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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
cc0363390895f522 | Fragments: Mrs. Reuben Chandler writes to her husband during a cholera epidemic | Anne Stevenson | note: Most of this journal, written on shipboard, seems to have been destroyed, probably by fire. What remains suggests that Mrs. Chandler journeyed to New Orleans without her husband's permission, thus becoming indirectly the cause of her baby's death.
August, 1849 EN ROUTE FROM NEW YORK TO NEW O... | [
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
a3d852896755623e | A Poison Tree | William Blake | I was angry with my friend; I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I waterd it in fears, Night & morning with my tears: And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night. Till it bore an apple bright. And my foe beheld i... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
fbe432b968675695 | The Root | Helen Hoyt | Love faded in my heart—
I thought it was dead.
Now new flowers start,
Fresh leaves outspread.
Why do these flowers upstart
And again the leaves spread?
Oh, when will it be dead—
This root that tears my heart! | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
cca9cefb76ff81b5 | Masada | Daniela Danz | And then when you stand where it is quiet so that
you notice when thought ends and
listening begins when listening ends
and seeing begins when a bird
flies when you glide as a black bird
and scream when you start to speak
in the clear air and can speak of nothing
but the light as if it were the first
light when... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
92ac2caca6dd7b0b | The Storm-struck Tree | Jessica Greenbaum | As the storm-struck oak leaned closer to the house —The remaining six-story half of the tree listing toward the glass box Of the kitchen like someone in the first tilt of stumbling —The other half crashed into the neighbors’ yards, a massiveDiagonal for which we had no visual cue save for An antler dropped by a conste... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S5-8",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
bd9034392e9a12ad | The Freaks at Spurgin Road Field | Richard Hugo | The dim boy claps because the others clap.
The polite word, handicapped, is muttered in the stands.
Isn’t it wrong, the way the mind moves back.
One whole day I sit, contrite, dirt, L.A.
Union Station, ’46, sweating through last night.
The dim boy claps because the others clap.
Score, 5 to 3. Pitcher fading badly... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-5",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
5697d4552eb2f885 | Thanksgiving | Robert Nichols | Amazement fills my heart to-night, Amaze and awful fears; I am a ship that sees no light, But blindly onward steers. Flung toward heaven’s toppling rage, Sunk between steep and steep, A lost and wondrous fight I wage With the embattled deep. I neither know nor care at length Where drives the storm about; ... | [
"S3",
"S5"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
34f5d19b337aa249 | Strangers | Christine Gosnay | Tremendous orange things are happening somewhere.
I lay a wooden stick for stirring on the white note
on the desk. I lay a stain on the clean note.
Somewhere things are happening. Marvelous orange
and purple things. Flooding rivers at dusk, wheels threading
roads in the desert. Strangers. Strangers. Sea.
Somewher... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
afe85e6c8053bda4 | What I Eat is a Prayer | Joyelle McSweeney | Then in the August of my twenty-seventh year,
naked except for my seaclogs,
I greeted an audience of piers.
After my dip, I came up covered
in salt and sand: hair tough as an angel’s.
Who could disappoint me now among the so-coifed?
Disappointing menus for a banquet of twenty-seven.
The hostess cannot hear the h... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
f24d3ebfec907990 | 1492 | Emma Lazarus | Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world coul... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S9-7",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
7076700fd8d5eb58 | Two Poems from “The Day” | Kenneth Goldsmith | Metropolitan Forecast | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-5",
"S8-4",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Islam",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
e8323c463eca5596 | Subject and Object | Nyla Matuk | On “Sueño No. 5: Botella del mar,” a photograph by Grete Stern (1950)
The woman sits clutching her knees
inside a short-necked bottle on a beach,
looks up smiling at a mouth above
all imagined itineraries.
We like to think she volunteered
to be lowered into the bottle.
On her own idea, even
her own craftiness, ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-4",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
85500f26e7dc3518 | Investigation of Past Shoes | Vahni Capildeo | INSIDE THE GATEWAY: 1970S RED CLOGS WITH SIDE BUCKLE
The forever shoe, which points homewards, belongs to my mother.
When our house was being built, she stepped onto the driveway while
the tarmac was still wet, still setting. Ever since that step, the driveway,
which slants upwards, bears an imprint of her... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
5a569c495810cc2e | Paradise Regain'd: Book 2 (1671 version) | John Milton | MEan while the new-baptiz'd, who yet remain'd At Jordan with the Baptist, and had seen Him whom they heard so late expresly call'd Jesus Messiah Son of God declar'd, And on that high Authority had believ'd, And with him talkt, and with him lodg'd, I mean Andrew and Simon, famous after known With others though in Holy W... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
2bd65981ca381371 | The End of Landscape | Randall Mann | There's a certain sadness to this body of water
adjacent to the runway, its reeds and weeds,
handful of ducks, the water color
manmade. A still life. And still
life's a cold exercise in looking back,
back to Florida, craning my neck
like a sandhill crane in Alachua Basin.
As for the scrub oaks,
the hot wind in ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S3-9",
"S8-6",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
aa59a13fa9f70997 | Someone once said we were put on this earth to witness and testify | Quan Barry | Nowhere in the Halakha’s five thousand years of rules
does it specifically state Thou shall not [ ]
but sometimes tradition carries more weight than law
and so for much of the past year we have not ta... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
ea2c59cd7121a626 | From “Ithaca” | Grigori Dashevsky | The night approaches. Dusk drafts on buildingstheir future ruins. Dusk deepens windowsand apertures. It hollows stoneswith shadows like with water. It foretellsthe near death of a hundred clouds to the shining host. A thin layer of dust,the seer leaves his footprints on the roofsas he walks home from the future not his... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-7",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0b876c573b68ff84 | On the Subject of Doctors | James Tate | I like to see doctors cough.
What kind of human being
would grab all your money
just when you're down?
I'm not saying they enjoy this:
"Sorry, Mr. Rodriguez, that's it,
no hope! You might as well
hand over your wallet." Hell no,
they'd rather be playing golf
and swapping jokes about our feet.
Some of them smo... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
b57f59b5523af98b | The Orchestral Audition | Jana Harris | I really fucked up. My E-flat key was loose. I only got a few hours of sleep the night before because Robyn and I were on the phone. They gave me the wrong repertoire list. How was I to know that high altitude affects clarinet reeds? I ran out of beta blockers. I forgot to bring a water bottle. I was worried that they’... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1",
"S8-7",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
cabecb416bbaad20 | Love and Death | Lord Byron (George Gordon) | 1. I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
Ready to strike at him—or thee and me,
Were safety hopeless—rather than divide
Aught with one loved save love and liberty.
2. I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock,
Received our prow, and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-9",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e896ff29a366e189 | Winged Purposes | Dean Young | Fly from me does all I would have stay, the blossoms did not stay, stayed not the frost in the yellow grass. Every leash snapped, every contract void, and flying in the crows lingers but a moment in the graveyard oaks yet inside me it never stops so I can’t tell who is chasing, who chased, I can sleep int... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
eccde75f67fef5a7 | Everybody Believes They Are the Good Guy | Cynthia Arrieu-King | I was hanging with grandparents in a kindergarten
and the teacher drew an accordion wall across
to keep the children in antigravity class together
the grandparents separately graded balloon worksheets
sunlight floated in, the grandparents thoughtful about addition, mulling vacationCome here I said to the little one... | [
"S5",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-8",
"S9-6"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Youth",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
02c4270d7824e124 | I Saw a Chapel | William Blake | I saw a chapel all of gold That none did dare to enter in And many weeping stood without Weeping mourning worshippingI saw a serpent rise between The white pillars of the door And he forcd & forcd & forcd Down the golden hinges tore And along the pavement sweet Set with pearls and rubies bright All his slimy length he ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-5",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
29cebbc04231e2ac | Unholy Sonnet 13 | Mark Jarman | Drunk on the Umbrian hills at dusk and drunk
On one pink cloud that stood beside the moon,
Drunk on the moon, a marble smile, and drunk,
Two young Americans, on one another,
Far from home and wanting this forever—
Who needed God? We had our bodies, bread,
And glasses of a raw, green, local wine,
And watched our ... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
34b89b277ad85f6c | Fado | Jane Hirshfield | A man reaches closeand lifts a quarter from inside a girl’s ear,from her hands takes a doveshe didn’t know was there.Which amazes more,you may wonder:the quarter’s serrated murmuragainst the thumbor the dove’s knuckled silence?That he found them, or that she never had,or that in Portugal,this same half-stopped moment,i... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
1b49341b7503f003 | By the Waters of Babylon | Emma Lazarus | Little Poems in Prose
I. The Exodus. (August 3, 1492.) 1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.
2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond she... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S5",
"S8",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S5-6",
"S8-3",
"S9-7",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Religion/Judaism",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
65cf18b60d64f5f4 | Gliding O'er All | Walt Whitman | Gliding o'er all, through all,Through Nature, Time, and Space,As a ship on the waters advancing,The voyage of the soul—not life alone,Death, many deaths I'll sing. | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
f8f5263d67887a44 | Maybe my most important identity is being a son | Raymond Antrobus | my mother
asking how
to open a tab
on her laptop,
to email a photo,
calling to ask—can you change
the lightbulb
at the top of the stairs? | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Aging",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
9c97e8f62d8cdd43 | Naked in the Ditches | Richard Owens | phlegmatic on my bier
no regrets—my body bears
truth stem to stern
beginning with the hips
who am of common stock
looking to the sea
face ground—nothing now
conjured from dust
suffering—hung by the heels
sought occasion
as will was never conquered
to see the host broken
a swinging scythe—the dance
this mos... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
976864620f916ea3 | Doppelte Nationaltätsmoral/Dual Nationality: A Moral Tale | Zehra Çirac | The socks
red with a white star in a crescent moon
the shoes black red gold
are to many
like a warm foot
in cold shoe leather
to others
a double knot
in
a life only as long as a shoelace
but for all that
on hot coals
Translated by Oliver Pauley Die Socken
rot mit weißem Stern in Sichelmond
di... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
30e992812f8c1b29 | Amoretti XIII: "In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth" | Edmund Spenser | In that proud port, which her so goodly graceth,
Whiles her faire face she reares up to the skie:
And to the ground her eie lids low embaseth
Most goodly temperature ye may descry,
Myld humblesse mixt with awfull majesty,
For looking on the earth whence she was borne:
Her minde remembreth her mortalitie,
What so is fay... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
c44da25991bc58ba | The Taxi | Amy Lowell | When I go away from you
The world beats dead
Like a slackened drum.
I call out for you against the jutted stars
And shout into the ridges of the wind.
Streets coming fast,
One after the other,
Wedge you away from me,
And the lamps of the city prick my eyes
So that I can no longer see your face.
Why should I l... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S3-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
b44e06c3520b9a90 | A Swimmer in the Air | Howard Moss | That sea we see of surfaces
Turned upside down would be another world:
A bone shop, soaked in pearl, a dumping-
Ground for rarities, the sea-maws pumping
Grecian garbage Roman cities hurled
Seaward westward toward our faces.
That sea would yield up secret farms,
Gray-rotted by itself, encr... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
5c1fffd0a11f1603 | I Have a Rendezvous with Death | Alan Seeger | I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple-blossoms fill the air—I have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair.It may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breath—It may be I shal... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
bb7f274a1f7a7c7f | A Valediction: of Weeping | John Donne | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
Let me pour forth My tears before thy face, whilst I stay hereWhilst I stay here This poem is a valediction, meaning that it is an act of saying goodbye to someone. Donne wrote other poems with “Valediction” in the title, including “A Valediction: Forbidding Mou... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S6-5",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
82fcb63da71ef365 | A Poem on the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy | Nikki Giovanni | Trees are never felled . . . in summer . . . Not when the fruit . . .
is yet to be borne . . . Never before the promise . . . is fulfilled . . .
Not when their cooling shade . . . has yet to comfort . . .
Yet there are those . . . unheeding of nature . . . indifferent to
ecology . . . ignorant of need . . . who . .... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
002d07544087a218 | [I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind . . .] | Karen Volkman | I believe there is a song that is stranger than wind, that sips the scald
from the telling, toss, toss. In the room I move in, a wrecked boy listened
to each sky’s erasing, for it was shrill winter, for it was blast and blur.
For it was farther from the native birds and the gray heath heather and
the uncaressable t... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
d8b76ae2d5459805 | The Couriers | Sina Queyras | Words from a leaf on the shell of a snail?Tendency as reciprocity etched in shale.Cider vinegar wrapped in sealskin?Accept it, so little is genuine.A box on a meteor compelled by earth?Lies, emptiness, grief: it’s not a first.Frost on the dock at Penetanguishene?Tears from Lake Huron, Erie, and Michigan.Not a moment to... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
3feaec174248bea5 | Ostrich and Lark | Marilyn Nelson | Ostrich and Lark started each morning together
at first light,
day in and day out.
And they parted
at nightfall.
Every day they nibbled an ongoing meal:
a few seeds here,
a few seeds there;
for Ostrich, the occasional lizard.
All day the sun glared out of cloudless blue.
Every day, all day,
over the cidada’s... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Coming of Age"
] |
bcd88b1092648a1b | September, 1918 | Amy Lowell | This afternoon was the colour of water falling through sunlight;
The trees glittered with the tumbling of leaves;
The sidewalks shone like alleys of dropped maple leaves,
And the houses ran along them laughing out of square, open windows.
Under a tree in the park,
Two little boys, lying flat on their faces,
Were ... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
771b7441adba5646 | Stink Eye | Cathy Song | Somebody been giving you Stink Eye?
Let me tell you about Stink Eye.
Stink Eye no mean nothing
when you owe somebody money.
Pay up, girl. No be in debt.
But Stink Eye means something
when you owe somebody nothing.
Remember when Connie Mamazuka, the girl with the mustache,
grabbed your lipstick in the PE locker ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
ad54ba1e8fcdcf2e | The Conqueror Worm | Edgar Allan Poe | Lo! ’t is a gala night Within the lonesome latter years! An angel throng, bewinged, bedight In veils, and drowned in tears, Sit in a theatre, to see A play of hopes and fears, While the orchestra breathes fitfully The music of the spheres. Mimes, in the form of God on high, Mutter and mumble low,... | [
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S10-10"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance"
] |
9efba4c0d4bac513 | The Man Who Drowned in the Irrigation Ditch | Ofelia Zepeda | She always got mad at him
every time he came home in the middle of the morning
with his pant legs wet.
She knew he had fallen in the ditch again.
His legs were not strong enough to be straddling ditches.
He was too old to be walking over temporary dikes.
She wished he didn’t do that, but sometimes he had to.
She... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S3-4",
"S3-8",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
68d23a8f8d481994 | Leaves | Ursula K. Le Guin | Years do odd things to identity.
What does it mean to say
I am that child in the photograph
at Kishamish in 1935?
Might as well say I am the shadow
of a leaf of the acacia tree
felled seventy years ago
moving on the page the child reads.
Might as well say I am the words she read
or the words I wrote in other y... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
dd65ea4ec7655eaa | One's-Self I Sing | Walt Whitman | One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and powe... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [] |
d15736453a669677 | body without the “d” | Justice Ameer | the bo’y wakes up
the bo’y looks at itself
the bo’y notices something missing
there is both too much and not enough flesh on the bo’y
the bo’y is covered in hair
what a hairy bo’y
some makes it look more like a bo’y
some makes it look more like a monster
the bo’y did not learn to shave from its father
so it ta... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
c9c14569a4148389 | Still Start | Kay Ryan | As if engineparts could bewrenched outat random andthe car would still start andsound even,hearts can gowith chambersbroken open. | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
2c841e2a99af812c | Our Conversation | Franz Wright | Pure gaze, you are lightning beyond the last treesand you are the last trees’past, branching green lightning of terminal brain branches numened densely with summer’shunter color, as night comes on, the ocean they concealgone berserk, wind still rising.Pure seeing, dual vortex doors to the blue fire wheresex is burned a... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
46fb4686c3abd619 | from Aphorisms I-XV | Theodore Worozbyt | I The most devout long to breathe the dirt's scent once more. The cat runs faster at night; he sees you better. Only the ordinary is reprehensible, but praise disgusts the just. Wine is not drunk enough. Be bitter but only about the Truth. With a friend, poison is sweet; sweetness, with an enemy, poisons. The colder th... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
844e61e9d981c755 | Sonnet in Search of an Author | William Carlos Williams | Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off a sweetest
odor, man and woman
under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of
aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it
Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of n... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
42cea0ff752aee9b | Study in Hands | Théophile Gautier | I
Imperia
I saw a plaster hand, on view
In sculptor’s studio, set apart...
Aspasia’s? Cleopatra’s?... Who?
This fragment’s human work of art?
Like lily silvered by the dawn,
Frozen in kiss of snow, its light
Loveliness dazzled me, and shone
In poetry of purest white.
Though pallid, wan, yet striking, it
Spr... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
45d51c07abf7639f | Minuscule Things | William Matthews | There’s a crack in this glass so fine we can’t see it,
and in the blue eye of the candleflame’s needle
there’s a dark fleck, a speck of imperfection
that could contain, like a microchip, an epic
treatise on beauty, except it’s in the eye of the beheld.
And at the base of our glass there’s nothing
so big as a tiny... | [
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-7",
"S10-1"
] | [
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0c0edd18aa351553 | Art vs. Trade | James Weldon Johnson | Trade, Trade versus Art,
Brain, Brain versus Heart;
Oh, the earthiness of these hard-hearted times,
When clinking dollars, and jingling dimes,
Drown all the finer music of the soul.
Life as an Octopus with but this creed,
That all the world was made to serve his greed;
Trade has spread out his mighty myriad claw... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
3e5637f29aa3429e | Make a Law So That the Spine Remembers Wings | Larry Levis | So that the truant boy may go steady with the State,So that in his spine a memory of wingsWill make his shoulders tense & bendLike a thing already flownWhen the bracelets of another school of loveAre fastened to his wrists,Make a law that doesn’t have to waitLong until someone comes along to break it.So that in jail he... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
3e0ba8eeff135e98 | A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack | James Wright | Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
Beany, the kid whose yellow hair turns green,
Told me to find you, even in the rain,
And tell you he was drowned.
I hid behind the chassis on the bank,
The wreck of someone’s Ford:
I w... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-1",
"S6-4",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5b0ee91e2da1f24d | Elegy | Pierre Martory | Adieu near those fields that smoke disembowels
And that your arm pushes away
For a long time until the inevitable stratum of the
Adieus until the next
Adieu
The door in a cliff has closed. I wanted
Daylight to enter here only through the arc-lamp of y... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
a28208e05c2eb7eb | The Guru | A. F. Moritz | Here comes the wise man in the story of sick times,
telling you how to find the passage of satisfaction.
He is many million years old and has been walking
many thousand miles, more miles, more lengths of road
than the shrunk-up earth of these days possesses,
to find you. He has a veda from before creation
to sing you a... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
ab3ee8d6e465e04f | In Oklahoma | Carter Revard | When you leave a Real City, as Gertrude Stein did, and go to Oakland, as she did, you can say, as she did, there is no there, there. When you are a Hartford insurance executive, as Wallace Stevens was, and you have never been to Oklahoma, as he had not, you can invent people to dance there, as he did, and you can name ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
4709b244674a2da9 | Benjamin Banneker Helps to Build a City | Jay Wright | In a morning coat,
hands locked behind your back,
you walk gravely along the lines in your head.
These others stand with you,
squinting the city into place,
yet cannot see what you see,
what you would see
—a vision of these paths,
laid out like a star,
or like a body,
the seed vibrating within itself,
breaking into the... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
63e95b50e9c16d78 | Two Rooms | Emily Berry | I went into one room and then I went into another.I was in a room inside a room.There I felt safe. | [
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
af436fe2a52a20b8 | El Tigre Market | Juan Delgado | As apparent as the rest, the asphalt cracks
are crowded with yellow weeds, the rust goes
beyond its bleeding color, and the lot's rails,
battered by cars, cast larger bars by noon.
On one side of the market someone painted
a row of flower pots, hanging geraniums
for the locals who must now go across town.
As app... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
81989f39ef7078be | from Idylls of the King: Song from The Marriage of Geraint | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. Smile and ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-7"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
52a9771e9c5e108b | Paradise Lost: Book 6 (1674 version) | John Milton | ALL night the dreadless Angel unpursu'd Through Heav'ns wide Champain held his way, till Morn, Wak't by the circling Hours, with rosie hand Unbarr'd the gates of Light. There is a Cave Within the Mount of God, fast by his Throne, Where light and darkness in perpetual round Lodge and dislodge by turns, which makes thr... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-2",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
d68282fd0f461e35 | Book 7, Epigram 36: De puero balbutiente. | Thomas Bastard | Methinks 'tis pretty sport to hear a child, Rocking a word in mouth yet undefiled. The tender racket rudely plays the sound, Which weakly banded cannot back rebound, And the soft air the softer roof does kiss, With a sweet dying and a pretty miss, Which hears no answer yet from the white rank Of teeth, not risen from ... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
37c86c245572027a | Patterns | Amy Lowell | I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S2-8",
"S3-4",
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
7941cf3a2d13d333 | Industry | Harmony Holiday | A gunshot then. Stop your bikes and let them wobble in mechanism
Then a gun watchman, hithered on the imaginary end of a macabre
lipping telescope, broke my hero into speeches.
It had to be masculine this many occasions consecutively and also diminutive from a hugeness I could not collect enough pipes and wizards on... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics"
] |
e804f8017b1f4c22 | The Campus on the Hill | W. D. Snodgrass | Up the reputable walks of old established trees
They stalk, children of the nouveaux riches; chimes
Of the tall Clock Tower drench their heads in blessing:
“I don't wanna play at your house;
I don't like you any more.”
My house stands opposite, on the other hill,
Among meadows, with the orchard fences down and fa... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
8da2bb0a1e816de1 | Say not the Struggle nought Availeth | Arthur Hugh Clough | Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; It may be, in yon smoke concealed, Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, And, but for you, possess the field. F... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
87a778af248bfdc8 | Facing It | Yusef Komunyakaa | Highlight Actions
Enable or disable annotations
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that wa... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
151ea508a86658c0 | Aunt Haint | Ed Roberson | She would post herself in the wayin lines headed to transfer stops, to change,or haunt intersections with four way fullscarecrow indecision, stopon the corners of streets, and in the aislesof buses, preaching only thatwhich has never left these crossings for road,for choice — the angry fear. She seatsat the fe... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S8-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
fc5f35e7ecddd2b2 | I Am the People, the Mob | Carl Sandburg | I am the people—the mob—the crowd—the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Na... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
eb568ff988ea8c01 | from Idylls of the King: The Passing of Arthur | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, First made and latest left of all the knights, Told, when the man was no more than a voice In the white winter of his age, to those With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. For on their march to westward, Bedivere, Who slowly paced among the slumbering host, Heard in hi... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S11-1",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
a1133d83bc0ea5cd | Tonight, in Oakland | Danez Smith | I did not come here to sing a blues.
Lately, I open my mouth
& out comes marigolds, yellow plums.
I came to make the sky a garden.
Give me rain or give me honey, dear lord.
The sky has given us no water this year.
I ride my bike to a boy, when I get there
what we make will not be beautiful
or love at all, but i... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S3-4",
"S3-6",
"S8-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Relationships/LGBTQ+"
] |
64c1644f0f224394 | Common Janthina | Tatiana Ziglar | My shell said she likes the king and queen of the Poetry Palace because they listen to her. She tells them all the secrets of the ocean. | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
113a0845b0d388ab | I Had Just Hung Up from Talking to You | Jessica Greenbaum | I had just hung up from talking to youand we had been so immersed in the difficultyyou were facing, and forgive me,I was thinking that as long as we kept talking,you in your car in the parking lot of the boys’ schoolas the afternoon deepened into early evening,and me in the study, all the books aroundthat had been sour... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S6-5",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
575f6e569f60d5e8 | Repairing the Hubble Telescope | Megan Snyder-Camp | "Organizers Abruptly Cancel 25"' Anniversary Gala Honoring NASA's
Hubble Telescope As Riots Burn Through Baltimore"
The camera is having trouble
focusing. A blurry spot
where the universe is.
Outside, a storm is brewing,
trashcans into windshields.
Outside agitators, a nebula
of thick dust. The ima... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-9",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
428d3f46abc7f4c8 | Definitive Bright Morning | Sy Hoahwah | Noted to be the definitive bright morning of 10,000 calendars.
The church bell melted.
Rage of unrequited love became a terrible serpent.
The morning star lowered like an enemy’s flag.
A vampire’s mattress tumbled out at the outskirts of town.
Ancient lanterns, suddenly thrown through the air,
somewhere deep in t... | [
"S8",
"S11"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
6e6ae263eeb76cab | All the Steps | John Taggart | 1
Those who hear the train they had better worry worry
those who hear they had better worry worry.
2
No disgrace to worry to have the worried life blues
might do some good to be worried in the hour of our need.
3
Run run run away going to run run run away
there are those who think they’re going to ru... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life"
] |
8b726607f9f941d8 | On Beauty | Kahlil Gibran | And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
And he answered:
Where shall you seek beauty, and how
shall you find her unless she herself be your
way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except
she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say,
“Beauty is kind and gentl... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
692acea9f759794a | You Are Your Own State Department | Naomi Shihab Nye | Each day I miss Japanese precision. Trying to arrange things
the way they would. I miss the call to prayer
at Sharjah, the large collective pause. Or
the shy strawberry vendor with rickety wooden cart,
single small lightbulb pointed at a mound of berries.
In one of China’s great cities, before dawn.
F... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
2bfc632fb988c36d | Killing Chickens | Bruce Weigl | Never mind what you think.
The old man did not rush
Recklessly into the coop the last minute.
The chickens hardly stirred
For the easy way he sang to them.
Red sun is burning out
Past slag heaps of the mill. The old man
Touches the blade of his killing knife
With his fat thumb.
I’m in the backyard on a quilt
... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-8",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
b4f1b4b02e0a6449 | Himself | Thomas P. Lynch | He’ll have been the last of his kind here then.
The flagstones, dry-stone walls, the slumping thatch,
out-offices and cow cabins, the patch
of haggard he sowed spuds and onions in—
all of it a century out of fashion—
all giving way to the quiet rising damp
of hush and vacancy once he is gone.
Those long contempl... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-9",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
ae06cc7fdcc502be | The Heart and Service | Sir Thomas Wyatt | The heart and service to you proffer'd
With right good will full honestly,
Refuse it not, since it is offer'd,
But take it to you gentlely.
And though it be a small present,
Yet good, consider graciously
The thought, the mind, and the intent
Of him that loves you faithfully.
It were a thing of small effect
To work my w... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
28cdb2ff6990330f | The Betrothal | Edna St. Vincent Millay | Oh, come, my lad, or go, my lad, And love me if you like! I hardly hear the door shut Or the knocker strike. Oh, bring me gifts or beg me gifts, And wed me if you will! I'd make a man a good wife, Sensible and still. And why should I be cold, my lad, And why should you repine, Because I love a dark head ... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-4",
"S1-9",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
a3afc0e2f90234d1 | 66 | Suzanne Gardinier | I'm used to the emperor's bitterness
I can't find the sweet place unless you make me
This face that is not my face I may
look made but when you touch me you make me
Make the oak say blossom The stripped say swell
The avenue pavement say river Make me
This shirt I can't take off The one
the nights without you gat... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
a388816bd1c506cb | The Man Who Gave Birth to a Panda | Idra Novey | He had to have it, his mother told him. How could he not, with so few left in the world? He felt heaviest at night with the miracle of it. He was a vessel now. A receptacle for a threatened being. What if he rose too fast and killed it? Or maybe his stillness would do it, too much sitting around, stunned and hungry. An... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-7",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
4cbbd82f9c602fac | The Dependencies | Howard Nemerov | This morning, between two branches of a tree
Beside the door, epeira once again
Has spun and signed his tapestry and trap.
I test his early-warning system and
It works, he scrambles forth in sable with
The yellow hieroglyph that no one knows
The meaning of. And I remember now
How yesterday at dusk the nighthawks... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
356a3db73d3727c8 | Fin de Fête | Charlotte Mew | Sweetheart, for such a day
One mustn’t grudge the score;
Here, then, it’s all to pay,
It’s Good-night at the door.
Good-night and good dreams to you,—
Do you remember the picture-book thieves
Who left two children sleeping in a wood the long night through,
And how the birds came down and cove... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
256eda65bba3af8b | Melody Cinema | Raza Ali Hasan | Humbling of Bhutto in Mecca, Bhutto kissing
Hajar-e-Aswad, half the Bhutto cabinet in Ihram,
kneeling. These were the first scenes, in the rolling
newsreel of half-closed doors, of the doorjamb
in the way of the twentieth century’s upstarts.
A nationalization, by Bhutto, of religious piety?
No, but a headlong scr... | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/Islam",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
79ddb1ff2d343092 | My Voice | Rafael Campo | To cure myself of wanting Cuban songs,
I wrote a Cuban song about the need
For people to suppress their fantasies,
Especially unhealthy ones. The song
Began by making reference to the sea,
Because the sea is like a need so great
And deep it never can be swallowed. Then
The song explores some common myths
About ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-3",
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
203a6c262263b408 | Early Poem | Lucy Ives | The first sentence is a sentence about writing. The second sentence tells you it's alright to lose interest. You might be one of those people who sits back in his or her chair without interest, and this would have been the third sentence you would have read. The fourth sentence, what does that say, that says something ... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
b36b648861e3a0d3 | Mother’s Blessing | Eleanor Ross Taylor | This timeless blood was here before begat. Infinity runs in your veins— Not mine, nor yours, Nor Eve’s, not Adam’s— Gat of God, And spinning like taffy Godwards back again.Sapped through the centuries to us— Grafting a limb there for the Jesse tree— ... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S6-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
fcaa5994b213d78e | Mingus at the Showplace | William Matthews | I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen,
and so I swung into action and wrote a poem,
and it was miserable, for that was how I thought
poetry worked: you digested experience and shat
literature. It was 1960 at The Showplace, long since
defunct, on West 4th St., and I sat at the bar,
casting beer money fro... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
d2ee62f6e14f7952 | St. Patrick's Day | Derek Mahon | No wise man ever wished to be younger.
— Swift
1
Down the long library each marble bust
shines unregarded through a shower of dust
where a grim ghost paces for exercise
in wet weather: nausea, gout, ‘some days
I hardly think it worth my ti... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
fd693b1957b2edfb | Summer 1967 | James K. Baxter | Summer brings out the girls in their green dresses
Whom the foolish might compare to daffodils,
Not seeing how a dead grandmother in each one governs her limbs,
Darkening the bright corolla, using her lips to speak through,
Or that a silver torque was woven out of
The roots of wet speargrass.
... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
b242752444ecf1fd | The Convergence of the Twain | Thomas Hardy | (Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")
I In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity, And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she. II Steel chambers, late the pyres Of her salamandrine fires, Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres. III ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S3-2",
"S3-7",
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
6deca55856398007 | You’re arrowing out toward what. | Greg Glazner | The sunlight almost unfaceable, and weightless,and the gravities, wind-flickers, shadows, the rippedblack places crows make on the phone poles—how to keep your own counsel,even against the little stabs, the winds and chromes— •Various flashes, the office door, a supper glass... | [
"S1",
"S6"
] | [
"S1-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love"
] |
b93f33018f7f4af3 | November for Beginners | Rita Dove | Snow would be the easyway out—that softeningsky like a sigh of reliefat finally being allowedto yield. No dice.We stack twigs for burningin glistening patchesbut the rain won’t give.So we wait, breedingmood, making musicof decline. We sit downin the smell of the pastand rise in a lightthat is already leaving.We ache in... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-3",
"S2-4",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
140cc3e884231791 | Love Song | Henry Dumas | Beloved,
I have to adore the earth:
The wind must have heard
your voice once.
It echoes and sings like you.
The soil must have tasted
you once.
It is laden with your scent.
The trees honor you
in gold
and blush when you pass.
I know why the north country
is frozen.
It has been trying to preserve
your memo... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
93f88f69ce21f679 | William L. Laurence, Journalist on the Plane that Bombed Nagasaki, Years Later in Bed with His Wife | Brian Komei Dempster | Moving forward
or back? Which way
am I? I wake grasping
your nightgown.
I am still
there. In the haze of faces
burning. Arch
of spreading
flame, black-haired girl
in saddle shoes
and plaid skirt, knee-deep
in a yard of violets.
Her father, in clogs, pounding a path
home, balancing
buckets of carp
on a ba... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.