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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
d00f9d564eb2c7d5 | The Visitation | Samuel Menashe | His body ahead
Of him on the bed
He faces his feet
Sees himself dead,
A corpse complete
With legs and chest
And belly between
Swelling the scene
Of the crime you left,
Taking your time,
Angel of Death | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
8de002b587a59fdd | The Kisser | Dora Malech | As in, in the, of course. The body knewthe drill by now. Was are we there yet and thennever been so, then so long. Heart tiedwith twine, with shorthairs, trip wires—whispered that bind.Drew the short straw, scared herself apartto spit-sweet shards and into time that countedbackwards from two lips ago. Said doneis done ... | [
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Living"
] | [] |
f8ef8e9b8c17d951 | Baked Goods | Aimee Nezhukumatathil | Flour on the floor makes my sandals
slip and I tumble into your arms.
Too hot to bake this morning but
blueberries begged me to fold them
into moist muffins. Sticks of rhubarb
plotted a whole pie. The windows
are blown open and a thickfruit tang
sneaks through the wire screen
and into the home of the scowly lad... | [
"S1",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
bc789d4cbd3569ec | Fifteenth Farewell | Louise Bogan | I
You may have all things from me, save my breath,
The slight life in my throat will not give pause
For your love, nor your loss, nor any cause.
Shall I be made a panderer to death,
Dig the green ground for darkness underneath,
Let the dust serve me, covering all that was
With all that will be? Better, from time... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S6-5",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
ff004725a41a5de3 | 103 Korean Martyrs | Monica Youn | Where was it that we went that night?
That long, low building: floodlights
rimmed in lavender, the moon ringed
in rose. I would rather, then, have stayed
outside, where spiderwebs glowed
like jellyfish in the damp yew hedges,
where the paths were chalky pebbles
set with giant stepping stones.
But the film was s... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film"
] |
4c24fadd80ab3f66 | Seder-Night | Israel Zangwill | Prosaic miles of streets stretch all round, Astir with restless, hurried life and spannedBy arches that with thund’rous trains resound, And throbbing wires that galvanize the land; Gin-palaces in tawdry splendor stand;The newsboys shriek of mangled bodies found; The last burlesque is playing in the Strand—... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
6c87aee2e16cc828 | A Slim Volume Taken Into the Provinces | Ed Roberson | I have to leave early in the dark
and hungry to avoid crossing the snow as the noon burns the crust into an un-servable lake slush instead of the crisp bridge that would be in order to get me over the ridge My journal is already laundered clean of my words and my instructions have dissolved into a white... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S3-9",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Rural & Country Life",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
5cc6378b9b2b6c3c | Ars Poetica | Dorothea Lasky | I wanted to tell the veterinary assistant about the cat video Jason sent me
But I resisted for fear she'd think it strange
I am very lonely
Yesterday my boyfriend called me, drunk again
And interspersed between ringing tears and clinginess
He screamed at me with a kind of bitterness
No other human had before to m... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S8-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
f250a90e21c56e3c | The Combe | Edward Thomas | The Combe was ever dark, ancient and dark.Its mouth is stopped with bramble, thorn, and briar;And no one scrambles over the sliding chalkBy beech and yew and perishing juniperDown the half precipices of its sides, with rootsAnd rabbit holes for steps. The sun of Winter,The moon of Summer, and all the singing birdsExcep... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
6e35ce9665b576f8 | Soneto de Silueta | Kristin Naca | Untitled, from the Silueta series, 1980, by Ana Mendieta
For Ana Mendieta
Mud learns to live with mites, worms, beetles, and ticks.
And Lioness digs up the earth where a warthog cowers in his den.
You know you are loved when she tears you to bits, brittle thing.
The lioness tongue softens you up all the way to her... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
675504b41c0d2fb3 | In the Museum of Lost Objects | Rebecca Lindenberg | What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee;
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.
Ezra Pound
You’ll find labels describing what is gone:
an empress’s bones, a stolen painting
of a man in a feathered helmet
holding a flag-draped spear.
A vellum gospel, hidden somewhere long ago
forgotten, ... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
2f7cd71912c3f807 | Tide of Voices | Lynda Hull | At the hour the streetlights come on, buildings
turn abstract. The Hudson, for a moment, formal.
We drink bourbon on the terrace and you speak
in the evening voice, weighted deep in the throat.
They plan to harvest oysters, you tell me,
from the harbor by Jersey City, how the waters
will be clean again in twenty ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
25553ad56ef28f9c | Baby Villon | Philip Levine | He tells me in Bangkok he’s robbed
Because he’s white; in London because he’s black;
In Barcelona, Jew; in Paris, Arab:
Everywhere and at all times, and he fights back.
He holds up seven thick little fingers
To show me he’s rated seventh in the world,
And there’s no passion in his voice, no anger
In the flat bro... | [
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S3-8",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
0c2bb3e370b0531d | Islanders | Richard Emil Braun | The natives here enjoy a delicate
and tense society.
Their upper classes make an art
of conversation
so refined that no Caucasian ever
participates without
making at least one outrageous
faux pas.
Few Europeans, in fact, can manage
even the rudiments
of this langua... | [
"S3",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-2"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor"
] |
469a82b672bf1dfc | Sapphics | Algernon Charles Swinburne | All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron Stood and beheld me. Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and I too, Full of the vision,... | [
"S11"
] | [
"S11-3"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology"
] |
55b1713a1aedb8e4 | To the Sea | Marin Sorescu | I go again to the sea and converse with Ovid
whose verses like the Romanian coast roll along
so wide and subdued: waves that wait for the ice to break.
My poet, you that make what I sing to thousand years old,
ancient boundary stone on the edge of the Romanian language,
you the gulls have elected on to the governi... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
cbc5229ffe94bfae | Luigi Galvani 1737–1798 | Cole Swensen | married a woman who was perfectly happy
to turn half their apartment
into a laboratory
including the cadavers necessary to her husband’s
explorations in surgery.
He also wrote a... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S8-5",
"S8-7",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
e0704979f8855752 | Meeting Point | Louis MacNeice | Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs):
Time was away and somewhere else.
And they were neither up nor down;
The stream’s music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffe... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
3c95d9866a11cb09 | Yellow Migraine | Michael Dickman | Daffodils shimmy
in the dilated onion grass
their hearts out
Shelovesme Shelovesmenot
Smeared
against the sidewalk
Urine left in the toilet all day simmers under halogens
Listening
to someone else breathe
listening to static cling
Time to wipe down the refrigerator with a handful of ibuprofen and a bandanna
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Youth"
] |
a1ba88a08ba4bd92 | Circle | Franz Wright | Say I had no choice, this weightless finger touched my tongue and told me to, it taught me; when kinder and more subtle methods failed, it put a gun to my head, a zero seared coldly in one temple, electrode glued chill to the other, the sniffer dogs rooting and snuffling in my crotch, the small white doorless room, the... | [
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
8dd149935e647871 | from The Fatalist: Time is filled with beginners. You are right. Now | Lyn Hejinian | Time is filled with beginners. You are right. Now
each of them is working on something
and it matters. The large increments of life must not go by
unrecognized. That’s why my mother’s own mother-in-law
was often bawdy. “MEATBALLS!” she would shout
superbly anticipating site-specific specificity in the future
of p... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
4019fabe9d5839ea | Harlem Hopscotch | Maya Angelou | One foot down, then hop! It's hot.
Good things for the ones that's got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don't stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
4a6ff362b9b1e898 | [When from my counted days] | Roberto Tejada | When from my counted days I think of
times still owed to me by tyrant love,
and my temples anticipate a frost
beyond the tribulation of my years
I see love’s counterfeit joys are a poison
reason sips from a glass raised
to those for whom hunger dare appear
in the guise of my honeyed daydream.
What potion of for... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [] |
800433788255b0f3 | Corydon & Alexis | D. A. Powell | shepherdboy? not the most salient image for contemporary readers nor most available. unless you’re thinking brokeback mountain: a reference already escaping. I did love a montana man, though no good shepherd rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I’d retreated to what light he bore illumined su... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
2b3b136eda91bb8c | Lamella | Bruce Bond | Beneath the waver of the dorsal fin lie the blood-shades
of lamellae, their skin so close to the vein they breathe,
filter, gather, flex, set down in loose and frangible parallels
you find in gills of mushrooms, clams, and concertinas.
Wave after wave, the tissues of the water breathers
conceal what they reveal, a... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S6-3",
"S6-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Youth"
] |
19cefc3b7df3c97b | Taking Off My Clothes | Carolyn Forché | I take off my shirt, I show you.
I shaved the hair out under my arms.
I roll up my pants, I scraped off the hair
on my legs with a knife, getting white.
My hair is the color of chopped maples.
My eyes dark as beans cooked in the south.
(Coal fields in the moon on torn-up hills)
Skin polished as a Ming bowl
show... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
09916de4e2293b39 | A Glimpse | Walt Whitman | A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of c... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
03e7fe3e9709d810 | Chattanooga | Ishmael Reed | 1
Some say that Chattanooga is the
Old name for Lookout Mountain
To others it is an uncouth name
Used only by the uncivilised
Our a-historical period sees it
As merely a town in Tennessee
To old timers of the Volunteer State
Chattanooga is “The Pittsburgh of
The South”
According to the Cherokee
Chattanooga i... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S9-6",
"S10-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
8ad5b9a3b2a6ef82 | Vegan Symphony #9 | Philip Nikolayev | Roaring roast cake with bean base spareribs for me,
carottes étouffées medium rare,
I like them a tad undercooked, still red
with sap, tea leaves in olive oil,
strawberry sushi flummoxed
to the point of deliquescence,
or better still, freshly picked
cucumber rolls to match
the lettuce steak, mesquite broiled
t... | [
"S3",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
965fb4a0a1eab38f | André Breton’s Apartment | Garrett Caples | the madder runs
like blood
lifeblood of
the livebud
that kindles next to earth
the hair on the church is water
the lovebirds curve their crutches down
so long
to the sacred
palaces
so long to the fingerbone that lingers on
if i’m alive
it’s no thanks to you
if i’m comatose
let’s make the most of it
tomat... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-2",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
647a8a5049c3fe72 | Axis | Ray Gonzalez | The volcano in my grandmother's Mexican village
smothered the town, though the girl escaped because
the axis of revolution sent her family into exile,
black clouds covering their journey to the north.
The axis of the earth is a skeletal bone extending
from pole to pole, the arm of someone holding on.
The Japanese... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
e927eed2b7320427 | My Father and Myself Facing the Sun | Lawson Fusao Inada | We are both strong, dark, bright men,
though perhaps you might not notice,
finding two figures flat against the landscape
like the shadowed backs of mountains.
Which would not be far from wrong,
for though we both have on Western clothes
and he is seated on a yellow spool
of emptied and forgotten telephone cable... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S8-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
e0b5d269dcb8f8cb | The Fish-Wife | Cynthia Huntington | I’ll take a bath when it snows,
when I can look out the window up high
and see the sky all pale
and blank like a fish’s eye.
And I know the boats won’t go out tonight,
the fishermen drinking whiskey, locked
in a bar-dream, the music rocking them deeper.
It doesn’t snow enough here,
though some would say otherwi... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-9",
"S2-10",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
dbf147cd84f54a2a | my dream about being white | Lucille Clifton | hey music and
me
only white,
hair a flutter of
fall leaves
circling my perfect
line of a nose,
no lips,
no behind, hey
white me
and i’m wearing
white history
but there’s no future
in those clothes
so i take them off and
wake up
dancing. | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-8"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
9e6c3fc198bab2cb | The No-Name Tapestries | Marianne Boruch | When I think of the dead, it meansthey’re thinking
of me, | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
e1e7ef491a1ba759 | Soweto | Kamau Brathwaite | Out of this roar of innumerable demons
hot cinema tarzan sweat
rolling moth ball eyes yellow teeth
cries of claws slashes clanks
a faint high pallor
dust
oceans rolling over the dry sand of the savanna
your houses homes warm still with the buffalo milk
bladder of elephant . tusk of his stripped tree
sing soft ... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
e9f45ca7ac5edfd2 | In Memoriam A. H. H. OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII: 45 | Alfred, Lord Tennyson | The baby new to earth and sky, What time his tender palm is prest Against the circle of the breast, Has never thought that "this is I": But as he grows he gathers much, And learns the use of "I," and "me," And finds "I am not what I see, And other than the things I touch." So rounds ... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-2",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Birth & Infancy",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
c540eeb0fbfe0b00 | Barbara Frietchie | John Greenleaf Whittier | Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-4",
"S6-5",
"S11-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Heroes & Patriotism",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
cc3b9de3a3208dab | An Owl | David Bottoms | Twice through my bedroom window
I’ve seen the horned owl drop from the oaks to panic
the rabbit in my neighbor’s backyard.
Last night he paced for an hour across the top
of the cage, scrutinizing
the can of water, the mound of pellets,
turning his genius to the riddle
of the wire, while under him
the rabbit bal... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
ed0b0a9088ccd92b | Sonnets from the Portuguese 5: I lift my heavy heart up solemnly | Elizabeth Barrett Browning | I lift my heavy heart up solemnly, As once Electra her sepulchral urn, And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see What a great heap of grief lay hid in me, And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn Through the ashen greyness. If thy foot in scorn Could tread them out to darkness utterly... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
8cb9db63ca4e0f87 | Apologies to All the People in Lebanon | June Jordan | Dedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983.
I didn’t know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said you shot the London Ambassador
and when that wasn’t true
they said so
what
They said you shelled their northern villages
and when U.N.... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
b12c176724d0f515 | Hayden | Amaud Jamaul Johnson | What did I know, what did I know
Of gazing silences and terrored stone
Brilliances; beauty of what’s hardbitten
The auroral darkness which is God
Then you arrived, meditative, ironic
My head gripped in bony vice
Mouth of agony shaping a cry it cannot utter
What did I know, what did I know
Of a changing permanen... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-4",
"S10-6",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
fb4bc7ad09faeed2 | Rabbits and Fire | Alberto Ríos | Everything’s been said
But one last thing about the desert,
And it’s awful: During brush fires in the Sonoran desert,
Brush fires that happen before the monsoon and in the great,
Deep, wide, and smothering heat of the hottest months,
The longest months,
The hypnotic, immeasurable lulls of August and July—
During... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
d6deac9bbbb309f7 | Philadelphia Flowers | Roberta Hill | I
In the cubbyhole entrance to Cornell and Son,
a woman in a turquoise sweater
curls up to sleep. Her right arm seeks
a cold spot in the stone to release its worry
and her legs stretch
against the middle hinge.
I want to ask her in for coffee,
to tell her go sleep in the extra bed upstairs,
but I’m a guest,
u... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-2",
"S3-8",
"S3-11",
"S4-1",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
c75c14f9c60f96f4 | Toy Room | Maria Hummel | One son plays monster rage. His brother
plays ship crashed in a maze. We
are reading Hulk. We are reading
Theseus. White sails, green men,
bright women who give everything
and get nothing. The monster son
would never sail a ship into
a maze, but brothers are not
the same. They hear the same stories
and make di... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S6-8",
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S9-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Living/Youth",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life",
"Activities/Indoor Activities"
] |
cd8167ca0d8f0ae9 | the weather is hot on the back of my watch | Charles Bukowski | the weather is hot on the back of my watch
which is down at Finkelstein’s
who is gifted with 3 balls
but no heart, but you’ve got to understand
when the bull goes down
on the whore, the heart is laid aside for something else,
and let’s not over-rate the obvious decency
for in a crap game you may be cutting down
... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
933a1cfa96779877 | The Epitaph in Form of a Ballad which Villon Made for Himself and his Comrades, Expecting to be Hanged along with Them | Algernon Charles Swinburne | Men, brother men, that after us yet live, Let not your hearts too hard against us be; For if some pity of us poor men ye give, The sooner God shall take of you pity. Here are we five or six strung up, you see, And here the flesh that all too well we fed Bit by bit eaten and rotten, rent and shred, ... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6af787e05840ed1e | Then Too There Is This | J. Allyn Rosser | joy in the day's being done, however
clumsily, and in the ticked-off lists,
the packages nestling together,
no one home waiting for dinner, for
you, no one impatient for your touch
or kind words to salve what nightly
rises like heartburn, the ghost-lump feeling
that one is really as alone as one had feared.
One... | [
"S8"
] | [
"S8-5"
] | [
"Relationships"
] | [
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
4a628f0c53f1e850 | Ten Moons | Sasha Dugdale | And then came the ten moons Full in the sun’s glare, and the seraphim, And it was light all night in the orchards And on the plains and even in the towns And mankind rejoiced, because it was now the case That the wrecking and equivocating could carry on The pale night long. Mankind rejoiced And went forth to those plac... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
7792ca51eefc6c8b | Taking One for the Team | Sara Holbrook | We practiced together,
sweat and stained.
We pummeled each other
and laughed off pain.
Teams may disagree,
may tease,
may blame.
Teams may bicker and whine,
but get down for the game.
You had my back.
We fought the fight.
And though our score
was less last night,
we're walking tall.
Our team came through
... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-3",
"S8-4",
"S9-5",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
6da93476614709ac | Let Us Consider | Russell Edson | Let us consider the farmer who makes his straw hat his
sweetheart; or the old woman who makes a floor lamp her son;
or the young woman who has set herself the task of scraping
her shadow off a wall....
Let us consider the old woman who wore smoked cows’
tongues for shoes and walked a meadow gathering cow chips... | [
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S8-3",
"S8-5",
"S10-5",
"S11-2"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Mythology & Folklore/Ghosts & the Supernatural",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
201a50b908018c49 | What I Do | Roxane Beth Johnson | Eat cereal. Read the back of the box over and over. Put on my red velvet jumper with white heart shaped buttons. Walk to the bus, pick up discarded cigarette butts and pretend to smoke.
Get on the bus. Girls yell, Wire head, ugly black skin. Take a window seat, under the radio speaker. Look for cats hunting in the fie... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S8-4",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
733762aa2a32f223 | . . . manifest | Stacy Szymaszek | defunct
list of
common
names
proxy
for the
bearer
nor’wester
buffets gear
reach
into our
canisters
“Cassirer”
drawn and
sewn into
my lapels
assembly of
illegal men
peril will
not know
two
Roman
slaves rain
the rage
passes
through our
teeth into
interior
pneumatic
doors
my evening
of monik... | [
"S3"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [] |
c031619f3be27fb9 | Mourning Poem for the Queen of Sunday | Robert Hayden | Lord’s lost Him His mockingbird,
His fancy warbler;
Satan sweet-talked her,
four bullets hushed her.
Who would have thought
she’d end that way?
Four bullets hushed her. And the world a-clang with evil.
Who’s going to make old hardened sinner men tremble now
and the righteous r... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S6-5"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Living/Mourning"
] |
117304e3205930f2 | Nursery Memories | Robert Graves | I. – THE FIRST FUNERAL (The first corpse I saw was on the German wires, and couldn’t be buried) The whole field was so smelly; We smelt the poor dog first: His horrid swollen belly Looked just like going burst. His fur was most untidy; He hadn’t any eyes. It happened on Good Friday And t... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
7e20e418838d9aa6 | Lost Content | A. F. Moritz | You couples lying
where moon-scythes and day-scythes reaped you,
browning fruit falls and sleeps
in tangled nests, the wild grass,
falls from your apple tree that still grows here:
cry for your dead hero, his weak sword, his flight,
that you were slaughtered and your bed poured whiteness,
the issue of murdered m... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-9"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Unrequited Love"
] |
71ef4d5d1c59c9a8 | I Could Not Tell | Sharon Olds | I could not tell I had jumped off that bus,
that bus in motion, with my child in my arms,
because I did not know it. I believed my own story:
I had fallen, or the bus had started up
when I had one foot in the air.
I would not remember the tightening of my jaw,
the irk that I’d missed my stop, the step out
into t... | [
"S6"
] | [
"S6-7"
] | [
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood"
] |
273fd7f39bd4d046 | Light chaff and falling leaves or a pair of feathers | Gail Wronsky | on the ground can spook a horse who won’t flinch when faced with a backhoe or a pack of Harleys. I call it “horseophthalmology,” because it is a different kind of system—not celestial, necessarily, but vision in which the small,the wispy, the lightly lifted or stirring threads of existenceexcite more fear than louder a... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
5dde8a6199f15c1d | Mansplaining | Jennifer Militello | Dear sir, your air of authority
leaves me lost. Eases me from
a place of ease. Contracts with
my contradictions to take from me
a place. Autopilots my autobiography.
Frightens my fright. Sighs with
my breath. Wins at my race.
Your certainty has me curtained.
Your nerve has me nervous. Your
childhood has me chi... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
dde6eb8fa42f0546 | Music Box | Jorge Luis Borges | Music of Japan. Parsimoniously
from the water clock the drops unfold
in lazy honey or ethereal gold
that over time reiterates a weave
eternal, fragile, enigmatic, bright.
I fear that every one will be the last.
They are a yesterday come from the past.
But from what shrine, from what mountain’s slight
garden, wh... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
498394c55ed7ecce | “Gymnopédies No. 2” | Adrian Matejka | In nyc, we stalked fishes in filets of sounds: delivery engines & ashy doors clapping shut, vendorsknuckling fin & silhouette- shaped words into salty expectations. My daughter & I walked down a couple of slim-bricked blocks that smelled like snapper ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S3-1",
"S6-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Winter",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b0816cbe13e19b0a | Dinosaurs in the Hood | Danez Smith | Let’s make a movie called Dinosaurs in the Hood.Jurassic Park meets Friday meets The Pursuit of Happyness.
There should be a scene where a little black boy is playing
with a toy dinosaur on the bus, then looks out the window
& sees the T. Rex, because there has to be a T. Rex.
Don’t let Tarantino direct this. In hi... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-8",
"S10-5",
"S10-7",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
ac10b7d40f7f1675 | On Laws | Kahlil Gibran | Then a lawyer said, But what of our Laws,
master?
And he answered:
You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who
build sand-towers with constancy and then
destroy them with laughter.
But while you build your sand-towers the
oc... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [] |
f9cf1c2143623718 | Dear Ra | Johannes Göransson | Dear Ra,
There are no more cigarettes in this letter. It's all about spray-paint and traffic jams from here on out. Honk if you're epileptic, honk if it's 2:40 p.m., if you love shells. Honk in the name of freedom and fear of the human body. When I say "human body" I mean the kind that tears like lettuce. And when I s... | [
"S11"
] | [] | [
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [] |
fd1123c306df813d | Lost Desire | Meleager | Love brought by night a vision to my bed,
One that still wore the vesture of a child
But eighteen years of age – who sweetly smiled
Till of the lovely form false hopes were bred
And keen embraces wild.
Ah! for the lost desire that haunts me yet,
Till mine eyes fail in sleep that finds no more
That fleeting ghos... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-4"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes"
] |
c5d9412f997e65eb | “Birds small enough...” | Donald Revell | Birds small enough to nest in our young cypressAre physicians to usThey burst from the tree exactlyWhere the mind ends and the eye seesAnother world the equal of this oneThough only a small boy naked in the sunGlad day glad day I was bornSparrow hatted old New YorkAnd the physician who brought me Drowned under sail nex... | [
"S2",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-8",
"S6-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Living/Birth & Infancy"
] |
3931b13be2225ae3 | The Mosquito | Rodney Jones | I see the mosquito kneeling on the soft underside of my arm, kneeling
Like a fruitpicker, kneeling like an old woman
With the proboscis of her prayer buried in the idea of God,
And I know we shall not speak with the aliens
And that peace will not happen in my life, not unless
It is in the burnt oil spreading acros... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
2a936902b8695d19 | Mrs. Meyers | Edgar Lee Masters | He protested all his life long
The newspapers lied about him villainously;
That he was not at fault for Minerva's fall,
But only tried to help her.
Poor soul so sunk in sin he could not see
That even trying to help her, as he called it,
He had broken the law human and divine.
Passers by, an ancient admonition to... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S5-2",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
24a59a5bcd757f9b | Two Girls | W. S. Di Piero | Eighteen-sixty eighteen sixty-four, six hundred ten thousand men gaseous gray, blackened body parts like chopped wood in Virginia sunshine. Or nineteen-fourteen nineteen-eighteen, trench rats, thousands, big as badgers, rip chines from horse and human flesh. IED's, cluster bombs, punji sticks, primed to... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
e438960e45e9ad07 | Vertigo | Elena Karina Byrne | After Hieronymus Bosch, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” triptych right panel
But all dark notes are dismantled
there from the middle ear
downward. Voyaged mind, cauldron skin.
Can you claim anything is yours?
The burning salt hour
throws its black broken-glass frame skyward.
Left behind
the mum orchestra, bod... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-2",
"S10-3",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Music",
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
a85f13c1309378b3 | vocabulary I | Robin Blaser | let me get the vocabulary of this song
right—the curious happiness of poetry—
the word materialism dropped by the way
side—its mereness of the other face of
spiritualism—just two notes to sing—
repetitious dualism—do—do—once in a while
one squawks louder than the other, baby
crows being weaned before the next ba... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
6f9f29a278697786 | Song of the Son | Jean Toomer | Pour O pour that parting soul in song,O pour it in the sawdust glow of night,Into the velvet pine-smoke air tonight,And let the valley carry it along.And let the valley carry it along. O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree,So scant of grass, so profligate of pines,Now just before an epoch’s sun declines Thy son,... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S3-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Social Commentaries/Race & Ethnicity"
] |
e7b65dec87885597 | Visitors from Abroad | Louise Glück | 1 Sometime after I had enteredthat time of lifepeople prefer to allude to in othersbut not in themselves, in the middle of the nightthe phone rang. It rang and rangas though the world needed me,though really it was the reverse.I lay in bed, trying to analyzethe ring. It hadmy mother’s persistence and my father’spaine... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-1",
"S6-5",
"S8-3",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Living/Aging",
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
422a974c02d0056a | Neighbors in October | David Baker | All afternoon his tractor pulls a flat wagon with bales to the barn, then back to the waiting chopped field. It trails a feather of smoke. Down the block we bend with the season: shoes to polish for a big game, storm windows to batten or patch. And how like a field is the whole sky now that the maples have shed their l... | [
"S2",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
9d18579da96c9c5e | Wildlife Management III | James Galvin | Without the manifest necessity of a paint-laden brush, the motion
traced by the painter's hand would mimic that moth's fragile
desperation against the glass as it seeks escape into the already
painted sunset.
It drops to the sill periodically the way the painter's
hand would drop to the... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals"
] |
405d5f9c802cd435 | Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note | Amiri Baraka | for Kellie Jones, born 16 May 1959
Lately, I've become accustomed to the wayThe ground opens up and envelopes meEach time I go out to walk the dog.Or the broad edged silly music the windMakes when I run for a bus...Things have come to that.And now, each night I count the stars,And each night I get the same number.And ... | [
"S5",
"S8"
] | [
"S5-8",
"S8-5"
] | [
"Religion",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Relationships/Home Life"
] |
cccc235e10672d6d | A Small Moment | Cornelius Eady | I walk into the bakery next door
To my apartment. They are about
To pull some sort of toast with cheese
From the oven. When I ask: What’s that smell? I am being
A poet, I am asking
What everyone else in the shop
Wanted to ask, but somehow couldn’t;
I am speaking on behalf of two other
Customers who wanted t... | [
"S3",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-1",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
ecceb29f025246a7 | Rain Song | Khaled Mattawa | After Al-Sayyah
The radio blares “Dialogue of Souls,”
and the woman who hated clouds
watches the sky.
Where is the sea now? she asks.
Where is it from here?
What is its name?—
this rain on a morning ride to school,
winter... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-10",
"S6-3",
"S6-7",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Weather",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Living/Parenthood",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
36d1e6e33cf0c175 | Aftermath | Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | When the summer fields are mown, When the birds are fledged and flown, And the dry leaves strew the path; With the falling of the snow, With the cawing of the crow, Once again the fields we mow And gather in the aftermath. Not the sweet, new grass with flowers Is this harvesting of ours; Not the uplan... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
e419fb880f1e6911 | Epilogue | Robert Browning | At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where—by death, fools think, imprisoned—
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
—Pity me?
Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with t... | [
"S1",
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-6",
"S3-11",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
180f7004e7cf872f | Astrophil and Stella 1: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show | Sir Philip Sidney | Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,— Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,— I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe; Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-6",
"S1-9",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
87dc13a68e164b55 | Jerusalem ["And did those feet in ancient time"] | William Blake | And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon Englands mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among these dark Satanic Mills? Bring me my Bow of burning gold: Bring me my ar... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S5-2",
"S5-4",
"S5-8",
"S11-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Mythology & Folklore/Fairy-tales & Legends",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Religion/Christianity",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
572e638d808481e5 | The Grand Miracle | Mary Karr | for John Holohan
Jesus wound up with his body nailed to a tree—
a torment he practically begged for,
or at least did nothing to stop. Pilate
watched the crowd go thumbs down
and weary, signed the order.
So centurions laid Jesus flat
on a long beam, arms run along the crosspiece.
In each palm a long spike was ce... | [
"S5"
] | [] | [
"Religion"
] | [] |
61a6d82821b47896 | Proprietary | Randall Mann | In a precisely lighted room, the CFO speaksof start-to-start dependencies.Says let me loop back with you.Says please cascade as appropriate.It’s that time of morning, so we all can smellthe doughnut factory. If scent were whitenoise, doughnuts would be that scent.The factory won’t sell at any price.The building next t... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S9-4",
"S10-9"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Sciences",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
8c0d8c6bb08f7856 | The Breaking of the Law | Allen Grossman | Strapped to the bed of circumcision lies
My son. This mutilation ties
You to the fathers. They will never let
You forget, or your flesh be enfranchised ever,
Though you pray all your life long.
They set you early on the rack, infect you with a fever
Of remembering. In the marriage bed,
When you are naked, there ... | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-6"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Judaism"
] |
1239c1046f18f39d | Fear of Flying (in Broken Gilbertese) | Teresia Teaiwa | I maaku
You told me ba ko tangirai
I maaku
I maaku
My arms were awkward so ko taua baiu
I maaku
I maaku
The dancer trembles because te ruoia is a kind of sorcery
I maaku
I maaku
The frigate birds fly high above us and I’m afraid of falling
I maaku | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S10-10"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Theater & Dance",
"Nature/Animals"
] |
2983fdc99f45cb41 | Saul Bass Redesigns the First Man | Emilia Phillips | I want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.
To make, you first have to create materials. Re: man, we knowthe rib removed. But, before — ? Forget ash to ash, dust &c. Stick a floating rib (i.e. thoracic11–12, y’know — “Edenic”) in a glass ... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S8",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S5-2",
"S10-1",
"S10-6",
"S11-3"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Architecture & Design",
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Mythology & Folklore/Greek & Roman Mythology",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/Christianity"
] |
e01fd1f036150de5 | Inside Out | Diane Wakoski | I walk the purple carpet into your eye
carrying the silver butter server
but a truck rumbles by,
leaving its black tire prints on my foot
and old images the sound of banging screen doors on hot
afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on
the s... | [
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-4"
] | [
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture"
] |
f70d54dbce8a1165 | First Grade | Ron Koertge | Until then, every forest had wolves in it, we thought it would be fun to wear snowshoes all the time, and we could talk to water. So who is this woman with the gray breath calling out names and pointing to the little desks we will occupy for the rest of our lives? | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S9-6",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Activities/Study & Knowledge"
] |
5076ebd33681f446 | What to Eat, What to Drink, and What to Leave for Poison | Camille T. Dungy | I.
Only now, in spring, can the place be named:
tulip poplar, daffodil, crab apple,
dogwood, budding pink-green, white-green, yellow
on my knowing. All winter I was lost.
Fall, I found myself here, with no texture
my fingers know. Then, worse, the white longing
that downed us deep three months. No flower h... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S1-7",
"S2-1",
"S2-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
a9d157ad40a3d83b | Confessor | Safiya Sinclair | This is where you leave me.Filling of old salt and ponderous,what’s left of your voice in the air.Blue honeycreeper thrashed outto a ragged wind, whole monthsspent crawling this white beachraked like a thumb, shucking, swallowingthe sea’s benediction, pearled oxides.Out here I am the body invented naked,woman emerging ... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
8d9cb0b20cc58bad | The Vain Advice | Catherine Cockburn | Ah, gaze not on those eyes! forbear
That soft enchanting voice to hear:
Not looks of basilisks give surer death,
Nor Syrens sing with more destructive breath.
Fly, if thy freedom thou’dst maintain,
Alas! I feel th’advice is vain!
A heart, whose safety but in flight does lie,
Is too far lost to have the power t... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
a72791f683fb2d3e | Minerva Jones | Edgar Lee Masters | I am Minerva, the village poetess,
Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street
For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk,
And all the more when “Butch” Weldy
Captured me after a brutal hunt.
He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers;
And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up,
Like one stepping... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-4",
"S3-6"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice"
] |
9f43961439799705 | absorbent heart | Roberto Harrison | your values aren’t right
for this age
or memory
color line. globes
of the Sea
survive revelation
as the Moon reflects
its own interior
revolver. I live
as a condemned
callused body
under salt water sand, far from your destructions. where are
the people of the lost (shut out the hate)
arc, in a service (lov... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6",
"S2-9"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Stars, Moons, & Space"
] |
347fe59816ab0483 | The Character of Holland | Andrew Marvell | (excerpt)
Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, As but th’ off-scouring of the British sand; And so much earth as was contributed By English pilots when they heav’d the lead; Or what by th’ ocean’s slow alluvion fell, Of shipwrack’d cockle and the mussel-shell; This indigested vomit of the sea Fell to the Du... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
18af1157ddc81dc1 | Morning Song | Naomi Shihab Nye | For Janna
The tiny journalist
will tell us what she sees.
Document the moves, the dust,
soldiers blocking the road.
Yes, she knows how to take a picture
with her phone. Holds it high
like a balloon. Yes, she would
prefer to dance and play,
would prefer the world
to be pink. It is her job to say
what she sees... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-11",
"S6-8",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict",
"Living/Youth",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
6884af22115d2319 | praise song | Nate Marshall | praise the Hennessy, the brown
shine, the dull burn. praise
the dare, the take it, the no face
you’re supposed to make.
praise the house, its many rooms,
hardwood and butter leather couches;
its richness. praise the rich, their friendship.
praise the friends: the child of the well off,
the child of the well off... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S6-3",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"Living/Coming of Age",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
aab9d4cff0927e6d | the sheep lady from algiers | Patti Smith | nodding tho' the lamps lit low
nodding for passers underground
to and fro she's darning and
the yarn is weeping red and pale
marking the train stops from algiers
sleeping tho' the eyes are pale
hums in rhythum w/a bonnet on
lullaby a broken song
the sifting-cloth is bleeding red
weeping yarn from algiers
lull... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
9beec9b7f55f44c6 | Aphrodite Metropolis (1) | Kenneth Fearing | "Myrtle loves Harry"—It is sometimes hard to remember a thing like that,
Hard to think about it, and no one knows what to do with it when he has it,
So write it out on a billboard that stands under the yellow light of an "L" platform among popcorn wrappers and crushed cigars,
A poster that says "Mama I Love Crispy W... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-1",
"S3-4",
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
c300721ca7443ae9 | The White Room | Charles Simic | The obvious is difficult
To prove. Many prefer
The hidden. I did, too.
I listened to the trees.
They had a secret
Which they were about to
Make known to me,
And then didn’t.
Summer came. Each tree
On my street had its own
Scheherazade. My nights
Were a part of their wild
Storytelling. We were
Entering dark... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
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