Date: 1922

"I plucked my soul out of its secret place, / And held it to the mirror of my eye, / To see it like a star against the sky, / A twitching body quivering in space, / A spark of passion shining on my face."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1922

"All night, through the eternity of night, / Pain was my portion though I could not feel. / Deep in my humbled heart you ground your heel, / Till I was reft of even my inner light, / Till reason from my mind had taken flight, / And all my world went whirling in a reel."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: w. 1936, 1938

"The year plunges into night / and the heart plunges / lower than night // to an empty, windswept place / without sun, stars or moon / but a peculiar light as of thought // that spins a dark fire-- / whirling upon itself until, / in the cold, it kindles // to make a man aware of nothing / that he...

— Williams, William Carlos (1883-1963)

Date: 1963

"Delicious recollections / float like perfume through the memory."

— Rich, Adrienne (1929-2012)

Date: December 12, 2016

"The mind too, whirling, vectoring, reaching short but at least / reaching, rising, consigning--towards and towards."

— Graham, Jorie (b. 1950)

Date: December 12, 2016

"tell me, Bird, how soul inhabits the place of fire, / how soul dwells there in its trembling?"

— De la O, Marsha

Date: February 27, 2017

"And I don't want to pray, but I can picture / the plants deepening right now into the soil, / wanting to live, so I lie down among them, / in my ripped pink tank top, filthy and covered / in sweat, among red burying beetles and dirt / that's been turned and turned like a problem / in the mind."

— Limón, Ada (b. March 28, 1976)