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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1cb02a5db5d45976 | What We Believed | Debra Nystrom | Down the prickly cow path to the creek
we journeyed as if we were insects
making our way along scars
in the hide of a buffalo whose fur brushed us
when the wind passed like a tide across the high grasses
down the prickly cow path to the creek
in chigger-shade where thoughts of time
making our way along scars
lo... | [
"S2",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
0f1d404988239bcb | Letter to My Blackout | Maria Hummel | Dear sip, dear shotgun, dear pound:
beneath the house, the kegs roll in;
the party flips its switches down.
When drunk comes, it comes as sound,
a chord, a liftoff. I ride the rim,
dear sip, dear shotgun, dear pound.
He could be anyone, and he abounds.
I slip inside a dance with him.
The party flips its switche... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S9-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Activities/Eating & Drinking"
] |
e3253224f8bfb10e | For No Clear Reason | Robert Creeley | I dreamt last night
the fright was over, that
the dust came, and then water,
and women and men, together
again, and all was quiet
in the dim moon’s light.
A paean of such patience—
laughing, laughing at me,
and the days extend over
the earth’s great cover,
grass, trees, and flower-
ing season, for no clear r... | [
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
9ac8e9654e49aa64 | The Sauchs in the Reuch Heuch Hauch | Hugh MacDiarmid | (For George Reston Malloch)
There’s teuch sauchs growin’ i’ the Reuch Heuch Hauch.
Like the sauls o’ the damned are they,
And ilk ane yoked in a whirligig
Is birlin’ the lee-lang day.
O we come doon frae oor stormiest moods,
And Licht like a bird i’ the haun’,
But the teuch sauchs there i’ the Reuch Heuch Hauch
... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-8",
"S5-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Religion/God & the Divine"
] |
fb47893ffde92f6c | The Pike | Amy Lowell | In the brown water, Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine, Liquid and cool in the shade of the reeds, A pike dozed. Lost among the shadows of stems He lay unnoticed. Suddenly he flicked his tail, And a green-and-copper brightness Ran under the water. Out from under the reeds Came the olive-green light, And orange fl... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-6"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Bodies of Water"
] |
b67727035e238944 | Evening News II | David Ferry | The face looking into the room;
Behind it light, shaking, like heat
Lightning; the face calm and knowing;
Seeing, but not seeing who I am;
The mouth may be telling something.
Something about our helplessness;
Something about the confusions of beasts;
The consequence of error; systems
Haywire, or working; the st... | [
"S3"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
159d93c4ebcce983 | Walking Down Park | Nikki Giovanni | walking down park
amsterdam
or columbus do you ever stop
to think what it looked like
before it was an avenue
did you ever stop to think
what you walked
before you rode
subways to the stock
exchange (we can’t be on
the stock exchange
we are the stock
exchanged)
did you ever maybe wonder
what grass was lik... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-1",
"S3-11"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Cities & Urban Life",
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
1e29989470909232 | A Fifteenth-Century Zen Master | Norman Dubie | for Stephen
A blind girl steps over the red staves
Of a tub. Steam rising from her shoulders and hair,
She walks across a dirt floor to you.
I think you are not her grandfather.
You watch with her a pink man
Who has avoided taxes for two winters—
He is being judged by roosters
And has been chased this far into ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
85ed355986897ada | Nailing Wings to the Dead | Eleanor Hooker | Since we nailwings to the dead,she calls ravensfrom the skyto inspect our work. “For flight,”they say, “first remove their boots.”She leans in,inspects a fresh hex behind my eyes,takes my feetand lays them on the fire,to burn it out, roots first.We’re the last,babička and me.We’ve survived on chance and breadbaked from... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
fc20bcc4961b78dc | Vagabonds | Arthur Rimbaud | Pitiful brother—the dreadful nights I owed him! “I’ve got no real involvement in the business. I toyed with his weakness, so—it was my fault—we wound up back in exile and enslavement.”
He saw me as a loser, a weird child; he added his own prods.
I answered my satanic doctor, jeering, and made it out the window. All d... | [
"S1",
"S8",
"S9",
"S10"
] | [
"S8-4",
"S9-7",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships",
"Activities",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Relationships/Friendship",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
451499beaa8c411f | To You Again | Mary Szybist | Again this morning my eyes woke up too close
to your eyes,
their almost green orbs
too heavy-lidded to really look back.
To wake up next to you
is ordinary. I do not even need to look at you
to see you.
But I do look. So when you come to me
in your opulent sadness, I see
you do not want me
to unbutton you
so... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-9",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Unrequited Love",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
2da4cc5fc9fc4de9 | The Pope Replies to the Ayatollah Khomeini | Ishmael Reed | My Dear Khomeini:
I read your fourteen thousand dollar
ad asking me why the Vatican waited
all of these years to send an envoy
to complain about conditions in Iran
You’re right, we should have sent one
when the Shah was in power, look,
I’m in total agreement with you
Khomeini, that Christ, had he lived in
Iran... | [
"S3",
"S5",
"S10"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [] |
6cc220da19224c1f | Constancy to an Ideal Object | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Since all that beat about in Nature's range, Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain The only constant in a world of change, O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain? Call to the Hours, that in the distance play, The faery people of the future day— Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm Will breat... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-4",
"S2-7",
"S2-10",
"S10-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
950fbd094f5f0d32 | Autobiography | Kazim Ali | we didn’t really speak
my summer wants to answer
the architecture doesn’t matter
this is not my real life
when I am here I want to know
why do I believe what I was taught
a storm is on the way
close all the windows
begin at the earliest hour
is there a self | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
0273d06c21bc1533 | The Great Blue Heron | Carolyn Kizer | M.A.K. September, 1880-September, 1955
As I wandered on the beach
I saw the heron standing
Sunk in the tattered wings
He wore as a hunchback’s coat.
Shadow without a shadow,
Hung on invisible wires
From the top of a canvas day,
What scissors cut him out?
Superimposed on a poster
Of summer by the strand
Of a ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S6-4",
"S8-3",
"S10-5"
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"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy",
"Nature/Animals",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
40ba0034f5a25c91 | Around Unmun Temple at Ch'Eongdo | Ko Un | All day long I've been hidden, enmeshed, locked in
the shadow of the holy mountain,
my body covered with shame.
I'd hoped there would be a dog
barking furiously.
Unable to go forward,
unable to go back,
at least with the sound of a dog barking
I'd attain something . . . something.
Instead of a dog barking ther... | [
"S2",
"S5"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Religion"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
4b8157892e3ca377 | Hunting, Hazards, and Holiness | Henry Carlile | Now they to their slogged forthwendings tend,
four hunters, guns askew like four unruly hairs,
to start the rabbit or pheasant from hiding.
But these cocks, wily, lie close and spy from
covert or culvert the passing grim party
and the rabbit keeps Viet-Cong-like to its digs.
Here is no hunting horn and gargle of ... | [
"S6",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S6-7",
"S8-3",
"S8-8",
"S9-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Living/Parenthood",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals",
"Activities/Sports & Outdoor Activities"
] |
2425404f63c28055 | Sonnet 19: Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws | William Shakespeare | Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading... | [
"S1",
"S6",
"S7",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-6",
"S1-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated",
"Love/Romantic Love"
] |
bf4c9379856dfce9 | Animalistic Hymn | Edith Södergran | The red sun rises
without intent
and shines the same on all of us.
We play like children under the sun.
One day, our ashes will scatter—
it doesn’t matter when.
Now the sun finds our innermost hearts,
fills us with oblivion
in... | [
"S6",
"S7"
] | [] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [] |
8fe1eca5fbdd0a8d | Written with a Pencil Found in Lorine Niedecker’s Front Yard | David Trinidad | Bewitched
the boys were out
in force
Drunken-
ness and lust
—and full moon
bouncing back
and forth that
black
above the bars
*
Last night
it burned
cigarette
tip
thru old
blanket
hole-punched
gray paper
sky
Tonight it
outright
... | [
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
c8c87b62a94925ea | Meditation Denying Everything | Katie Peterson | Because it is a pearly eveningI am sitting in the window readinga book I have read before.Branches emphasizetheir heft and sway over their shadows.Some kind of extra firmament,an ear over the earth's ear,extra, as language is to prayer.Narratives of elsewhere: in the eyeinside my eye that vision makes when you tell it ... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S2-8",
"S10-8"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Arts & Sciences/Reading & Books",
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
a11b9cc53984b7bc | Dark View | Heather McHugh | The sun that puts its spokes in every Wheel of manhandle and tree Derives its path of seashines (Sheer centrifugality) from my Regards. I send it My regards. Some yards Of lumen from the fabrika Have come unbolted from the look Of it (or likes of me), a long Unweaving or recarding I Cannot recall begun, and there Befor... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-8"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi"
] |
728e1f6948ba89b5 | Cold Valley | Cedar Sigo | The fog
shades
a smooth
stone bust
then slips
into rain
my mind is
well suited
onyx
shining edges
the reflection
itself
*
Traces of
mist
on an old
window
*
The best part
is grinding
the ink down
endlessly, filling
my brush
grey morning
I first feel
the mind
as reflex
*
Bright and clear
The ... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S2-10",
"S10-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Painting & Sculpture",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
b1e2422e660c27ee | Never Love Unless | Thomas Campion | Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man:
Men sometimes will jealous be
Though but little cause they see;
And hang the head, as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.
Men that but one saint adore
Make a show of love to more.
Beauty must be scorned in none,
Though but truly served in one:... | [
"S1"
] | [
"S1-6"
] | [
"Love"
] | [
"Love/Realistic & Complicated"
] |
f8d0e737bcdaf42d | Lines Written in Early Spring | William Wordsworth | I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower,... | [
"S2",
"S3"
] | [
"S2-1"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries"
] | [
"Nature/Spring"
] |
6ebadfc36b7f8881 | Poem | Ron Padgett | I’m in the house.It’s nice out: warmsun on cold snow.First day of springor last of winter.My legs run downthe stairs and outthe door, my tophalf here typing | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-4",
"S10-6"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets",
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Winter"
] |
645ef61d28795d55 | The giver (for Berdis) | James Baldwin | If the hope of giving
is to love the living,
the giver risks madness
in the act of giving.
Some such lesson I seemed to see
in the faces that surrounded me.
Needy and blind, unhopeful, unlifted,
what gift would give them the gift to be gifted?
The giver is no less adrift
than those who are ... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-2",
"S4-1",
"S8-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Class & Labor",
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Relationships/Friendship"
] |
465bd2f5d138dc04 | The Youngest Two Hear Cicadas | Farnoosh Fathi | Tennessee: We are here, between trees, with the tempo of a rosary being strungin a queue of escalating beads—Carolina: It’s not quite the count inthe countinghouse of my chestbut the heart does make an awful attemptt: and a circle wherever it may be there was music coming onc: which though machinery-like moves not in c... | [
"S2",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Music"
] |
a4c5a8bbba11afc0 | The Thrush | Edward Thomas | When Winter's ahead, What can you read in November That you read in April When Winter's dead? I hear the thrush, and I see Him alone at the end of the lane Near the bare poplar's tip, Singing continuously. Is it more that you know Than that, even as in April, So in November, Winter is gone that must go? Or is all... | [
"S2"
] | [
"S2-1",
"S2-2",
"S2-3",
"S2-4",
"S2-5",
"S2-7",
"S2-10"
] | [
"Nature"
] | [
"Nature/Spring",
"Nature/Weather",
"Nature/Summer",
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Winter",
"Nature/Animals",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
1b9efbc05da96738 | Glossary of Selected Terms | Jonterri Gadson | What is skin,
if not a taut swaddle
loosening, body
if not a warm swaddle
cooling, blood
if not thread
in a swaddle
made of body, horizons
if not lines
where sky swaddles
Earth. See father.Stars, if not swaddled
matter emitting light. See spirit.Wind, if it does not trace
paths around bodies. See blood.Univ... | [
"S5",
"S6"
] | [
"S5-8"
] | [
"Religion",
"Living"
] | [
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
0ee3a5e212334e69 | North of Boston | Maggie Dietz | Hoarfrost coats and cuffs
the playing fields, a heyday
of glistening. So there’s hope
in my throat as I walk across them
to the woods with my chest
flung open, spilling its coins.
The light so bright I can hear it,
a silver tone like a penny whistle.
It’s fall, so I’m craving pine cones.
Hundreds of maples the... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S7"
] | [
"S2-3",
"S2-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity"
] | [
"Nature/Fall",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals"
] |
688c56c47f550960 | The Circuit Judge | Edgar Lee Masters | Take note, passers-by, of the sharp erosions Eaten in my head-stone by the wind and rain i Almost as if an intangible Nemesis or hatred Were marking scores against me, But to destroy, and not preserve, my memory. I in life was the Circuit Judge, a maker of notches, Deciding cases on the points the lawyers scored, Not o... | [
"S3",
"S6"
] | [
"S3-6",
"S6-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Incarceration & Justice",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
428d6407db2b3d49 | J. Learns the Difference Between Poverty and Having No Money | Jeffrey Schultz | After Ernesto Trejo
And the morning’s marine layer cloud cover’s just beginning to unhinge, to let the buttery light of another daybreak slip through And weigh down the dead lawns and sagging rooftops of this neighborhood, where Cold War era television antennas Still cast shadows like B-52s heading offshore... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
ada4d3537a480978 | Talking Back to the Mad World | Sarah C. Harwell | I will not tend. Or water,
pull, or yank,
I will not till, uproot,
fill up or spray.
The rain comes.
Or not. Plants: sun-fed,
moon-hopped, dirt-stuck.
Watch as flocks
of wild phlox
appear, disappear. My lazy,
garbagey magic
makes this nothing
happen.
I love
the tattered
camisole of
nothing. The world
r... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-8",
"S9-2"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Plants & Fungi",
"Activities/Gardening & Farming"
] |
b0b958a4f5feefc5 | Edge | Sylvia Plath | The woman is perfected.
Her dead
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded... | [
"S6",
"S11"
] | [
"S6-4"
] | [
"Living",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6aff9e0a5f3e8128 | A Letter | Louise Bogan | I came here, being stricken, stumbling out
At last from streets; the sun, decreasing, took me
For days, the time being the last of autumn,
The thickets not yet stark, but quivering
With tiny colors, like some brush strokes in
The manner of the pointillists; small yellows
Dart shaped, little reds in different patt... | [
"S2",
"S6"
] | [
"S6-5"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living"
] | [
"Living/Mourning"
] |
817d4821f5e0598b | A Small Motor | Alberto Ríos | The easiest sadness is a boy
Watching another boy
Walk with a barefooted girl, clean
Perfect feet, that kind of nose,
Eyes like those he’s dreamed
In the dream that comes back.
A boy watching another boy lucky
Gets an ache
That is a small motor.
In me there is an animal,
And in that animal
There is a hunger.... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
73fe1a92835c92ec | Landscape with Horse Named Popcorn | Mark Irwin | The hummingbird hovers over bougainvillea, darting in and out of blossoms as the bride throws her corset among laughter and waving hands. Seeing you, glass in hand, sunlight piercing the punch bowl’s crystal, I remember the horse, an Appaloosa, the white and gray markings like clouds, cumulus, one later on ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
d8073a08ba7626c0 | The Night Where You No Longer Live | Meghan O'Rourke | Was it like lifting a veilAnd was the grass treacherous, the green grassDid you think of your own motherWas it like a virusDid the software flickerAnd was this the beginningWas it like thatWas there gas station food and was it a long trip And is there sun thereor drones or punishment or growth Was it a blackoutAnd did ... | [
"S1",
"S5",
"S6",
"S7",
"S9"
] | [
"S1-1",
"S5-8",
"S6-4",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Activities"
] | [
"Love/Desire & Erotic Love",
"Religion/The Spiritual",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
0e0bf48bedf81c45 | He Has an Oral Fixation | Natalie Scenters-Zapico | He can’t stop putting the dead
flowers, the deadhead nails, the deadweight
sacks of flour in his mouth. He can’t
stop writing about the mouth. The way
he woke up to his mouth full of bees,
their dead crunch still stinging
his gums. He writes: There’s something
beautiful in the way a mouth can be broken
by saliv... | [
"S3",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S3-4"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality"
] |
2caa0580cb962bf1 | The Culmination | John Lee Clark | An erasure of Laura Redden Searing’s “My Story”
Generous instinct, were you
My hand I must
Think. The later brain.
My hands craving every
Learned heart. Nature, art,
World. In my memories
I thought of trust
Then all fear. I
Fell on my pain.
Hope shall in loss
Throb. My, my, my
Stand for the release.
A nat... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [] |
0bbaf27733f074c6 | The Choice | Nate Klug | To stand for onceoutside my faithto steady itcaught and squirming on a stickup to mind’s inviting lightand name it!for all its faults and facetsor keep waitingto be claimed in it | [
"S5"
] | [
"S5-3"
] | [
"Religion"
] | [
"Religion/Faith & Doubt"
] |
9c16b71f1e61871b | I Walked in the House | Catherine Wagner | I walked in the house
on the flat aspect of the wood
I took rectangular instruction of the wood
when I walked I turned at the wall
and on the flat I moved steadily
unimpeded, not tumbling, climbing or short of breath.
I walked in ease on the flat.
Som... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S4-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics"
] |
917ddaa40118de76 | The Panther | Edwin Markham | The moon shears up on Tahoe now:
A panther leaps to a tamarack bough.
She crouches, hugging the crooked limb:
She hears the nearing steps of him
Who sent the little puff of smoke
That stretched her mate beneath the oak.
Her eyes burn beryl, two yellow balls,
As Fate counts out his last footfalls.
A sudden sprin... | [
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-8"
] | [
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Pets & Domestic Animals"
] |
a5b78d03676e0703 | Autobiography 2 (hellogoodby) | Michael Palmer | The Book of Company which
I put down and can’t pick up
The Trans-Siberian disappearing, the Blue Train and the Shadow Train Her body with ridges like my skull Two children are running through the Lion Cemetery Five travelers are crossing the Lion Bridge A philosopher in a doorway insists that there are no im... | [
"S6",
"S7",
"S8",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-5"
] | [
"Living",
"Time & Brevity",
"Relationships",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Philosophy"
] |
e4067b371fb150e4 | A Well-Traveled Coyote | Nora Naranjo-Morse | John F. Kennedy
New York City
I saw him across the lobby
flight 161
St. Louis
Albuquerque.
Coyote looked in control
cool
fitting right into the city
smiling when a pretty woman passed him
... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S11"
] | [
"S3-7"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/Popular Culture"
] |
e81a3e1c46beb1d5 | Mediastinum | Natalie Eilbert | I thought very hard and thought of nothing.
—Jesse Ball, Census
In one segment of the landscape, a hyena drags her clitoris
across the plains, a dust perfuming up. Cicadas pulse the segment,
a femur filled with rain. It is a lush grassland within which
the greens have sprouted through the exposed joints of animals... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S5",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S2-5",
"S3-4",
"S5-4",
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Religion",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Nature/Animals",
"Social Commentaries/Gender & Sexuality",
"Religion/God & the Divine",
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
7acc446fb27e476c | Grandfather | Andrei Guruianu | Dead before I came into this world, grandfather, I carry your name, yet I've never met you. I hear my name, and know that somehow they refer to you. When I scribble those six letters fast, to sign some document or print them neatly in a box, I feel your presence flow with the ink stain and burn through the paper, forev... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Death & Dying",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
8acb3ce3fe59de82 | The Passionate Shepherd to His Love | Christopher Marlowe | Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals. And I will make thee beds of Roses An... | [
"S1",
"S2",
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-4",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S2-7",
"S8-7"
] | [
"Love",
"Nature",
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Infatuation & Crushes",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Marriage & Companionship"
] |
f73d493160bc23a9 | [Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way] | Juan Felipe Herrera | Let us gather in a flourishing way
with sunluz grains abriendo los cantos
que cargamos cada día
en el young pasto nuestro cuerpo
para regalar y dar feliz perlas pearls
of corn flowing árboles de vida en las cuatro esquinas
let us gather in a flourishing way
contentos llenos de fuerza to vida
giving nacimientos ... | [
"S2",
"S3",
"S8",
"S9"
] | [
"S2-7",
"S8-3",
"S9-4"
] | [
"Nature",
"Social Commentaries",
"Relationships",
"Activities"
] | [
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors",
"Activities/Jobs & Working"
] |
7d82a07a91855d60 | What Is Sacred | Lee Herrick | I have no idea what priests
dream of on Christmas Eve, what prayer
a crippled dog might whine before the shotgun.
I have no more sense of what is sacred
than a monk might have, sweeping the temple
floor, slow gestures of honor to the left,
the right. Maybe the leaf of grass tells us
what is worthwhile. Maybe it ... | [
"S5",
"S10"
] | [
"S5-3",
"S5-8",
"S10-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Photography & Film",
"Religion/Faith & Doubt",
"Religion/The Spiritual"
] |
b58e6d54a77379d2 | Magic | Louis Untermeyer | We passed old farmer Boothby in the field.
Rugged and straight he stood; his body steeled
With stubbornness and age. We met his eyes
That never flinched or turned to compromise,
And “Luck,” he cried, “good luck!”—and waved an arm,
Knotted and sailor-like, such as no farm
In all of Maine could boast of; and away
... | [
"S2",
"S9",
"S11"
] | [
"S2-6",
"S2-7",
"S9-7"
] | [
"Nature",
"Activities",
"Mythology & Folklore"
] | [
"Nature/Bodies of Water",
"Nature/Landscapes & Pastorals",
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
b939cb49bf38602d | Holland’s Nadir | Les Murray | Men around a submarinemoored in Sydney Harbourclose to the end of wartimeshowed us below, down into their oily, mesh-lit gangwayof bunks atop machines.In from the country, weweren’t to know our shillingsbought them cigars and threadfor what remained of Holland’s Glory:uniforms, odd, rescued aircraft,and a clutch of und... | [
"S3",
"S4"
] | [
"S3-11"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics"
] | [
"Social Commentaries/War & Conflict"
] |
2a8cf36e82b38d65 | Present Tense IV | Anna Rabinowitz | We Had Stalked the Doe
Commerce. Production. Consumption. Who makes? Who takes?
It's useless to give up cashmere shawls, gold armatures, SUVs, furs
and silks to achieve cross-cultural pollination or transcendence.
Since we've ceased to celebrate works-in-progress or cutting-edge sound bites, we photo commodities to... | [
"S3",
"S4",
"S6"
] | [
"S4-1",
"S6-1"
] | [
"Social Commentaries",
"History & Politics",
"Living"
] | [
"History & Politics/Money & Economics",
"Living/Aging"
] |
6f51d48f2ee1170f | The Last Skin | Barbara Ras | Has anyone described the smell of wishbones drying
on the kitchen sill or the smell of glass, or the bucket of water
lifted from the well we go to when death takes the last thirst
from someone we love?
After my mother died, sometimes
I'd take the one piece of her clothing I'd kept
to bed and bury my face
in her ... | [
"S6",
"S8"
] | [
"S6-5",
"S8-3"
] | [
"Living",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Living/Mourning",
"Relationships/Family & Ancestors"
] |
d62e68319a998e9f | Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring | William Shakespeare | From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue,
Could make me any summer’s story tell,
Or fr... | [
"S1",
"S8"
] | [
"S1-3",
"S1-7",
"S1-8",
"S8-1"
] | [
"Love",
"Relationships"
] | [
"Love/Heartache & Loss",
"Love/Romantic Love",
"Love/Classic Love",
"Relationships/Breakups & Separation"
] |
de1e7ea829d3e27a | Darkness of the Subjunctive | Paul Hoover | If it hadn’t rained, we would’ve gone to the beach.
— Phuc Tran
If we were in infinity, we would be everywhere,
even inside ourselves, as taste resides in the walnut,
and the walnut resides in the shell.
Then we would thrive inside the subjunctive,
where nothing happens but dreams of being,
as paradise dreams of... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S6-4",
"S10-2"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Language & Linguistics",
"Living/Death & Dying"
] |
6017c78a4b3daa69 | Mistakes | Rae Armantrout | 1 The subject will claimthat she has been takento the wrong place.That the roomshe is brought back tois not the room she left.That these comings and goingsare happeningto someone else,are gathering momentumcontrolled by a secretmechanism.That she needs to tellsomeone. 2 I walk out the doorto the stone be... | [
"S6",
"S10"
] | [
"S10-6"
] | [
"Living",
"Arts & Sciences"
] | [
"Arts & Sciences/Poetry & Poets"
] |
91a8ca6a077dada5 | The Pilgrim | Sophie Jewett | "Such a palmer ne'er was seene, Lesse Love himselfe had palmer beene." Never too late.
Pilgrim feet, pray whither bound? Pilgrim eyes, pray whither bent? Sandal-shod and travel-gowned, Lo, I seek the way they went Late who passed toward Holy Land. Pilgrim, it was long ago; None remains who saw that band; Grass and... | [
"S5",
"S9"
] | [
"S9-7"
] | [
"Religion",
"Activities"
] | [
"Activities/Travels & Journeys"
] |
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