Index of First Lines

Today, I’ve finished compiling a printed collection of every poem I’ve ever written. I do this every few years, just to have a nice paper copy in case all my digital copies go haywire. With 237 poems, printed double-sided, I now have a stack of paper about an inch thick. I bought a thesis binder for a good price online, so that I can quickly and easily turn the stack of paper into a durable bound volume.

While compiling this collection for myself, I learned a new trick. It’s surprisingly easy to create an index of first lines. I saw an example of such an index in the back of my shiny new copy of Sampson Starkweather’s book The First Books of Sampson Starkweather, which I bought from the author a couple months ago. I wondered: how much work is it to create an index of first lines?

There are two ways to do it. If each of your poems is a separate text file, then a handy command line trick will produce an index of first lines. If you have all your poems in a single Microsoft Word document, you can use the index feature to mark each first line as an index term, and then create an index. An index of first lines is an interesting way to review the collection of poems, and I see that some of the first lines are better than others.

Index of First Lines from Poems by Dylan Kinnett

7, 8, 9, 10
A haunted past begins
A rendering of a reflection of a s
A syringe in room 212
A thousand
A tough step two
Ain't no rain, gonna wash this body
All I have is bread
Always and For
And so I danced
And then, and then
Angels done broke the bugle
Angie, Angie
As I watch the dust fall
As in church, pray for once
At last, people will com
Baby boys on their birthdays
I'll stand here
Be, for a brief moment
Blistering haze, wandering days,
Burn me brightly
but and but or;
By the river barefoot in the muck
Children can remember
Clear eyes, full of light.
Cloud patterns shift and kick
Cold steel begs my eyes to burn through you
Come in close. Pass and go
Come one, come all
Dad says, "It's time you know.
Dance like children on her back did she
Devils fall from the sky
Did I know your name
dim moon rolled along the horizon
Dim moon rolled from below the horizon
Do I radiate that beauty,
Do you know m
Dream life in front of a dead thing
Ears for to hear
Erosion
Every few days, a new turn presents itself
Every time we took a picture
Everything I've not forgotten
Farther than the light goes
Feels like I'm the static in the air
Fluid, Stoic, and Gas like,
For every up I find
Full moon light snowfall
Give me your hand
Glowing in the cold
Have you, with yo
He speaks again of shadow
Here you go, eat some life, it's a blue thing
Here, and nowhere els
Here's one, warts and all.
He's downing two of them
hoping to be noticed
How did I choose the wine?
How many hands must fall upon the Earth
I am left to count the breaths
I am locked in the case of my opinion.
I am standing,
I awoke this morning to the startling realization
I came to get
I cannot purge these thoughts
I could swear I saw a tear in the mirror.
I hear your voice
I just wanna roll into a ball
I keep a little boat by the doc
I know the rule
I looked through large bound books
I remember being small
I remember when I'd call for you
I saw Jesus in the Detox
I see a splash of light
I started a journey long ago
I still have a Christmas poinsettia
I thought I saw you crying
I wait, but it doesn't come.
I want to dance across the minds of others
I want you
I wanted something, once
I'd make a list, take nails and pound it on the door
If I pound the air
If only I had a place with a creek
IIIIII
I'm here with a candle,
I'm not who I am
I'm scared because the street
In the beginning there was an artist of gravity
In winter,
Ink pens fit the fist nicely
Is your body cold
It should have been me
It should have been me out there
It sleeps, but turns too much to dream
It sounds empty, over spoken
it was almost as if the voice on paper
It's a specific bend.
Its raining
It's raining in Mecklenburg again
I've got a trash bag
Kick a ball against the wall.
like children we laughed around
Live without "I"s
Live without eyes,
Look up, Woman and Man
Look, we'd hear the unheard,
Metropolis, won't you wrap your arms around me.
Midnight greyhound dreaming
Morning exploded
Mother and I gaze at the sky
Musical comedy, you make us laugh
No florescent, linoleum, walkways and row
No more words please.
Nothing burns from the stone candle
O Holy heart
Obvious worthlessness is unusual
Of all the words in the English language
oh hell, here we go again,
Oh-boo-dee-Q-la dee-Q-la on-ta-Ko-in-da-wa
On a scraggly pat
One hand holds, and one hand breaks off
Open your eyes
Open your eyes and tell me what you see
Out with the old
Put your face on tonight
Rocket ships and escalators,
Rows and Racks with spools of yarn
Sailing on the wrong side of the sea
Say doom, and look at what they do
Seems to me, there's usually some thing we're all chasing after:
Sewage seeps like a slow blood flow
Sewage seeps like a slow blood flow, beneath the street,
Shadows grow long
She cries
She had strong legs, long legs
She sees herself in the sea and she fears it
Shooting the kitty in a rocket to mars
Should have,
Should have, could have
Shuffled up, tossed and furious
Slop seeps down the street
So this is the way green summer ends
Something important to me
sometimes
Sometimes I could swear we are moving
Somewhere, barely beneath the city, she lies in wait for me.
Sound without meaning
Sticks and stone
Still forest sounds snap
Study how the present begins.
Stunned
Swelling
That song is just a sweet silly poem
That song is just a sweet silly poem my dear.
that's my reflection on the slick stone floor
The boy sees snakes of soldier
The candy silo unloads
the fires nightly
The flies have all fattened
The hangman. Thinks he
The painted faces stay outside,
The peephole in the center of the door
The perfect waste of a day
The rainstorm caught me
The roses at night
The same hands hold red
The sign sez: "farm use
The song changes
The sun does set on the sunset street
The sun was dead
The total conversion of matter into energy
The train came calling by,
The world around me
There are certain things
There are dead fish in the run
There are places where the roads don't go
There is fury in this room
There is no Jesus as the miles go over by
There's a midnight train by my house,
There's a moon over you
There's a place in the shade for me.
there's a song in my head and my head keeps playing i
They do. not. eat. who mention, silver and sweet
They have their bonds and deals
They stand on points
They taught us to argue
They're all out there dying, baby.
They're on a crash-course collision run
things arranged, now splayed
think of any thing
This city is a bird
This is how it i
This is the nowhere story
This is where whole nations lost their prayers
This world, my misery
Too many christs
Too many sets of these crying eyes
Too many times
Towers of slabs
Toys in the hands of God, we are,
Train came calling b
Two paths, one line that parted:
Under a head of human hair
walking in the rain., 224
We built highways out of the darkness
We can't have unflattering, art;
We draw a dream in the sand.
We have fingerbone trees
We live in the bizarre
We were waiting for silence to die,
We would sing
we've got/ are clockwork
Whatever words, whatever nouns, whatever verbs
What's the bother
When love blossoms, it isn't a flower
When you're too busy being happy
Who's that in that picture
Wilt away
working forever
Would I lie to you
You can't just lie here
You can't see the angels
you sang a song; I found my hell again.
You say someday you'll be gone
you thoughts on the walls
Your arms held sway over whole language,
Your garden finally decided to grow