Search Categories - Any -25 Lines or FewerCanadaPre 21st Century21st Century Grade levels - Any -Grades 7-9 / Sec. 1-3Grades 10-12 / Sec. 4 & 5 / CEGEP 1 Sort by RandomNewestMost popularA -> ZZ -> A Apply Suzannah Showler Too Negative I was a kid other kids’ parents gossiped about. They told their children what I was: too negative. I get it. Fair to fear contagion of bad attitudes, William Blake Introduction to the Songs of Innocence Piping down the valleys wild, Piping songs of pleasant glee, On a cloud I saw a child, Amy Lowell A Fixed Idea What torture lurks within a single thought When grown too constant, and however kind, However welcome still, the weary mind Herman Melville The Maldive Shark About the Shark, phlegmatical one, Pale sot of the Maldive sea, The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, Edgar Allan Poe A Dream Within a Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow — Sarah Tolmie 39 Oliver Sacks is going to die, He tells us blithely in the New York Times. He’s 81. His liver’s shot. He’s blind in one eye Though when both worked fine Joshua Jennifer Espinoza Comfort 11 am. Time to wake up. Muscles sore, jaw clenched, warm light scattering dreams of violence across the bedroom. I've chosen a self Thomas Campion Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow Follow thy fair sun, unhappy shadow, Though thou be black as night And she made all of light, Michael Longley The Boxers We were combatants from the start. Our dad Bought us boxing gloves when we were ten — Champions like Euryalus, say, or Epeius Aimé Césaire New Year Out of their torments men carved a flower which they perched on the high plateaus of their faces Walt Whitman A Noiseless Patient Spider A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, E. Pauline Johnson Through Time and Bitter Distance Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore. The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war, Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine, Emily Dickinson Wild Nights — Wild Nights! Wild Nights — Wild Nights! Were I with thee Wild Nights should be Wallace Stevens The Emperor of Ice-Cream Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Marjorie Pickthall The Wife Living, I had no might To make you hear, Now, in the inmost night, Ocean Vuong Deto(nation) There’s a joke that ends with — huh? It’s the bomb saying here is your father. Now here is your father inside your lungs. Look how lighter the earth is — afterward. Edgar Allan Poe To Helen Helen, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore, That gently, o’er a perfumed sea, Harryette Mullen it’s rank, it cranks you up it’s rank it cranks you up crash you’re fracked you suck shucks you’re wack you be all you cracked up to be dead on arrival overdosed on whatever excess of hate and love Dane Swan Pride A half-hour. Thirty minutes. One thousand eight hundred seconds. They sat. Tyler B. Perry FLOOD The hallway is an empty riverbed, smooth and barren. At three o’clock classroom doors open like dams. Gullies of teens stream out, to become one Claudia Rankine from Citizen The rain this morning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses to single out what you know is there because Tamar Rubin Perennial For thirty-one years, my mother tried not to miss her. Every week, a little water or the trickle of a few ice cubes dropped in black earth. Years back, in the muck of Toronto, April, Randy Lundy The Cactus You sit in the forgotten bone-dry hills surrounded by sand and sagebrush above Buffalo Pound Lake. A day and a night, and then three more days and nights. Jason Camlot Dear Death, Am I a praise poet or a blame poet? Today I am a blame poet. O Death, face it, existence doesn’t like you. You can’t sing. You can’t paint. Ian Williams Echolalia Once one gets what one wants one no longer wants it. One no longer wants what? Kim Addonizio Aquarium The fish are drifting calmly in their tank between the green reeds, lit by a white glow that passes for the sun. Blindly, the blank glass that holds them in displays their slow Matt Rader Unspeakable Acts in Cars It’s the first day of summer and we’re so happy To see the sun and the satchel of colours it schleps All those dark kilometres. The sky is so blue And the sea is blue and the small islands in the sea John Milton Sonnet XXIII: Methought I Saw my Late Espoused Saint Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave, Whom Jove’s great son to her glad husband gave, James Millhaven Closure On the night we dug up your father’s body (for reasons I can no longer remember) we took turns with the shovel as we passed a bottle of Whyte & Mackay Donato Mancini you aren’t going to like what i have to say before i start i want to say you shouldn’t blame yourself there’s no point in beating around the bush there’s something we need to talk about this is the most difficult thing i’ve ever had to tell anyone Sandra Ridley From Silvija If you can’t speak / write in a fissured / alter-language Of nerve-matter / dura mater / orbit of the central axis By a crevice / scattered / venous lacunae / lamina code Srikanth Reddy Underworld Lit XIV Please print clearly and remember your name. 1) The river of fire, in ancient Greek thanatopography, feeds into the river of _____________. Susan Holbrook What Is Poetry (a twelve-tone poem) trite yap show rosy twit heap Sonnet L'Abbé Poor Speaker I understand you. I get what you’re trying to say. What you’re trying to say is you want me to get it. I get it. You want me to understand. You want me to know Don Paterson Francesca Woodman i At the heart there is a hollow sun by which we are constructed and undone Thomas Wyatt They Flee From Me They flee from me that sometime did me seek With naked foot, stalking in my chamber. I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek, Wallace Stevens The Snow Man One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, Milton Acorn I’ve Tasted My Blood If this brain’s over-tempered consider that the fire was want and the hammers were fists. Kaie Kellough people arrived people arrived from portugal. people arrived from africa. people arrived from india. people arrived from england. people arrived from china. people Naomi Shihab Nye Famous The river is famous to the fish. The loud voice is famous to silence, which knew it would inherit the earth before anybody said so. The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds Language English