Very Short Stories

Six-Word Memoirs

Josh Neufeld, Father Figures

Brendan Burford & Jim Campbell, Boris Rose, Prisoner of Jazz

Alice Elliot Dark, In the Gloaming

Terrence McNally, Andre’s Mother

Tobias Wolff, Mortals

Tobias Wolff, Bullet in the Brain

Joseph Bruchac III, Ellis Island

Louis Erdich, The Red Convertible

Joy Harjo, Eagle Poem

Joy Harjo, White Bear

Joy Harjo, Call It Fear

Sherman Alexie, On the Amtrak from Boston to NYC

Sherman Alexie, Evolution

Sherman Alexie, Indian Education

John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address

Cathy Song, Heaven

Cathy Song, Chinatown

Cathy Song, The White Porch

Mary Yukrari Waters, Mirror Studies

W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa

Denise Levertov, What Were They Like & Zeroing In

David Henry Hwang, The Sound of a Voice

Amy Tan, Fish Cheeks

Amy Tan, Two Kinds

Alberto Rios, Advice to a First Cousin

Alberto Rios, Wet Camp

Jimmy Santiago Baca, Cloudy Day

Jimmy Santiago Baca, So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans

Gwendolyn Brooks, Martin Luthar King, Jr.

Gwendolyn Brooks, We Real Cool

Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain

Grace Paley, The Loudest Voice

Tom McAfee, This is My Living Room

David Mamet, Soul Murder

Stephen King, Last Rung on the Latter

Tracy Guzeman, Note to Self

Bob Dylan, Hurricane

Truman Capote, A Christmas Memory

James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues

Martin Espada, Bully

Aurora Levins Morales*, Child of the Americas

Lorna Dee Cervantes, Refugee Ship

Amiri Baraka, Dutchman

Martin Luther King, Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream

John Updike, A&P

Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesmen

Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Langston Hughes, I, Too

Langston Hughes, Poet to Bigot

Langston Hughes, Theme for English B

Langston Hughes, Too Blue

Langston Hughes, Ballad of the Landlord

Langston Hughes, Poet to Patron

Langston Hughes, Let America Be America Again

Langston Hughes, Ruby Brown

Langston Hughes, The South

Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues

Langston Hughes, Mother to Son

Langston Hughes, The Negro Speaks of Rivers

Robert Frost, Neither Out Far Nor In Deep

Robert Frost, Design

Robert Frost, Desert Places

Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost, Nothing Gold Can Stay

Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

Robert Frost, Out, Out

Robert Frost, Birches

Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost, The Wood-Pile

Robert Frost, After Apple-Picking

Robert Frost, Home Burial

Robert Frost, Mending Wall

Robert Frost, The Pasture

Carl Sanburg, Chicago

Carl Sanburg, They Will Say

Carl Sanburg, The Shovel Man

Carl Sanburg, Muckers

Carl Sanburg, Mill-Doors

Carl Sanburg, Happiness

Carl Sanburg, Dreams in the Dusk

Carl Sanburg, Blacklisted

Carl Sanburg, A Teamster's Farewell

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Baby Party

Cornell Woolrich, It Had to Be Murder

Mary Grace Vazquez, Jesus Loves You

Shirley Jackson, The Lottery

Ernest Hemmingway, Hills Like White Elephants

Ernest Hemmingway, Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemmingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

Sterling A. Brown, Bitter Fruit of the Tree

Susan Glaspell, Trifles

Wallace Stevens, The Plain Sense of Things

Wallace Stevens, Of Modern Poetry

Wallace Stevens, The Idea of Order at Key West

Wallace Stevens, The Death of a Soldier

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Wallace Stevens, Anecdote of the Jar

Wallace Stevens, The Snow Man

Willa Cather, Paul's Case

Edwin Arlington Robinson, The House on the Hill

Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Evereldown

Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Mill

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Dear Friends

Edwin Arlington Robinson, The Dark Hills

Edwin Arlington Robinson, How Annandale Went Out

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Eros Turannos

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Miniver Cheevy

Edwin Arlington Robinson, Richard Cory

Edgar Lee Masters, Lucinda Matlock

O. Henry, The Cop and the Anthem

W.E.B. Du Bois, Excerpt from The Souls of Black Folks: of Booker T Washington and Others

Charles Chestnut, The Sherriff’s Children

Booker T. Washington, Excerpt from Up from Slavery

Jacob A. Riis, The Working Girls of New York, Excerpt

Jacob A. Riis, A Raid on the Stale-Beer Dives, Excerpt

Jacob A. Riis, The Problem of the Children, Excerpt

William Carlos Williams, The Use of Force

James Russell Lowell, The Street

Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar, Sympathy

Clifford Odets, Awake and Sing

Jack London, To Build a Fire

Stephen Crane, An Episode of War

Mary Wilkins Freeman, The Revolt of “Mother”

Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus

Mark Twain, America’s Original Superstar, Time

Kate Chopin, The Story of an Hour

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

Kate Chopin, The Storm

Sarah Orne Jewett, A White Heron

Samuel L. Clemens (Mark Twain), The Notorious Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County