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The Bone that has no Marrow,

The bone that has no marrow;
What ultimate for that?
It is not fit for table,
For beggar, or for cat.
A bone has obligations,
A being has the same;
A marrowless assembly
Is culpabler than shame.
But how shall finished creatures
A function fresh obtain? --
Old Nicodemus' phantom
Confronting us again!

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I am an ignorant fucker. difficult to be close to in that i am unsentimental and intimate with everyone. This is connected to the problems I am working through regarding metaphor. As a form of patriarchal control over language and a currency of poetic power. My ex-husband calls me an “ignorant fucker” when I complain that his hugely pregnant white girlfriend, who I do not know, who I tolerate since for the last month and indefinite future my son must live in her house two days in a week, cannot show up unannounced in my child’s classroom where I pay all the bills and and I watch and half do nothing and half  help in the acquisition of literacy and reason. I say this is no place for this white woman; she is a free rider on my labor and love for my son. I will not support any white people with my work. I tell him all of this pretty loudly. He calls me an ignorant fucker. Now you are street? What, are you going to punch her in her face? I have fought exactly three people with physical violence in my 46 years of life. Two men. And my sister. …

Simone White

Tonight, I am in search of clues …

W. Todd Kaneko

My bands of silk and miniver …

Elinor Wylie

Seeking in squalor lean, elusive youth, …

William Jay Smith

O this political air so heavy with the bells …

Gregory Corso

A gust roused the waves, …

Juhan Liiv

Apple trees on a low hill …

Charles L. O'Donnell

Ye distant spires, ye antique tow'rs, …

Thomas Gray

The glossary

The language about poetry

From aubade to zuihitsu, 207 definitions of the forms, figures, and schools that shape the line.

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Accentual verseAccentual-syllabic verseAcmeismAlcaicAlexandrineAmbiguity