers learned the score.
President Ford took out his pen,
And signed a law that said from then
On women too would have the chance
To wear the st... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-3",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
a0a9b578243b2f6d | Muscadine | Mary Moore Easter | peach of a grape in his fingertips like holding home he noses its muskTaste, he says and parts my lips with a globe and a... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-7",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
b453812323352573 | Fragment 3: Come, come thou bleak December wind | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Come, come thou bleak December wind,
And blow the dry leaves from the tree!
Flash, like a Love-thought, thro' me, Death
And take a Life that wearies me. | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-8",
"S2-10",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
71fe5ece346e6b9a | Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio | James Wright | In the Shreve High football stadium,
I think of Polacks nursing long beers in Tiltonsville,
And gray faces of Negroes in the blast furnace at Benwood,
And the ruptured night watchman of Wheeling Steel,
Dreaming of heroes.
All the proud fathers are ashamed to go home,
Their women cluck like starved pullets,
Dying... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S9-4",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
1c1cea73c2819514 | Medusa | Louise Bogan | I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved,—a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
T... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S11"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [] |
7246c18e6f3546c6 | from Coming to Jakarta: A Poem about Terror | Peter Dale Scott | II.iv
I am writing this poem
about the 1965 massacre
of Indonesians by Indonesians
which in an article ten years later
I could not publish
except in Nottingham England with
a friend Malcolm Caldwell who has since
himself been murdered
no one will s... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-11",
"S8-4",
"S10-8"
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"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
f0c13f05e4e9fefc | Sunday: New Guinea | Karl Shapiro | The bugle sounds the measured call to prayers,
The band starts bravely with a clarion hymn,
From every side, singly, in groups, in pairs,
Each to his kind of service comes to worship Him.
Our faces washed, our hearts in the right place,
We kneel or stand or listen from our tents;
Half-naked natives with their kin... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
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"S8-5",
"S10-3"
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
362a5101e9cbd563 | 15 Years of Paris | Katy Bohinc | (for Daniel, because
the Catacombs)
You’re leaving Las Vegas, except
In German. Point. Point. Point.
Gave it out, beautiful gentilhommeComme vous êtes, toujours,
Unforgettable, circa 2008 how
You made me cum like that -
She got so mad in the bed - the
Hotel bathr... | [
"S1",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
cc31eff8ca03b2d5 | Shower | Juliet Kono | In her illness
Elizabeth believes we do this deliberately,
the washing of her body.
She blames me,
her Japanese daughter-in-law
for having made keeping her clean a fetish.
Angry, she says we do this to torment
her soul, the shower a hot
spray of needles we subject
on her moon-colored skin.
She hates it even m... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
e8e2f9efdbca682a | Fences | Pat Mora | Mouths full of laughter,
the turistas come to the tall hotel
with suitcases full of dollars.
Every morning my brother makes
the cool beach new for them.
With a wooden board he smooths
away all footprints.
I peek through the cactus fence
and watch the women rub oil
sweeter than honey into their arms and legs
w... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
0d641b18c48cd925 | The Inevitable | Allan Peterson | To have that letter arrive was like the mist that took a meadow and revealed hundreds of small webs once invisible The inevitable often stands by plainly but unnoticed till it hands you a letter that says death and you notice the weed field had been readying its many damp handkerchiefs all along | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
7440547a6032af2f | from Light: “I always thought reality” | Inger Christensen | I always thought reality
was something you became
when you grew up.
In the square stands Fata Morgana
looking tired, shouting
Morning paper—morning paper. | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S6-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Aging"
] |
1b5444dc8d4270df | from Totem Poem [Abandoned in a field near Yass] | Luke Davies | Abandoned in a field near Yass a cobwebbed car once kept us warm
and when it rained, though we shivered with sickness,
there came a moment of perfect happiness, faces nestled
in the vinyl, sleep coming on, surrounded by metal
that in upcoming decades would oxidise to flakes.
Asleep at last, last of the valium, we ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
feab1dc773cec55b | Love's Growth | John Donne | I scarce believe my love to be so pure As I had thought it was, Because it doth endure Vicissitude, and season, as the grass; Methinks I lied all winter, when I swore My love was infinite, if spring make’ it more. But if medicine, love, which cures all sorrow With more, not only be no quintessence, But mixed of a... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
df668c4f7e842362 | The Truth | Frank Stanford | Nicanor Parra
I’m not going to lie
Through my teeth to you
Like the poets from Minnesota,
The South, and the West,
And New York City.
Most of all in life
I would like to fuck a thirteen-year-old again,
And I don’t have any hesitations
About saying I’d rather be Marlon Brando
Than I would T. S. Eliot, etc.
I ... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
2c980c44e652f0b9 | As the Dead Prey Upon Us | Charles Olson | As the dead prey upon us,
they are the dead in ourselves,
awake, my sleeping ones, I cry out to you,
disentangle the nets of being!
I pushed my car, it had been sitting so long unused.
I thought the tires looked as though they only needed air.
But suddenly the huge underbody was above me, and the rear tires
were... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
85b693053766ba40 | Not Knowing Why | Ann Struthers | Adolescent white pelicans squawk, rustle, flap their wings, lift off in a ragged spiral at imaginary danger. What danger on this island in the middle of Marble Lake? They’re off to feel the lift of wind under their iridescent wings, because they were born to fly, because they have nothing else to do, because wind and w... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
3412234e4e2eec3f | Douglas, Douglas, Tender and True | Dinah Maria Craik | Could you come back to me, Douglas, Douglas,
In the old likeness that I knew,
I would be so faithful, so loving, Douglas,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.
Never a scornful word should grieve ye,
I’d smile on ye sweet as the angels do,—
Sweet as your smile on me shone ever,
Douglas, Douglas, tender and true.
Oh, to ca... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
ee0d6f736a0cc873 | Territories | Gregory Djanikian | They thought the trouble was over,
they thought they had talked it all out,
it was a mistake, she’d said, this infatuation
for someone else which had turned suddenly
too serious, she could see that now.
But they thought there was nothing left of it,
their nerves had been rubbed so raw
through bouts of anger, sha... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S3-4",
"S8-1",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
2a49baedab315f12 | Glasswork | Hester Knibbe | my love who shelters in his wordssometimes falls silent for a sudden eternitybreathes that silence into a bell of glassin which he calms stormshe draws lee lines in what wasit’s more like a firefirm cracklingwhen he takes up words with easein a single glance, caressing my bodyI read him day and night. What will it be l... | [
"S1",
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"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
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"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
dd5805f012e1ebb8 | Days | Ralph Waldo Emerson | Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, or sky that holds them all.
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wi... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
7bc25430fd55ac50 | The Willing Mistriss | Aphra Behn | Amyntas led me to a Grove,
Where all the Trees did shade us;
The Sun it self, though it had Strove,
It could not have betray’d us:
The place secur’d from humane Eyes,
No other fear allows.
But when the Winds that gently rise,
Doe Kiss the yielding Boughs.
Down there we satt upon the Moss,
And id begin to... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
af5a36851cf62f3f | And | Rae Armantrout | 1Tense and tenuousgrow from the same rootas does tenderin its several guises:the sour grass flower;the yellow moth.2I would not confusethe boguswith the spurious.The bogusis a sore thumbwhile the spuriouspours forthas fish and circuses. | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
e48cd5831564a7e7 | All Kinds of Fires Inside Our Heads | Nikki Wallschlaeger | The number of bodies i have
is equal to the number of
gurney transfers that are
televised.
If we’re all “just human”
then who is responsible?
A fire station drying out
from addiction. outside
the drizzling of firepower,
lowballing suns
it’s like a sauna in here.
the strain of a charred
bladder. bottled wate... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S6-4",
"S6-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Health & Illness"
] |
20528421af3b51fe | [He is pruning the privet] | Joanne Kyger | He is pruning the privet
of sickly sorrow desolation
in loose pieces of air he goes clip clip clip
the green blooming branches fall—‘they’re getting out
of hand’ delirious and adorable what a switch
we perceive multiple
i... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S5-1",
"S5-8",
"S8-4",
"S9-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/Buddhism",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
88392f70e55d07b5 | Forfeiting My Mystique | Kaveh Akbar | It is pretty to be sweet
and full of pardon like
a flower perfuming the
hands that shred it, but
all piety leads to a single
point: the same paradise
where dead lab rats go.
If you live small you’ll
be resurrected with the
small, a whole planet
of minor gods simpering
in the weeds. I don’t know
anyone who w... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S5-8",
"S8-3",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
082a79da2e49f249 | One Angel: Palazzo Arian | Ann Snodgrass | At San Raffaele Arcangelo
One angel got it all wrong.
She plopped into this
sad century feet first
in her dark clothes.
There wasn't much water
that winter—just a few
puddles really—
to break her fall.
Mud-splattered, she rose
and shook like a canine.
It didn't take long
to see her soaked wings
as a backdr... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
bc54bc6598ed9b12 | Family Ties | Diana Khoi Nguyen | Gradually a girl’s innocence itself becomes her major crime
A doe and her two fawns bent low in the sumac along the bank of a highway,
the pinched peach of their ears twitching in the heat
Into the disordered evening my brother cut out only his face from every
photograph in the hall, carefully slipping ea... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
277d38c27f359def | A Country Incident | May Sarton | Absorbed in planting bulbs, that work of hope,
I was startled by a loud human voice,
“Do go on working while I talk. Don’t stop!”
And I was caught upon the difficult choice—
To yield the last half hour of precious light,
Or to stay on my knees, absurd and rude;
I willed her to be gone with all my might,
This kin... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-4",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
c18beda9deaaf152 | What should I Say | Sir Thomas Wyatt | What should I say,
Since faith is dead,
And truth away
From you is fled?
Should I be led
With doubleness?
Nay, nay, mistress!
I promised you,
And you promised me,
To be as true
As I would be.
But since I see
Your double heart,
Farewell my part!
Though for to take
It is not my mind,
But to forsake
[One so unkind]
And as... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
63af931bdcfc8e8e | Krishna, 3:29 AM | Meena Alexander | In a crumpled shirt (so casual for a god)
Bow tucked loosely under an arm still jittery from battle
He balanced himself on a flat boat painted black.
Each wave as I kneel closer a migrant flag
A tongue with syllables no script can catch.The many births you have passed through, try to remember them as I do mine
Mem... | [
"S5",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/Other Religions",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
6233cd460ab540c5 | Under Beinn Ruadhainn | Robin Robertson | For Andrew O’Hagan
Three moons in the skythe night they found himdrowned in Sawtan’s Bog;just his cap, sitting thereand his wee fat hands poking out.It was no loss to the village, I told them next morning,and the villagers agreed. Horn-daft, he was,havering and glaikitand scaring the children.I mind that timehe picked... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ef3ea89dddd3a6f2 | Song of the Sea to the Shore | Robert Fanning | Unraveling velvet, wave after wave, driven by wind, unwinding by storm, by gravity thrown— however, heaving to reach you, to find you, I've striven undulant, erosive, blown— or lying flat as glass for your falling clear down: I can't swallow you. So why have I felt I've reached you—as two reflected stars, surfac... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
2acd205fca89977c | End of Market Day | Judith Harris | At five, the market is closing. Burdock roots, parsley, and rutabagas are poured back into the trucks. The antique dealer breaks down his tables. Light dappled, in winter parkas shoppers hunt for bargains: a teapot, or costume jewelry, a grab bag of rubbishy vegetables for stew. Now twilight, the farmer’s wife bundled ... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life"
] |
0bf2cddfe48afbba | Ælla, a Tragical Interlude | Thomas Chatterton | FYRSTE MYNSTRELLE ...
The boddynge flourettes bloshes atte the lyghte;
The mees be sprenged wyth the yellowe hue;
Ynn daiseyd mantels ys the mountayne dyghte;
The nesh yonge coweslepe bendethe wyth the dewe;
The trees enlefed, yntoe Heavenne straughte,
Whenn gentle wyndes doe blowe to whestly... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
79794edab20fe29f | The past sometimes appears conditional | Ian Williams | The cause is the consequence.
— Frantz Fanon
1He would get pulled over
whenever he tried to download Blonde. He would be
searched for f-bombs but not for h-e-
double-hockey sticks. He would get choke-held
for wearing a hat in the hallway. He would
be Tasered for balling his Whopper wrapper
and leaving it on the... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
1f545c125d096f50 | Thoughts of a Solitary Farmhouse | Franz Wright | And not to feel bad about dying.
Not to take it so personally—
it is only
the force we exert all our lives
to exclude death from our thoughts
that confronts us, when it does arrive,
as the horror of being excluded— . . .
something like that, the Canadian wind
coming in off Lake Erie
rattling the windows, horiz... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
11a99a24a1068231 | M's Dream House | Molly Peacock | M loved the little house she shared with her mum, its magnolias and mansard roof. Inside, the smell of molasses and ginger had sunk into the timbers. Water mumbled from a hand pump, not a faucet tap. Music murmured, not from a radio, but from a soft piano. All was washed to softness—the sheets, the table linens. Even t... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
21e1a5bb4a39df8b | Dejection: An Ode | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon, With the old Moon in her arms; And I fear, I fear, my Master dear! We shall have a deadly storm. (Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence)
I Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go henc... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S2-9",
"S2-10",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
f0a8551f8775cbbe | Bar Xanadu | Lynda Hull | A perfect veronica, invisible, scallops air
before the bull, the bartender’s fluttering hands.
Tipped with silken fruit tinseled gold,
a dusty banderilla hangs above racked bottles,
burnt-orange. Your lacquered fingers streak
the cocktail napkin and the globe of cognac’s
fragrant on the zinc bar. Fields of chamom... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging"
] |
c2edfded3794dcb0 | Sonnet 121: 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed | William Shakespeare | ’Tis better to be vile than vile esteemedWhen not to be receives reproach of being, And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemedNot by our feeling but by others' seeing.For why should others’ false adulterate eyesGive salutation to my sportive blood?Or on my frailties why are frailer spies, Which in their wills count... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
2901ef3a600966be | Saints’ Logic | Linda Gregerson | Love the drill, confound the dentist.
Love the fever that carries me home.
Meat of exile. Salt of grief.
This much, indifferent
affliction might yield. But how
when the table is God’s own board
and grace must be said in company?
If hatred were honey, as even
the psalmist persuaded himself,
then Agatha might be... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
0135808c296cca6b | Miniver Cheevy | Edwin Arlington Robinson | Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dre... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S11-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism"
] |
d5eb6814edce64f9 | House: Some Instructions | Grace Paley | If you have a house
you must think about it all the time
as you reside in the house so
it must be a home in your mind
you must ask yourself (wherever you are)
have I closed the front door
and the back door is often forgotten
not against thieves necessarily
but the wind oh if it blows
either door open the... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
0155ddb25d8510eb | Watching the Complex Train-Track Changes | Bernadette Mayer | To Men
You put on an ornate ballgown
You say “someone has to do it”
You take me to where you work,
The inside of a pyramid with chasms,
Watching the complex train-track changes
Products and objects make love to my father
Two babies are born—Bruno and Daisy
You take your shirt off looking boylike & lovely
You g... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
83c770ec2ffaedf2 | The Crowd He Becomes | Jake Adam York | 15 September 1963, Birmingham
Later he will say he did not do it,
he was home at breakfast, just ask the wife,
say they heard some radio preacher doing
love thy neighbor while birds filled up the yard.
Later, he will say he did not do it then tell
how he didn't, lean in close to say
if he would have done it it w... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S5-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
e337e5889a7cefd6 | Every Job Has a First Day | Rebecca Gayle Howell | Slade was pulling minnows out of the dry riverthe day we met. Puddles, more or less, was whatwas left. But what could live wanted to and tried,treading narrow circles, a glide of brittle fins.He wore those rubber boots, though the sun wasan anvil, and very little wet; he smiled, I rememberthat, his nickel smile right at... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
e4c690cd441d056e | From a Photograph | George Oppen | Her arms around me—child—
Around my head, hugging with her whole arms,
Whole arms as if I were a loved and native rock,
The apple in her hand—her apple and her father,
and my nose pressed
Hugely to the collar of her winter coat—. There
in the photograph
It is the child who i... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
26b4350c9dbb98d8 | Endless Inter-States | Sina Queyras | 1
They go down to the expressways, baskets
In hand, they go down with rakes, shovels
And watering cans, they go down to pick
Beans and trim tomato plants, they go down
In wide-brimmed hats and boots, passing
By the glass-pickers, the Geiger counters, those
Guarding the toxic wastes. They go down
Remembering the... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S3-7",
"S9-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Activities/Jobs & Working",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
4c761209478d5d4b | Monday | Lisa Robertson | First all belief is paradise. So pliable a medium. A time not very long. A transparency caused. A conveyance of rupture. A subtle transport. Scant and rare. Deep in the opulent morning, blissful regions, hard and slender. Scarce and scant. Quotidian and temperate. Begin afresh in the realms of the atmosphere, that enco... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
c2160f3b7a76b34d | One Boy Told Me | Naomi Shihab Nye | Music lives inside my legs.
It’s coming out when I talk.
I’m going to send my valentines
to people you don’t even know.
Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop.
Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground
when they swing. I hate that.
Look at those 2 o’s with a smash in the middle—
that spells good-bye.
Don’t ever s... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S10-2",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
f21f7d7e248380c2 | Last Words by “Slick” | Etheridge Knight | (or a self / sung eulogy)
Now, when I / die, dont you bury me
On no lone prairie;
And dont put me in no plain pine box
(cause I left plenty cold cash!);
And throw my cold butt in the deep blue see.
Whatever you do, dont plant me / in no six feet of dirt;
Just mash me, mash me, except for my dick,
Which I want w... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
4cdfd33aec4d2597 | Billia Croo | Alec Finlay | culture is richest where there’s
the greatest ratio
land : coast
— After Barry Cunliffe
•
this patch of the western
ocean’s coruscating garden
recalls my favorite song
(mishearing) the sea’s very hum-
drum | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
7847e5985e9eccc3 | To the voice of the retired warden of Huntsville Prison (Texas death chamber) | Averill Curdy | Until wolf-light I will count my sheep, Adumbrated, uncomedic, as they are. One is perdu, two, qualm, three Is sprawl, four, too late,Night is already a thirsty county in Texas, Salt flat and unremitting Blacktop dry as my mouth, And your ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S5-2",
"S5-3",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
56089c223c18c80f | The friend | Marge Piercy | We sat across the table.
he said, cut off your hands.
they are always poking at things.
they might touch me.
I said yes.
Food grew cold on the table.
he said, burn your body.
it is not clean and smells like sex.
it rubs my mind sore.
I said yes.
I love you, I said.
That’s very nice, he said
I like to be lov... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
4c7302462310fc16 | The Relic | John Donne | When my grave is broke up again Some second guest to entertain, (For graves have learn'd that woman head, To be to more than one a bed) And he that digs it, spies A bracelet of bright hair about the bone, Will he not let'us alone, And think that there a loving couple... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S5-2",
"S6-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
401ba66390195d51 | Ode on the Facelifting of the "statue" of Liberty | Edward Dorn | A B H O R R E N C E S
4 July, 1986
America is inconceivable without drugs
and always has been. One of the first acts
was to dump the tea. The drug that furnished
the mansions of Virginia was tobacco,
a drug now in much disrepute.
Sassafras, a cure-all, is what they came for
and they dealt it by the bale altho i... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-7",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
5b0997e91f4361e2 | The Problem of Fiction | Marie Ponsot | She always writes poems. This summer she’s starting a novel. It’s in trouble already. The characters are easy—a girl and her friend who is a girl and the boy down the block with his first car, an older boy, sixteen, who sometimes these warm evenings leaves his house to go dancing in dressy clothes though it’s sti... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S10-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
36215aa72ce60d4a | Los Angeles/Boys | Rachel Sherwood | Two of themwith chests like blond silkcornsilk hairstalled in trafficin the awful heatthey smiledwere they messengersdelivering through the open windowpromises or lies or invitations?Boys are everywhere
at noon they glide
between parched cars
bare broad shoulders
color of chestnut colts | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
ca4eda9fbbe7255d | Despite My Efforts Even My Prayers Have Turned into Threats | Kaveh Akbar | Holy father I can’t pretend
I’m not afraid to see you again
but I’ll say that when the time
comes I believe my courage
will expand like a sponge
cowboy in water. My earth-
father was far braver than me —
coming to America he knew
no English save Rolling Stones
lyrics and how to say thanks
God | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-4",
"S8-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
6d084557715d2ba2 | Passage | Rae Armantrout | 1 I held the framework of my life in mind with some precision. I knew when I was where — or where I was when — but not many incidents of my past had actually been preserved. Instead the frame served as a cargo cult runway, forever inviting the future to appear. I existed finally as the idea of temporal extension. 2 Th... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Aging"
] |
71e615aed43f5620 | Self-Help | Michael Ryan | What kind of delusion are you under?The life he hid just knocked you flat.You see the lightning but not the thunder.What God hath joined let no man put asunder.Did God know you’d marry a rat?What kind of delusion are you under?His online persona simply stunned heras it did you when you started to chat.You see the light... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-1",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
1ffeb3904d918038 | Notes for the Cactus Poem | Michael Schmidt | The teddy bear cholla and the fat fat
•
Oh buckthorn, devil, whipple, teddy bear
•
Oh beavertail, oh pancake, porcupine
•
Oh plump saguaro with your hairy arms, I love
Each of you with a different nerve of heart.
Especially you, so trim, so pert, your birds
Cupped in your pits and crotches, little friends
•
... | [
"S2"
] | [] | [
"Nature"
] | [] |
dbfef11c5095d4bc | I Am Waiting | Lawrence Ferlinghetti | I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly rig... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
35a54c72f4c1ce5b | Columbus Park | Anne Pierson Wiese | Down at the end of Baxter Street, where Five Points slum used to be, just north of Tombs, is a pocket park. On these summer days the green plane trees’ leaves linger heavy as a noon mist above the men playing mah jongg—more Chinese in the air than English. The city’s composed of village greens; we rely on... | [
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88d0c63492a169a7 | Balcony Scene | Jameson Fitzpatrick | Up — or out? — here:a problem of preposition,my uneasy relationwith the world. Whether I’mabove it or apart. On the other sideof the latched glass door, a manloves me. Worries. Calls my name. • Where — for art — thou-sands of windows go darkin slow succession. On Essexand Ludlow and Orchard.A thousa... | [
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"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
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] |
da386a2bf125f877 | Green Light Go | Emmy Pérez | To be a disco ball dangling in a storefront window, in the sun, with a cage on
it. To be two and three disco balls, downtown McAllen, spangles of sun and
water that grew tangerine skins late February, pink bottlebrush nostrils, buff-bellied hummingbirds. To be mirrors and hexagonal combs, mexican honey
wasps, larvae... | [
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bcdbf45d6255011d | In Memory of the Unknown Poet, Robert Boardman Vaughn | Donald Justice | But the essential advantage for a poet is not, to have a beautiful world with which to deal: it is to be able to see beneath both beauty and ugliness; to see the boredom, and the horror, and the glory.
T. S. ELIOT
It was his story. It would always be his story.
It followed him; it overtook him finally—
The boredom,... | [
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"S10"
] | [
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2998458020489d01 | Sonnet 1: From fairest creatures we desire increase | William Shakespeare | From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory;
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself... | [
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"Love",
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fe970343d2773fff | The Fly | Karl Shapiro | O hideous little bat, the size of snot,
With polyhedral eye and shabby clothes,
To populate the stinking cat you walk
The promontory of the dead man’s nose,
Climb with the fine leg of a Duncan-Phyfe
The smoking mountains of my food
And in a comic mood
In mid-air take to bed a wife.
Riding and riding with your f... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
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6f8399571b024fad | [To Sheila Lanyon, on the Flyleaf of a Book] | W. S. Graham | Sheila, we speak here on the fly
Leaf of a book which was myself
A good few graves ago.
Now I am maintained by other
Words for better or for worse
To whisper my hello.
The seasons turn. Threshold on thresh
Hold forms continually and falls
Under grief’s lonely hammer.
What did you say? I thought ... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Summer",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
79d269fb9040bab6 | XXI | Michael Field | Βροδοπαχεες αγναι Χαριτες, δεντε Λιος κοραι
Ye rosy-armed, pure Graces, come, Daughters of Zeus, be near! Oh, wherefore have my lips been dumb So long in silence drear?And why have I so cheerless been, So sorrowful and wild? It was because ye were not seen, Because ye had not smiled.Although his prayer... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
afdf51bff56ad3b4 | Plume | Aaron Shurin | Transfixed to the, by the, on the congruities, who is herself a vanishing point coming to closure — dusky flutter — trilling away like a watchdog on drugged sop, channeling her mother and grandmother who’ve engraved on her locket phrases in script: “glide on a blade” and “rustling precedes the shuck.” This is not my te... | [
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"S8-3"
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"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ac71b018e55a9ba1 | What loves, takes away | Eleanor Wilner | If the nose of the pig in the market of Firenze has lost its matte patina, and shines, brassy, even in the half light; if the mosaic saint on the tiles of the Basilica floor is half gone, worn by the gravity of solid soles, the passing of piety; if the arms of Venus have reentered the rubble, taken by time, her peren... | [
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"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6b3d02f5527e88ec | The Laughter of Women | Mary-Sherman Willis | From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city. They sat (so I thought) perfumed in their hats and their silks, in chairs on the grass amid flowers glowing and swaying. One spoke and the others rang like bells, oh so witty, like bells till the sound fil... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
d564405e12bb2232 | Statueless Architecture | Brenda Hillman | I passed through nature
into the next. Children
running in unsupervised shadows.
Last century’s fountains learning
not to lie. Risk
to identify with only
one element since one
will die but in
the summer air around
each thought, something is
built and avoided. You
go through an arch
and aren’t the arch,
jus... | [
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"Arts & Sciences"
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"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
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] |
b26d30bab0756c0d | New England Graveyard | Stephen Sandy | Back of the church the busy forsythias bow
and scrape to May and all these blessed stones
stiff in their careful finery of words;
the mess of markers makes me go and browse.
Somehow the blocks of slate and marble hate
to be cut and carved to the dimensions
of Mary Monday’s age and her virtues.
At heart they hurt... | [
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] |
7e465588d86ff9b4 | Best Laid | Maureen N. McLane | it’s clear the windwon’t let up and a swim’s out — what you plannedis scotched.forget the calls,errands at the mall —yr resolve’ssuperfluousas a clitoris.how miraculousthe gratuitous —spandrels,cathedrals. on a seaof necessitylet’s floatwholly unnecessary& callthat free | [
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"S3-2"
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"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
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498876fb47145540 | Poets Have Chanted Mortality | John Crowe Ransom | It had better been hidden But the Poets inform:We are chattel and liege Of an undying Worm.Were you, Will, disheartened, When all Stratford’s gentryLeft their Queen and took service In his low-lying country?How many white cities And grey fleets on the stormHave proud-builded, hard-battled, For this un... | [
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"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
ec56c87ded346cb6 | Matarose Tags G-Dragon on the 7 | Rosebud Ben-Oni | After BIGBANG’s “Fantastic Baby”
Matarose never comes home
She’s hungry like a wolf
She’s rosa de mota in lacroix
all the girls hail on queens boulevard
All the views she’s killed
in the name of iman
& yasmin le bon
Mata’s quite meta
Mata means kill
Rose a curve
from the real meat of it all
She’s part my li... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
92d53a23c8345595 | And Day Brought Back My Night | Geoffrey Brock | It was so simple: you came back to me
And I was happy. Nothing seemed to matter
But that. That you had gone away from me
And lived for days with him—it didn’t matter.
That I had been left to care for our old dog
And house alone—couldn’t have mattered less!
On all this, you and I and our happy dog
Agreed. We slep... | [
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"S8"
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"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
e32b6165f7a338d0 | Hart Crane Slept Here | Colette Labouff Atkinson | Each morning, downward, Maria Stella Maris Church glows out the passenger-side window. Further, the corner where the Salvation Army stood and Hart Crane spent the night. At a shore-edge bar, where they'd finally met up, they shared bottles, walked out toward being together, a hotel, and then got rolled. Crane spent the... | [
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"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
3183114db08317ee | from In Lovely Blue | Friedrich Hölderlin | Like the stamen inside a flower
The steeple stands in lovely blue
And the day unfolds around its needle;
The flock of swallows that circles the steeple
Flies there each day through the same blue air
That carries their cries from me to you;
We know how high the sun is now
As long as the roof of the steeple glows,... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
1f33463ecbda68c1 | A Chair in Snow | Jane Hirshfield | A chair in snow should belike any other object whited& roundedand yet a chair in snow is always sadmore than a bed more than a hat or housea chair is shaped for just one thing to hold a soul its quick and few bendable hoursperhaps a king not to hold snow not to hold flowers | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
4e39c35b77936b79 | Sick to death of the hardpan shoulder, | Greg Glazner | the froth of noisethe undersides of the cedars make,the windblown dark that hintsand fails for hours at effacement—maybe I could claim it isn’tpraying, but it’s asking,at the least, beggingthat these lungfuls of this blacknesseat whatever keeps on swellingand collapsing in my chest, and be donewith it, no more noiselef... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
ea63b647f2a8fb0b | Hija for Emerson’s Birthday | Stephen Yenser | I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein. —President George W. Bush, Washington DC, May 25, 2004
“Just ask yourself,” we said back in those days,“Is this world better off without Saddam Hussein?”Now that’s a simple question. Just ask yourself.It turned up st... | [
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"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
76aaf53ebb1162fd | The Idea of Ancestry | Etheridge Knight | 1
Taped to the wall of my cell are 47 pictures: 47 black
faces: my father, mother, grandmothers (1 dead), grand-
fathers (both dead), brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,
cousins (1st & 2nd), nieces, and nephews. They stare
across the space at me sprawling on my bunk. I know
their dark eyes, they know mine. I know t... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-8",
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"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
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"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
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