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FURTHER READING
Poems about Living
"I'm afraid of death"
by Kathleen Ossip
Another Elegy
by Jericho Brown
Ashes of Life
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
August, 1953
by David Wojahn
Characteristics of Life
by Camille T. Dungy
Coda
by Marilyn Hacker
Daily Life
by Susan Wood
Difficult Body
by Mark Wunderlich
Elegy in Joy [excerpt]
by Muriel Rukeyser
far memory
by Lucille Clifton
First Things to Hand
by Robert Pinsky
Frozen
by Natasha Head
How to Uproot a Tree
by Jennifer K. Sweeney
I could suffice for Him, I knew (643)
by Emily Dickinson
Insomnia
by Alicia Suskin Ostriker
Life
by Joe Brainard
Life is Fine
by Langston Hughes
Little Night Prayer
by Péter Kántor
Lost and Found
by Ron Padgett
Mass for the Day of St. Thomas Didymus [excerpt]
by Denise Levertov
Meditation 29
by Philip Pain
On Living
by Nazim Hikmet
One Train May Hide Another
by Kenneth Koch
Primitive State [excerpt]
by Anselm Berrigan
Samurai Song
by Robert Pinsky
Spent
by Mark Doty
sugar is smoking
by Jason Schneiderman
Summer in Winter in Summer
by Noah Eli Gordon
Tear It Down
by Jack Gilbert
The Layers
by Stanley Kunitz
The Old Stoic
by Emily Brontë
The Pain
by Laura Kasischke
The Secret
by Denise Levertov
Thrown as if Fierce & Wild
by Dean Young
Variation on a Theme
by W. S. Merwin
Virgil's Hand
by Francesc Parcerisas
What the Living Do
by Marie Howe
What Wild-Eyed Murderer
by Peter Meinke
Where I Live
by Maxine Kumin
won't you celebrate with me
by Lucille Clifton
Yellow Beak
by Stephen Dobyns
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Living in Numbers

 
by Claire Lee

Sunday, August 22, 2010:
Number of times I’ve woken up after
oversleeping and sprung out of bed like a ninja: 959
Number of broken bones: 3
Number of scars, physical: 4; emotional: 947
Number of funerals attended: 7
Number of friends, Facebook: 744, real: 9
Number of cavities filled: 0

Percentage of people I can stand in the world: 3.5
Number of times I’ve laughed so hard my sides would bruise: 2,972
Number of times I’ve wanted to bawl my eyes out: 320
Number of things I regret: 11
Number of things I know: 918,394

Monday, August 23, 2010:
Number of times I’ve woken up after oversleeping and sprung out of bed like a ninja: 960
Number of broken bones: 3
Number of scars, physical: 4; emotional: 1,293
Number of funerals attended: 7
Number of friends, Facebook: 800, real: 7
Number of cavities filled: 0

Percentage of people I can stand in the world: 3.4
Number of times I’ve laughed so hard my sides would bruise: 2,973
Number of times I’ve wanted to bawl my eyes out: 321
Number of things I regret: 13
Number of things I know: 918,390






"Living in Numbers” is reprinted by permission from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Copyright © 2013 by Claire Lee.
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