Date: 1892

"The broadest land that grows / Is not so ample as the breast / These emerald seams enclose."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 2006

"Curses, outbursts / and distracting chants simmer all day / long in the Crock-Pots of our heads."

— Gerstler, Amy (b. 1956)

Date: 2014

"If this were a domestic tragedy, and it might well be, this would be your fatal flaw--your memory, vessel of your feelings."

— Rankine, Claudia (b. 1963)

Date: 2014

"To your mind, feelings are what create a person, something unwilling, something wild vandalizing whatever the skull holds."

— Rankine, Claudia (b. 1963)

Date: 2014

"You can't put the past behind you. It's buried in you; it's turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you."

— Rankine, Claudia (b. 1963)