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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: RANKINE, CLAUDIA Matches Found: 117 Rankine, Claudia Poet's Biography 117 poems available by this author A FATHER TELLS HIS SON Poem Text First Line: A father tells his son the thing he regrets most about his life is the amount of time he has spent w Subject(s): Worry; Conduct Of Life; Anxiety AFTER DAVID HAMMONS Poem Text First Line: In the darkened moment a body gifted with the blue light of a flashligh CAST AWAY MOAN (1) Poem Text First Line: She inventories her interior and despite the striking good looks Subject(s): Despair; Self CAST AWAY MOAN (1) First Line: She inventories her interior and despite the striking good looks Last Line: Like an introduction, like dominion stretched out Subject(s): Despair; Self CAST AWAY MOAN (2) Poem Text First Line: Plumage of bird Subject(s): Despair; Self CAST AWAY MOAN (2) First Line: Plumage of bird Last Line: How to have lived this? Subject(s): Despair; Self CAST AWAY MOAN (3) Poem Text First Line: Every towel. Every glass of ice water. Seduced Subject(s): Despair; Self CAST AWAY MOAN (3) First Line: Every towel. Every glass of ice water. Seduced Last Line: I only mean you need to reenter, bring forward yourself Subject(s): Despair; Self DIRTIED UP (1) First Line: Door opening to green bowl of narcissus Last Line: Its that's-enough-now, enough, dank hint of constriction Subject(s): Despair; Self DIRTIED UP (2) First Line: Though you thought you heard, so surely you heard Last Line: To smile, inappropriate, awkward Subject(s): Despair; Self DIRTIED UP (3) First Line: Suspecting only illusion (some vindicative act of mind Last Line: The woods are disappointed in me Subject(s): Despair; Self DIRTIED UP, SELECTION Poem Text First Line: Suspecting only illusion (some vindicative act of mind Subject(s): Despair; Self DON'T LET ME BE LONELY (1) Poem Text First Line: There was a time I could say no one I knew well had died Subject(s): Children; Loneliness; Childhood DON'T LET ME BE LONELY (2) Poem Text First Line: On the bus two women argue about whether rudy giuliani Subject(s): Giuliani, Rudy; Imagination; Fancy DON'T LET ME BE LONELY, SELS First Line: Cornel west makes the point that hope is different Last Line: Close to dead is what I think EIGHT SKETCHES First Line: It was that...That that she feared Last Line: And is the damaged beauty of what? ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND (1) Poem Text First Line: As each syllable leaves these lips as touch, feel how onerous Subject(s): Despair; Self ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND (1) First Line: Viewed in this way Last Line: The thrown off Subject(s): Despair; Self ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND (2) Poem Text First Line: This then is -- Subject(s): Despair; Self ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND (2) First Line: This then is -- Last Line: Losing, beforehand, inside Subject(s): Despair; Self ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND (3) First Line: Similar also Last Line: Nothing to shadow. I want to say, a life can take a life away Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (1). ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND Poem Text First Line: As each syllable leaves these lips as touch, feel how onerous Subject(s): Despair; Language; Self; Words; Vocabulary EXTENT AND ROOT OF (1). ELSEWHERE, THINGS TEND First Line: As each syllable leaves these lips as touch, feel how onerous Last Line: With no more room, falling %into nowhere else Subject(s): Despair; Language; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (2) Poem Text First Line: Angled between sperm and please, tugging at her hem Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (2) First Line: (ripped out night, your core untranslatable. Preverbal, paralyzed Last Line: And in her way against him, saying, love, I love you Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (3) First Line: Angled between sperm and please, tugging at her hem Last Line: Of the umbilical cord and waste what is. Misery gone Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (4) First Line: Heaved into procelain: crumbs to chicken, neither orange Last Line: Gripping the senses; then-anywhere but where I am heading Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (5) First Line: She would not see it if she had been disgraced she would not Last Line: Listen to me disgraced do not put it do not bring it to me Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (6) First Line: Observe that meanwhile Last Line: No foreigner comes Subject(s): Despair; Self EXTENT AND ROOT OF (7) First Line: Then the blond arm, taken Last Line: But, as it will be how I survive, I will not feel so Subject(s): Despair; Self HIM First Line: West indian, him left, like de rest Last Line: Bigger child answer, he's our father HUNGER TO THE TABLE (1) Poem Text First Line: A turned ankle is its own consequence. She hops about Last Line: Respond like any woman collecting rainwater to stay alive Subject(s): Accidents HUNGER TO THE TABLE (1) First Line: Though we occupied our regular seats, the tolling Last Line: Without vision of the casting down Subject(s): Despair; Self HUNGER TO THE TABLE (2) Poem Text First Line: Nearer the open hydrants of summer to arrive flung, sung, sweat stains tossed aside: all effort Last Line: Legs around: closure rewarding and sustained and thigh-high Subject(s): Past; Baths & Bathing HUNGER TO THE TABLE (2) First Line: Even today, after Last Line: Until the space between them asks, how wide this? Subject(s): Despair; Self HUNGER TO THE TABLE (3) Poem Text First Line: Don't ask to be told x to y in time of eternity Last Line: Is the voice nice. Just as the lips open the eyes Subject(s): Despair HUNGER TO THE TABLE (3) First Line: A turned ankle is its own consequence. She hops about Last Line: Respond like any woman collecting rainwater to stay alive Subject(s): Despair; Self HUNGER TO THE TABLE (4) First Line: Nearer the open hydrants of summer to arrive flung, sung, sweat Last Line: Is the voice nice. Just as the lips open open the eyes Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (1) First Line: Then I think, I must have done something perhaps Last Line: Each truth runs blood the breath began Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (2) First Line: We store at this late date repair against the base insults Last Line: The railing is gone Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (3) First Line: Not to bad-mouth a momentary mood of mind Last Line: So unwilling though spilling into this disfigured future Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (4) First Line: Brought to this: chagrin of falling rock Last Line: This world is only our stillborn: company Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (5) First Line: Better to think, the descent before me is a stranger's Last Line: From all brooding, sidestep this wilderness preceding amen Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (6) First Line: Addie says, sin and salvation are just words for cora Last Line: Masked in retelling because the feeling forgiven is too much Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (7) First Line: To bring such need Last Line: All this, the relief it brings me Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE BEYOND (8) First Line: So you, in this role as you own rescuer, trebled voice Last Line: Look out for yourself. Go outside. Stand up. Straighter. Flirt Subject(s): Despair; Self IN THIS SENSE, BEYOND Poem Text First Line: I apologize, but I do not apologize Last Line: But if grief needs to be it is in the end, anyway Subject(s): Language; Words; Vocabulary IN THIS SENSE, BEYOND First Line: I apologize, but I do not apologize Last Line: But if grief needs to be it is in the end, anyway Subject(s): Language INTERMISSION IN FOUR ACTS: 1. THE THING IN PLAY First Line: A world outside this plot prevents our intermission from being uninvolved Last Line: If who you are wants not to live life so INTERMISSION IN FOUR ACTS: 2. STILL IN PLAY First Line: On the street where children now reside, the speed limit is 25. Green Last Line: Minutes are letting go. A hose is invisible on the darkened lawn INTERMISSION IN FOUR ACTS: 3. MUSICAL INTERLUDE First Line: A certain type of life is plot-driven. A certain slant in life Last Line: Catches. It feels like tenderness beckoning and it is into her voice, %rejoicing INTERMISSION IN FOUR ACTS: 4. IN MORTAL THEATER First Line: Blessedly the absolute miscarries Last Line: I am. %am almost to be touching MAN AND WOMAN IN LANDSCAPE First Line: Instead of emptiness Last Line: A million unvoiced wishes yellowed %and multiplying MAN. HIS BOWL. HIS RASPBERRIES First Line: The bowl he starts with Last Line: For only the raspberry. Securing, pulling %gently, taking, he gets what he needs OUT OF MANY, ONE: BACK-A-YARD First Line: Thirsty. Hot. The odor Last Line: Into the sun, a red tongue, %aflame in the sky OUT OF MANY, ONE: HELLSHIRE BEACH First Line: In atmosphere %turn blue with dusk Last Line: But if you feel you must, %go 'long, go 'long OUT OF MANY, ONE: JUBILEE MARKET First Line: Stalls along the road Last Line: Water run to a greater %wetness, salt OUT OF MANY, ONE: MAN CALLED COUNTRY First Line: Early morning him take Last Line: Barely start, them tired for true OUT OF MANY, ONE: RED HILLS ROAD First Line: Crossing roots swell Last Line: To work. And him, %him wanting to work OUT OF MANY, ONE: THE DARK First Line: Night john crows glide Last Line: Tuck him in with prayers, kneel %on the wooden floor OUT OF MANY, ONE: THE INTERIOR First Line: Naked as the day him born Last Line: Fi-me woman, me waan OUT OF MANY, ONE: WEST HARBOUR First Line: Pansies, blue and white Last Line: Streak yellow and orange, %open into swelling dusk OUT OF MANY, ONE: YARD First Line: From where she stand Last Line: Red coals falling to ash OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (1) Poem Text First Line: Difficult to pinpoint Last Line: Bullet templed, rip the mind out. Go ahead Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (1) First Line: Difficult to pinpoint Last Line: Bullet templed. Rip the mind out. Go ahead Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (2) Poem Text First Line: Dawn will clear through the night rains so hard. Rain Last Line: Thought-damaged throat Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (2) First Line: Dawn will clear through the night rains so hard. Rain Last Line: Thought-damaged throat Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (3) Poem Text First Line: Remember a future Last Line: Sense, jane, disabled Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (3) First Line: Remember a future Last Line: Sense, jane. Disabled Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (4) Poem Text First Line: Assurance collapses naturally Last Line: Yourself. All I want Subject(s): Despair; Self OVERVIEW IS A PLACE (4) First Line: Assurance collapses naturally Last Line: Yourself. All I want Subject(s): Despair; Self PLOT, SELS. First Line: Submerged deeper than appetite Last Line: Tainly startled %how not to smile out loud PROXIMITY OF CLOCK TO LOCK First Line: In the marriage, not able to anticipate how they would feel Last Line: He was biting his cuticle. %(what?) (you know what PROXIMITY OF INNER TO IN HER First Line: What was it that they wanted? More flesh of their flesh? Last Line: Form of a truce? A bruising? PROXIMITY OF STUCK TO TUCK First Line: Liv's own mother had the smell of pee beneath her nails Last Line: I, I was supposed to go and now I am late QUOTIDIAN (1) First Line: What we live Last Line: What the hardware of slumber draws below Subject(s): Despair; Self QUOTIDIAN (2) First Line: Night sky %all day the light Last Line: Its murmurous mirror Subject(s): Despair; Self QUOTIDIAN (3) First Line: Its drained tongue Last Line: Here in the skin of -- otherwise) shoveling out, dryly Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (1) First Line: When she arrived Last Line: She laughed. She was laughing. She was lying. The rain Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (10) First Line: Again the naked nude must stagger the soul's Last Line: A bold personification of sky: purview Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (2) Poem Text First Line: One day it is happy birthday or I love you or how did you know? Last Line: Lying on the ground too ironic to call for help Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (2) First Line: Here. Take the photo. In the photo she is not gorgeous Last Line: I was alive. Did I say this? I asked. I stood up. The rain Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (3) First Line: Before the arrival of everyone, drinking glass after glass Last Line: The sky is blue. This in time reminds. Stands one up Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (4) First Line: Laughter has the house to itself. It wraps to hide Last Line: Ever peaceful. Tell her, she cannot rest there Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (5) First Line: Within the untrained ear Last Line: She didn't appeal to him Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (6) First Line: Later in a bar with a friend. He muses: there we were Last Line: Even with her wet eyelash picking up dust she must realize Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (7) First Line: In another language hunger might bring her to her feet Last Line: What put her here brought her to the ground so to speak Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (8) First Line: Or did she (not he) simply stretch out? She Last Line: Is a mountain range pulsing Subject(s): Despair; Self RESIDUAL IN THE HOUR (9) First Line: One day it is happy birthday or I love you or how did you know? Last Line: Lying on the ground too ironic to call for help Subject(s): Despair; Self SHE First Line: Daybreak, pon de continent she recall Last Line: Since girl-time--the big-belly sea SHORT NARRATIVE IN SERVICE OF PLOT ENTITLED PROXIMITY OF EXPOSED ... First Line: As she could not applaud the mothers and fathers, their slith- Last Line: Good SIMILARLY, MY SISTER First Line: A similar, mirrored self chews cashews in the midday, collects Last Line: Could begin again with no one to show us how to live life %differently TESTIMONIAL First Line: As if I craved error, as if love were ahistorical, Last Line: So say, this earth untouched is ruptured enough to grieve. TESTIMONIAL (1) Poem Text First Line: As if I craved error, as if love were ahistorical Subject(s): Despair; Self TESTIMONIAL (1) First Line: As if I craved error, as if love were ahistorical Last Line: It was june and brilliant. The sun higher than god Subject(s): Despair; Self TESTIMONIAL (2). ATLANTIC SHORES Poem Text First Line: In this bed, a man on his back, his eyes Subject(s): Despair; Self TESTIMONIAL (2). ATLANTIC SHORES First Line: In this bed, a man on his back, his eyes Last Line: As all the hurt this world could give Subject(s): Despair; Self TESTIMONIAL (3) First Line: Gnaw. Zigzag. The end of the alphabet buckling floors Last Line: The outside tap turns tentatively on Subject(s): Despair; Self TESTIMONIAL (4) First Line: Lower the lids and the mind swims out into Last Line: So say, this earth untouched is ruptured enough to grieve Subject(s): Despair; Self THE QUOTIDIAN Poem Text First Line: What we live Last Line: Here in the skin of . . . Otherwise) shoveling / out, dryly Subject(s): Conduct Of Life; Self THE ROOM IS A FOUNTAIN IN EXPERIENCE Poem Text First Line: Though a previousness, cushioned by dark, aggregates the room Subject(s): Self THERE'S A BUTTON ON THE REMOTE CONTROL CALLED FAV Poem Text Subject(s): Television; Aging; Transience; Tv; Impermanence THIS LIFE First Line: Each sensitive hour, every kicking day we sweep Last Line: Covered over by flesh. All this life we are unable to rest TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (1) First Line: Who distributes the live or die Last Line: Is all effort to shape what surfaces within the sane Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (2) First Line: Ignore your own devastation and it doggedly shadows, resurfacing Last Line: We can enter into hell and still sit down for sunday dinner Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (3) First Line: Inconsolable outdoorness of the heart Last Line: Waiting-dear, heart, you break in two. You do not break into Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (4) First Line: Privately, %dukes up, duel or duck, beat on Last Line: Calm, outside the mirror Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (5) First Line: As if anguishing should be excrement Last Line: As if anguishing Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (6) First Line: The plunging. This time complex Last Line: The floor). Sit down the long while Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (7) First Line: Mosquitoes abundant, limit of white wall, stray thread, this Last Line: I apologize, but I do not apologize Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (8) First Line: To sit next to the self Last Line: As if grief needs to be and is in the end, anyway Subject(s): Despair; Self TOWARD BIOGRAPHY (9) First Line: The tongue is a muscle Last Line: Better to curse, shut up, before understanding sets in Subject(s): Despair; Self VERY CLOSE TO MY WORLD First Line: In the hours my heart breaks faith with me Last Line: You, heart, you belong to somebody waiting WE HEARD HEALTH CARE Recitation by Author First Line: We heard health care and we thought public option Subject(s): Health Care & Insurance; United States - Politics & Government; Social Classes; Racism; Caste; Racial Prejudice; Bigotry WHERE IS THE SEA? (1) First Line: The boy with his skate, the man in llove, st. Christopher Last Line: I will dance to the rhythm. You will play Subject(s): Despair; Self WHERE IS THE SEA? (2) First Line: Though we nedd make civil the war in our hearts, deeper is Last Line: For you, willingly, every day, room for she, my suitcase, all my stuff? Subject(s): Despair; Self WHERE IS THE SEA? (3) First Line: To locate the self salvaged. Persuaded by, within the drawn Last Line: There must be an uninvolved and there, outrageous calm Subject(s): Despair; Self |
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