json_poems.json

{
  "01": "Somewhere or Other\n\nChristina Rossetti (1830-1894)\n\nSomewhere or other there must surely be\nThe face not seen, the voice not heard,\nThe heart that not yet\u2014never yet\u2014ah me!\nMade answer to my word.\n\nSomewhere or other, may be near or far;\nPast land and sea, clean out of sight;\nBeyond the wandering moon, beyond the star\nThat tracks her night by night.\n\nSomewhere or other, may be far or near;\nWith just a wall, a hedge, between;\nWith just the last leaves of the dying year\nFallen on a turf grown green.\n",
  "02": "Quatrains\n\nGwendolyn Bennett (1902-1981)\n\n1\nBrushes and paints are all I have\nTo speak the music in my soul\u2014\nWhile silently there laughs at me\nA copper jar beside a pale green bowl.\n\n2\nHow strange that grass should sing\u2014\nGrass is so still a thing ...\nAnd strange the swift surprise of snow\nSo soft it falls and slow.\n",
  "03": "manh\u00e3\n\nMarc-Anthony Valle '22\n\nBy the time I wake, the sun is already on its third cup of black coffee.\nMy nose dry as farofa.\nI slept under the air conditioner.\nMy vov\u00f3 is asleep still.\nMoving her is labor we all shoulder happily.\nMy oh my oh my how she could love.\nHer skin soft palm leaves sunbathing on their back.\nI felt my bruises decolor and scratches cauterize when she embraced me.\nI wrap her palms around my blistered back.\nMy vov\u00f4 is reading now. As he always did.\nWall of leather-bound books behind him, well-worn and colored, as his own binding.\nI long to carry him home with me, toting household gods whose names I can\u2019t decipher.\nTake him to where the sun is blocked by evergreens.\nCarry my grandfather like Anchises.\n",
  "04": "The Gardener 85\n\nRabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)\n\nWho are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?\nI cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.\nOpen your doors and look abroad.\n\nFrom your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the vanished flowers of an hundred years before.\nIn the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred years.\n",
  "05": "Spring\n\nEdna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)\n\nTo what purpose, April, do you return again?\nBeauty is not enough.\nYou can no longer quiet me with the redness\nOf little leaves opening stickily.\nI know what I know.\nThe sun is hot on my neck as I observe\nThe spikes of the crocus.\nThe smell of the earth is good.\nIt is apparent that there is no death.\nBut what does that signify?\nNot only under ground are the brains of men\nEaten by maggots.\nLife in itself\nIs nothing,\nAn empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.\nIt is not enough that yearly, down this hill,\nApril\nComes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.\n",
  "06": "Sunflowers\n\nKeeley Jo Alexander '21\n\nLook at the Sunflowers\nStaring out with pride,\nAnd their beauty it shines\nLike a beacon of light\nWhen the wind\nblows around them\nThey sway to the song\nTall and high and mighty\nThey are flowers,\nBut they\u2019re strong.\n\nWhisper to the Lavender\nAnd she\u2019ll sing you a tune\nShe\u2019s as quiet as a butterfly\nAs vibrant as the moon\nWhen the wind\nblows around her\nFeel laughter through the rain\nShe will bring you a smile\nEven when you\u2019re in pain.\n\nYou should know\nYou\u2019re one in a million\nNo flowers to compare to\nAnd summer sunshine\nisn\u2019t as brilliant\nWinters don\u2019t even dare to\nTry and freeze up your spirit\nBut they couldn\u2019t if they tried\nDon\u2019t you ever let anybody\nDampen out your light.\n",
  "07": "On A Quiet Night\n\nLi Po (701-762)\n\nI saw the moonlight before my couch.\nAnd wondered if it were not the frost on the ground.\nI raised my head and looked out on the mountain moon;\nI bowed my head and thought of my far-off home.\n",
  "08": "The Brain\n\nEmily Dickinson (1830-1886)\n\nThe brain is wider than the sky,\n   For, put them side by side,\nThe one the other will include\n   With ease, and you beside.\n\nThe brain is deeper than the sea,\n   For, hold them, blue to blue,\nThe one the other will absorb,\n   As sponges, buckets do.\n\nThe brain is just the weight of God,\n   For, lift them, pound for pound,\nAnd they will differ, if they do,\n   As syllable from sound.\n",
  "09": "I Know My Soul\n\nClaude McKay (1889-1948)\n\nI plucked my soul out of its secret place,\nAnd held it to the mirror of my eye,\nTo see it like a star against the sky,\nA twitching body quivering in space,\nA spark of passion shining on my face.\nAnd I explored it to determine why\nThis awful key to my infinity\nConspires to rob me of sweet joy and grace.\nAnd if the sign may not be fully read,\nIf I can comprehend but not control,\nI need not gloom my days with futile dread,\nBecause I see a part and not the whole.\nContemplating the strange, I\u2019m comforted\nBy this narcotic thought: I know my soul.\n",
  "10": "late june\n\nLuke Rotello '22\n\nbeloved me and the cornerstones of my skin,\ncoated in wild sumac,\ntearing up the asphalt\nand the telephone wire draped over lilac aroma.\n\nand you pulled the dendrites from the clover flowers,\nyou dragged the ambrosia through your teeth\nhoping for the return of nectar\nand magenta to coat your lips.\nyou were the six closest depths and their ghosts,\nthe indica flowers that grew in their farthest reaches,\nmy symbiosis and guilt.\n\ni don't honestly know who this is for.\nmaybe this is the 100 feet of rock at bishop's creek and her branches,\nor the cobwebs under the bridge turned hazel with ivy.\nmaybe this is levi, eric and the most i ever loved myself.\nor maybe this is healing as i wrap myself in the empty roads to stockbridge,\nwhisking past the sumac,\nthe clover, the rhododendron,\nthe heavy of the sunset and her haze.\nbecause i am made of nothing more than hope, i will choose to believe them all,\nand trust they will do the same for me.\n",
  "11": "Sympathy\n\nPaul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)\n\nI know what the caged bird feels, alas!\n   When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;\nWhen the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,\nAnd the river flows like a stream of glass;\n   When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,\nAnd the faint perfume from its chalice steals\u2014\nI know what the caged bird feels!\n\nI know why the caged bird beats its wing\n   Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;\nFor he must fly back to his perch and cling\nWhen he fain would be on the bough a-swing;\n   And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars\nAnd they pulse again with a keener sting\u2014\nI know why he beats his wing!\n\nI know why the caged bird sings, ah me,\n   When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,\u2014\nWhen he beats his bars and he would be free;\nIt is not a carol of joy or glee,\n   But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,\nBut a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings\u2014\nI know why the caged bird sings!\n",
  "12": "Evening Song\n\nWilla Cather (1873-1947)\n\nDear love, what thing of all the things that be\nIs ever worth one thought from you or me,\n   Save only Love,\n   Save only Love?\n\nThe days so short, the nights so quick to flee,\nThe world so wide, so deep and dark the sea,\n   So dark the sea;\n\nSo far the suns and every listless star,\nBeyond their light\u2014Ah! dear, who knows how far,\n   Who knows how far?\n\nOne thing of all dim things I know is true,\nThe heart within me knows, and tells it you,\n   And tells it you.\n\nSo blind is life, so long at last is sleep,\nAnd none but Love to bid us laugh or weep,\n   And none but Love,\n   And none but Love.\n",
  "13": "the thing is\n\nHaley Wildhirt '22\n\nyou\u2019re sitting right here\nless than five feet away\n(maybe less than three i\u2019ve\nnever been good with distance)\nand i can feel a small bubble\nsandwiched between my vocal\nchord and my trachea just\npleading to be popped\n\nand then a rock falls from\nthe cliff of my tongue and\nhits the pit of my stomach\nwith a massive whomp and\ni decide no, maybe it\u2019s better\nif we leave the bubble un-\npopped and just let it\nslowly deflate with time\n\nbut the thing is, the thing\nis that i\u2019ve already slipped an\ni love you into your book bag\nand i\u2019m praying to all the gods\nthat have ever been created\nthat you do not draw it out\nas you ruffle between papers and\nnotebooks and forgotten\nprojects and inkless pens because\nthe thing is\nthe thing is\n\nwords exist so much easier\nin a blank room and i don\u2019t\nfeel the need to smother them into\nunconsciousness, they don\u2019t\nstruggle to breathe beneath the\nnearly four hundred pounds of\nyou being right here\nright here\nless than five feet away\n(or is it three?) i\u2019ve never\nbeen good with distance\n",
  "14": "The Night is Darkening round Me\n\nEmily Bronte (1818-1840)\n\nThe night is darkening round me,\nThe wild winds coldly blow ;\nBut a tyrant spell has bound me,\nAnd I cannot, cannot go.\n\nThe giant trees are bending\nTheir bare boughs weighed with snow ;\nThe storm is fast descending,\nAnd yet I cannot go.\n\nClouds beyond clouds above me,\nWastes beyond wastes below ;\nBut nothing drear can move me :\nI will not, cannot go.\n",
  "15": "from The Waste Land\n\nT. S. Eliot (1888-1965)\n\nThe river sweats\nOil and tar\nThe barges drift\nWith the turning tide\nRed sails\nWide\nTo leeward, swing on the heavy spar.\nThe barges wash\nDrifting logs\nDown Greenwich reach\nPast the Isle of Dogs.\n   Weialala leia\n   Wallala leialala\n\nElizabeth and Leicester\nBeating oars\nThe stern was formed\nA gilded shell\nRed and gold\nThe brisk swell\nRippled both shores\nSouthwest wind\nCarried down stream\nThe peal of bells\nWhite towers\n   Weialala leia\n   Wallala leialala\n",
  "16": "On Monsieur's Departure\n\nQueen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)\n\nI grieve and dare not show my discontent,\nI love and yet am forced to seem to hate,\nI do, yet dare not say I ever meant,\nI seem stark mute but inwardly do prate.\nI am and not, I freeze and yet am burned,\nSince from myself another self I turned.\n\nMy care is like my shadow in the sun,\nFollows me flying, flies when I pursue it,\nStands and lies by me, doth what I have done.\nHis too familiar care doth make me rue it.\nNo means I find to rid him from my breast,\nTill by the end of things it be supprest.\n\nSome gentler passion slide into my mind,\nFor I am soft and made of melting snow;\nOr be more cruel, love, and so be kind.\nLet me or float or sink, be high or low.\nOr let me live with some more sweet content,\nOr die and so forget what love ere meant.\n",
  "17": "Little Red Wagon\n\nOlivia Allen '23\n\nLittle red wagon I'm a kid I'm a teen\nLittle red wagon all the things that I've seen\n\nLittle red house I am young I still play\nLittle red house slowly fading away\n\nLittle red hands making stains on the floor\nLittle red hands not so little no more\n\nLittle red heart beating quick in my chest\nLittle red heart will go still like the rest\n\nLittle red wagon you appeared with a shine\nLittle red wagon you are no longer mine\n",
  "18": "Of the Surface of Things\n\nWallace Stevens (1879-1955)\n\nI\n\nIn my room, the world is beyond my understanding;\nBut when I walk I see that it consists of three or four\n   hills and a cloud.\n\nII\n\nFrom my balcony, I survey the yellow air,\nReading where I have written,\n\"The spring is like a belle undressing.\"\n\nIII\n\nThe gold tree is blue,\nThe singer has pulled his cloak over his head.\nThe moon is in the folds of the cloak.\n",
  "19": "Sonnets from the Portuguese 1: I Thought how Theocritus\n\nElizabeth Barrett (1806-1861)\n\nI thought once how Theocritus had sung\nOf the sweet years, the dear and wished for years,\nWho each one in a gracious hand appears\nTo bear a gift for mortals, old or young:\nAnd, as I mused it in his antique tongue,\nI saw, in gradual vision through my tears,\nThe sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,\nThose of my own life, who by turns had flung\nA shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,\nSo weeping, how a mystic Shape did move\nBehind me, and drew me backward by the hair,\nAnd a voice said in mastery, while I strove, ...\n'Guess now who holds thee?'\u2014'Death,' I said. But there,\nThe silver answer rang ... 'Not Death, but Love.'\n",
  "20": "Sonnet VII [O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell]\n\nJohn Keats (1795-1821)\n\nO Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,\nLet it not be among the jumbled heap\nOf murky buildings; climb with me the steep,\u2014\nNature\u2019s observatory\u2014whence the dell,\nIts flowery slopes, its river\u2019s crystal swell,\nMay seem a span; let me thy vigils keep\n\u2019Mongst boughs pavillion\u2019d, where the deer\u2019s swift leap\nStartles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.\nBut though I\u2019ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,\nYet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,\nWhose words are images of thoughts refin\u2019d,\nIs my soul\u2019s pleasure; and it sure must be\nAlmost the highest bliss of human-kind,\nWhen to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.\n",
  "21": "Voices of the Air\n\nKatherine Mansfield (1888-1923)\n\nBut then there comes that moment rare\nWhen, for no cause that I can find,\nThe little voices of the air\nSound above all the sea and wind.\nThe sea and wind do then obey\nAnd sighing, sighing double notes\nOf double basses, content to play\nA droning chord for the little throats \u2014\nThe little throats that sing and rise\nUp into the light with lovely ease\nAnd a kind of magical, sweet surprise\nTo hear and know themselves for these \u2014\nFor these little voices: the bee, the fly,\nThe leaf that taps, the pod that breaks,\nThe breeze on the grass-tops bending by,\nThe shrill quick sound that the insect makes.\n",
  "22": "My life has been the poem I would have writ\n\nHenry David Thoreau (1817-1862)\n\nMy life has been the poem I would have writ\nBut I could not both live and utter it.\n",
  "23": "Sonnet 98\n\nWilliam Shakespeare (1564-1616)\n\nFrom you have I been absent in the spring,\nWhen proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,\nHath put a spirit of youth in everything,\nThat heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him.\nYet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell\nOf different flowers in odour and in hue,\nCould make me any summer\u2019s story tell,\nOr from their proud lap pluck them where they grew:\nNor did I wonder at the lily\u2019s white,\nNor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;\nThey were but sweet, but figures of delight\nDrawn after you, \u2014 you pattern of all those.\n   Yet seem\u2019d it winter still, and, you away,\n   As with your shadow I with these did play.\n\nHappy birthday, Shakespeare!",
  "24": "It happened\n\nAlex Faith '21\n\nDrunk on a plane in a pandemic\n\nDoesn\u2019t seem like something could happen\n\nBut with germs in the air\n\nAnd spiders in hair\n\nIt all appears mundane somethings.\n\nTake the books off the shelf and burn them\n\nKnowledge killed dead by survival\n\nIn a couple years we\u2019ll look back\n\nSmile and laugh\n\nWe spread fear quicker than any virus\n\nBut breathe now\n\nAnd\n\nWash\n\nYour\n\nHands\n",
  "25": "Queen-Anne's-Lace\n\nWilliam Carlos Williams (1883-1963)\n\nHer body is not so white as\nanemone petals nor so smooth\u2014nor\nso remote a thing. It is a field\nof the wild carrot taking\nthe field by force; the grass\ndoes not raise above it.\nHere is no question of whiteness,\nwhite as can be, with a purple mole\nat the center of each flower.\nEach flower is a hand's span\nof her whiteness. Wherever\nhis hand has lain there is\na tiny purple blemish. Each part\nis a blossom under his touch\nto which the fibres of her being\nstem one by one, each to its end,\nuntil the whole field is a\nwhite desire, empty, a single stem,\na cluster, flower by flower,\na pious wish to whiteness gone over\u2014\nor nothing.\n",
  "26": "Diligence Is to Magic as Progress Is to Flight\n\nMarianne Moore (1887-1972)\n\nWith an elephant to ride upon\u2014\"with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,\"\n   she shall outdistance calamity anywhere she goes.\nSpeed is not in her mind inseparable from carpets. Locomotion arose\n   in the shape of an elephant; she clambered up and chose\nto travel laboriously. So far as magic carpets are concerned, she knows\n   that although the semblance of speed may attach to scarecrows\nof aesthetic procedure, the substance of it is embodied in such of those\n   tough-grained animals as have outstripped man\u2019s whim to suppose\nthem ephemera, and I have earned that fruit of their ability to endure blows\n   which dubs them prosaic necessities\u2014not curios.\n",
  "27": "Tragedy of the Farmhand\n\nColtyn Cody '20\n\nYou\u2019ve always had a thing for farmer boys,\nThe way they till the crops, and cultivate,\nThe way they spit their seed on fertile mounds,\nThe way they churn the butter, in and out.\nAnd how you long to be those crops,\nTo be those mounds,\nTo be his buttered\u2014\n\u201cYou're mighty good\u201d escapes in shallow breaths\n\u2026\nYou wish that he was too.\nIt\u2019s like you always have to do the work,\nThe heavy lifting left to expert hands.\nHe flexes and releases, muscles tense\nAnd then relax. They always disappoint.\n",
  "28": "Let Me Not Lose My Dream\n\nGeorgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966)\n\nLet me not lose my dream, e'en though I scan the veil\nwith eyes unseeing through their glaze of tears,\nLet me not falter, though the rungs of fortune perish\nas I fare above the tumult, praying purer air,\nLet me not lose the vision, gird me, Powers that toss\nthe worlds, I pray!\nHold me, and guard, lest anguish tear my dreams away!\n",
  "29": "El Beso\n\nAngelina Weld Grimk\u00e9 (1880-1958)\n\nTwilight\u2014and you\nQuiet\u2014the stars;\nSnare of the shine of your teeth,\nYour provocative laughter,\nThe gloom of your hair;\nLure of you, eye and lip;\nYearning, yearning,\nLanguor, surrender;\nYour mouth,\nAnd madness, madness,\nTremulous, breathless, flaming,\nThe space of a sigh;\nThen awakening\u2014remembrance,\nPain, regret\u2014your sobbing;\nAnd again, quiet\u2014the stars,\nTwilight\u2014and you.\n",
  "30": "Moonrise\n\nH.D. (1886-1961)\n\nWill you glimmer on the sea?\nWill you fling your spear-head\nOn the shore?\nWhat note shall we pitch?\n\nWe have a song,\nOn the bank we share our arrows\u2014\nThe loosed string tells our note:\n\nO flight,\nBring her swiftly to our song.\nShe is great,\nWe measure her by the pine-trees.\n"
}