Next One Page Poetry Circle, March 10, 2020—Poetry and Muses

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle at St. Agnes Branch Library, NYC, where people gather to examine the works of established poets.

Our theme for March is Poetry and Muses.

In Greek mythology the muses were nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who presided over the arts and sciences. Homer begins his epic poem, The Iliad, with an invocation to the Muse: “Sing, Goddess, sing the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus.”

In the poetic tradition of Homer and Virgil, Dante Alighieri evokes the nine classical muses early in his epic poem The Divine Comedy “O Muses, O lofty genius, aid me now!” Later in the poem, Dante calls forth his more earthly muse—a childhood acquaintance, Beatrice Portinari. Employing them all, Dante takes readers through hell, purgatory, and finally heaven.

Although Homer sought Calliope, the Muse of the Epic, to inspire him, and Dante introduced an earthly love, poets today are more likely to be inspired by their world. Anything can act as a muse: people, places, or other poems. Poet Kiki Petrosino has Robert Redford. Allen Ginsberg had Peter Orlovsky, and sometimes Neal Cassady. Poet Paul Legault has the poetry of Emily Dickinson. The word “muse” can also mean to ponder; often it is not inspiration that creates a poem, but the deep thoughts and labor of the author.

We hope you will blog with us here, on the subject of Poetry and Muses, or on any other poetry you love. Does anyone know of a poet who has a pet as his or her muse?

Spring 2020 Schedule
March 10, Poetry and Muses
April 14, Poetry and Satire
May 12, Poetry and Joy

Programs are held at St. Agnes Branch of NYPL, 5:30- 6:30 pm, 444 Amsterdam Avenue, NYC.

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible. 

 

Recap of One Page Poetry Circle, February 2020 meeting

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle at St. Agnes Branch Library,
444 Amsterdam Avenue, NYC.

The One Page Poetry Circle met on February 11, to discuss Poetry that Makes You Cry.

Abigail opened the circle with Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Tears, Idle Tears,” which combines images from the present with memories from the past: “Tears from the depth of some divine despair/Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,/In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,/And thinking of the days that are no more.”

Roger read “Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep” by Mary Elizabeth Frye, a commemoration of victims of the Holocaust: “I am the soft stars that shine at night./Do not stand at my grave and cry;/I am not there. I did not die.”

Hazel read Philip Freneau’s “The Wild Honey Suckle” which compares human life to that of the flower: “For when you die you are the same;/The space between, is but an hour,/the frail duration of a flower.”

Cate read Miguel Hernandez’s devastating description of civilian life in “War”: “Incurable hatred./And children?/In the coffin.”

Gail read “Funeral Blues” by W. H. Auden, wherein a light-hearted tone gives way to devastation while recounting a loss: “Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;/For nothing now can ever come to any good.”

Pat had brought the same poem as Gail, so read instead the “Peace Prayer of Saint Francis,” a poem of unknown origins, but powerful thoughts: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace./Where there is hatred, let me bring love.”

Chris read “An Irish Airman foresees his Death” by William Butler Yeats describing the fatalistic approach of an Irishman flying for the British: “I know that I shall meet my fate/Somewhere among the clouds above;/Those that I fight I do not hate,/Those that I guard I do not love.”

Katherine read “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, where a child describes his father’s once unappreciated acts of love for his family: “What did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?”

Karen, who had brought the same poem as Roger, read from an essay by Thomas Lynch in The Depositions on our affinity for poetry: “We are drawn to the acoustic pleasures of poetry by nature and metabolism. Our hearts beat in iambs and trochees night and day. Our breath is caught between inspiration and expiration.”

Carol read Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s lyrics “Golden Slumbers” as we heard the haunting melody in our heads: “Once there was a way/To get back homeward.”

Daria could not attend, but left her poem for us, an evocation of a youthful suicide, “1983” by Gary R. Hess which ends: “His life then taken from a bloody blade/His mind at peace with his thoughts/His hope had died with the angels.”

AnnaLee closed the circle with Charles Bukowski’s “I made a mistake,” which begins with the narrator’s admission of his mistake: “I reached up into the top of the closet/and took out a pair of blue panties/and showed them to her and/asked ‘are these yours?’” and ends with the result: “a confused old man driving in the rain/wondering where the good luck/went.”

Kai could not attend, but suggested “I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day” by Gerard Manley Hopkins: “What hours, O what black hours we have spent/This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!”

We’re looking forward to seeing you for Poetry and Muses at the March 10th One Page Poetry Circle. Whether a poem mentions its inspiration or is about inspiration, bring a poem that inspires you. And if you can, come with copies for others to share. In the meantime, please blog with us here about these poems or others that interest you at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Spring 2020 Schedule
March 10, Poetry and Muses
April 14, Poetry and Satire
May 12, Poetry and Joy

Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

 

Next One Page Poetry Circle, Feb. 11, 2020—Poetry that Makes You Cry

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle at St. Agnes Branch Library!

February’s theme is Poetry that Makes You Cry. According to British neuroscientist Michael Trimble, the ability to cry for emotional reasons and in response to aesthetic experiences is unique to humans. Poetry bridges both categories. With its brevity of words, cadence, and juxtapositions, poetry can escalate our emotions and bring us to tears. We may turn to poetry when we are distraught, feel compassion, face mortality, or experience joy. Ernest Dowson’s “Vitae Summa Brevis” sums up the beauty and sadness of life in two verses:

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes

With its sheer beauty of language, poetry can bypass the intellect to reach our more primal emotions, as in these opening lines of W. H. Auden’s “Lullaby”:

Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Perhaps a poem makes you cry because it was the favorite of someone you loved. Or perhaps it doesn’t make you actually cry, as in William Wordsworth “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” “To me the meanest flower that blows can give/Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”

If you have a favorite poem that causes you to well up from the beauty of the language, an association, or the message? post it here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com. Let us know why it moves you.

Poetry that Makes You Cry: Find a poem! Show up! Read a poem! Discuss a poem!
Tues., Feb, 11, 2020, 5:30 – 6:30 pm, St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, NYC

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Spring 2020 Schedule
February 11, Poetry that Makes You Cry
March 10, Poetry and Muses
April 14, Poetry and Satire
May 12, Poetry and Joy

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

 

Recap of December 10 One Page Poetry Circle

The One Page Poetry Circle at the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library concluded its 2019 fall season on December 10 with a great turnout for the exploration of Poetry and Confession.

Abigail opened the circle with Robert Browning’s “Confessions,” in which a priest asks a dying man for his confession and the man reminisces without remorse on an affair of his youth: “How sad and bad and mad it was—/But then, how it was sweet!”.

Roger read Pablo Neruda’s “If You Forget Me” in which the narrator expounds upon the reciprocal nature of love: “if little by little you stop loving me/I shall stop loving you little by little.”

Hazel read Christina Rossetti’s “Winter: My Secret,” in which the narrator never makes her confession: “You want to hear it? well:/Only my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.”

Elizabeth read Joan Larkin’s “Afterlife” concerning a young girl whose father forgives her when he says “Kids get into trouble” and goes with her to get an abortion even though he admonishes her, “Don’t ever tell this to anyone.”

Gail read Chard deNiord’s “Confession of a Bird Watcher” where the narrator enjoys watching birds out his window despite seeing hundreds of birds break their necks: “I’m sorry for my genius as the creature inside/who attracts with seeds and watches you die against the window/I’ve built with the knowledge of its danger to you.”

Cate read Jane Clarke’s “The trouble” about the relationship between mothers and daughters: “how to forgive/the one to whom/you owe too much … and cannot, will not/leave you alone.” You can hear Jane Clarke read her poetry here.

Pat read John Berryman’s “Dream Song 14,” which begins: “Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so./After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,/we ourselves flash and yearn.”

Karen read Billy Collins’s complaint about his students in “Introduction to Poetry”: “I ask them to take a poem/and hold it up to the light/like a color slide” but “they begin beating it with a hose/to find out what it really means.”

Carol read “Skunk Hour” by Robert Lowell which describes a town devoid of people: “I hear/my ill-spirit sob in each blood cell,/as if my hand were at its throat…./I myself am hell;/nobody’s here—.”

AnnaLee closed the circle with another John Berryman poem, “Sonnet 13,” which begins: “I lift—lift you five States away your glass,” and ends, “I blow my short ash red,/Grey eyes light! and we have our drink together.”

Daria, our resident librarian, had to leave before the circle began, but left “The Last Slice” by Freddie Robinson Jr. in which the provider of the pizza wants to hear a confession from whoever ate the last slice; then he sees the dog, “Is that pizza sauce I see all over your paws!”.

Kai couldn’t attend, but suggested Anne Sexton’s “Admonitions to a Special Person”: “To love another is something/like prayer and can’t be planned, you just fall/into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.”

Enjoy the holidays! We look forward to seeing you in 2020. In the meantime please blog with us here, about all things poetry at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Upcoming Spring 2020 Schedule
February 11, Poetry that Makes You Cry
March 10, Poetry and Muses
April 14, Poetry and Satire
May 12, Poetry and Joy

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Next One Page Poetry Circle—Dec. 10, 2019, Confessional Poetry

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle at St. Agnes Branch Library! Our theme for December 10th is Confessional Poetry. Poetry has always been confessional in that a poet can write things that he might not say in conversation. A style of Confessional Poetry emerged during the 1950s and 60s as practiced by poets like Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg and W. D. Snodgrass. Contemporary poets, like Marie Howe and Sharon Olds, have continued this tradition. These authors write openly about trauma in their lives, detailing their depression, sexuality, and their fraught relationships with other people, often within a framework of larger social themes. “Almost the whole problem of writing poetry is to bring it back to what you really feel,” wrote Robert Lowell in the Paris Review.

But confessional poetry existed long before. One of the earliest English poems (dating from around 900),“The Wife’s Lament,” appears to be a confessional poem by a woman exploring her feelings of isolation and despair:

I make this song of myself, deeply sorrowing,
my own life’s journey. I am able to tell
all the hardships I’ve suffered since I grew up,
but new or old, never worse than now –
ever I suffer the torment of my exile.

A Poetry of Confession, influenced by the work of Sylvia Plath, took hold in China when the poet Zhai Yongming published a suite of poems, among them “Abandoned House” from which these lines are taken:

There, the steps are a deep purple
There, the plants are red sunbirds
There, the stones have human faces

I often pass by there
In a variety of nervous postures
I’ve always been feeble come dusk

And that abandoned house shuts its eyes tight
As I stand and stare
Watching rays of daylight slide from its body in agony

Please blog with us here. Share a poem from a published author that deals with confession, is a confession, or even veers away from confession. Tell us why you like it. onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Recap—November 13 One Page Poetry Circle

The One Page Poetry Circle met on November 13, 2019 to read and discuss Optimistic and Pessimistic Poetry.

Abigail opened the circle with lines from James Thomson’s “The City of Dreadful Night,” his evocation of London as a reflection of his own depression, “A sense more tragic than defeat and blight,/More desperate than strife with hope debarred.”

Roger read Tim Rice’s “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina,” which shows both optimism and pessimism. In Evita as Eva Peron faces death, she sings: “The answer was here all the time,/I love you and hope you love me.”

Hazel read John Keats’s beautiful sonnet that begins, “When I have fears that I may cease to be/Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,” and ends with his remedy, “then on the shore/Of the wide world I stand alone, and think/Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.”

Cate read Maxine Kumin’s “Mulching,” in which the narrator recycles her vegetables and newspapers, “wanting to ask/the earth to take my unquiet spirit,/bury it deep, make compost of it.”

Gail read Edgar Allan Poe’s “Alone” describing the singular outlook of this famous writer, “From childhood’s hour I have not been/As others were—I have not seen/As others saw.”

Barbara read Jack Gilbert’s “Failing and Flying” where he puts an optimistic spin on events, “I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,/but just coming to the end of his triumph.”

Daria read William Arthur Ward’s depiction of the opposing temperaments, “Pessimist vs. Optimist”: “The pessimist finds fault;/The optimist discovers a remedy.”

Pat read Christopher Logue’s poster poem, “Come to the Edge,” where fear is overcome, “And they came,/And he pushed,/And they flew.”

Howard read Wallace Stevens’s “Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock,” which invokes the sameness of modern life, “The houses are haunted/By white night-gowns./None are green,/Or purple with green rings.”

AnnaLee read “The Darkling Thrush” by Thomas Hardy in which a thrush’s song breaks through the bleak winter dusk, “there trembled through/His happy good-night air/Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew/And I was unaware.”

Kai couldn’t be there but would like to have brought a pessimistic poem by Gary Snyder, “The Call of the Wild,” which envisions a world in which he describes “A war against earth./When it’s done there’ll be no place/A Coyote could hide,” and an optimistic poem, “Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour” by Wallace Stevens, “Light the first light of evening, as in a room/In which we rest, and for small reason, think/The world imagined is the ultimate good.”

Maria suggested “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats, a pessimistic depiction of a dystopic world, “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,/Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

Carol thought of Pablo Neruda’s “The Sea” which, with its ebb and flow, seems hopeful on some level: “Its essence : fire and cold : movement.”

We’re looking forward to seeing you at the December 10th One Page Poetry Circle, for Poetry and Confession. Whether a poem is confessional, sounds like it is confessional, or veers away from confession, choose a poem by a published poet that has meaning to you. And if you can, come with copies for others to share. Can’t locate a poem you want to bring? Browse the poetry section at the library or check out Poetry Foundation or poets.org.

In the meantime, please blog with us here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall 2019 Schedule
December 10, Poetry and Confession

Upcoming OPPC 2020
February 11, Poetry that Makes You Cry
March 11, Poetry and Muses
April 14, Poetry and Satire
May 12, Poetry and Joy

Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Next One Page Poetry Circle, Nov. 12, 2019—Poetry & Optimism & Pessimism

The One Page Poetry Circle will meet November 7th at St. Agnes Branch Library in Manhattan, to read and discuss Poetry and Optimism or Pessimism.

Pessimistic poems resonate with our own struggles, while optimistic poems can inspire us and give us hope for carrying on.

Gerard Manley Hopkins describes his desperate battle with pessimism at the start of “Carrion Comfort,” and finds some means to move forward:

Not, I’ll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;
Not untwist — slack they may be — these last strands of man
In me ór, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;
Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

Optimism is a word that often appears when googling the work of U.S. Poet Laureates. The first poet to hold the title, Joseph Auslander, portrays his consistent theme of undying spirit in these ending lines from “Is This the Lark”:

To think that I should hear and know
The song that Shelley heard, and Shakespeare, long ago!

Today’s U.S. Poet Laureate, Joy Harbo, the first Native American titleholder, moves from pessimism to optimism in “When the World as We Knew It Ended.”

The poem opens:

We were dreaming on an occupied island at the farthest edge
of a trembling nation when it went down.

And ends:

But then there were the seeds to plant and the babies
who needed milk and comforting, and someone
picked up a guitar or ukulele from the rubble
and began to sing about the light flutter
the kick beneath the skin of the earth

we felt there, beneath us

a warm animal
a song being born between the legs of her;
a poem.

Do all poems show either an optimistic or a pessimistic view of life? Does the attitude depend on the author’s beliefs, the subject of the poem, or how the author presents the subject? Tell us what you think by blogging with us here. Just click the little speech balloon at the top of this blog post near the date of this post. Our blog address is  onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Remaining Fall 2019 Schedule
November 12, Poetry and Optimism or Pessimism
December 10, Poetry and Confession

Poetry and Optimism or Pessimism, Tuesday, November 12, 5:30 – 6:30 pm, St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Avenue (81st St.) All are welcome. Bring friends!

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Recap of October, 2019 One Page Poetry Circle

We met October 1st to discuss Poetry and Odd Titles.

Abigail selected a poem by its title believing it reflected her state of mind, “Poem by a Perfectly Furious Academician.” However, on reading the poem by Shirley Brooks, she discovered that it was written as if by a member of the British Royal Academy who had been selling paintings, “Till savage Ruskin/He sticks his tusk in,/Then nobody will buy.”

Roger read Henry Scott-Holland’s “Death Is Nothing At All,” a title which took him by surprise. Originally written as a sermon, the poem is now popular at funerals because of its optimistic view of death, “All is well./Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost./One brief moment and all will be as it was before./How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again.” From its title, it could also work for a poem that exhibits both pessimism and optimism.

Hazel was struck, as Percy Bysshe Shelley had been, by the name “Ozymandias.” This ancient Egyptian ruler becomes of symbol of human vanity and futility, “‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:/Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’/Nothing beside remains.”

Cate chose Larry Levis’s “Make a Law So That the Spine Remembers Wings” because from the title she had no idea what the poem was about. Is the poem a paean to freedom of movement, or a reminder that freedom comes with responsibility? “So that the truant boy may go steady with the State,/So that in his spine a memory of wings/Will make his shoulders tense & bend.”

Gail and Daria both brought fun children’s poem by Jack Prelutsky, who hated poems in his own childhood, but has brought delight to other generations.

Gail read “Twickham Tweer,” “When Twickham cooked a chicken/he would only eat the bones,/he discarded scoops of ice cream/though he always ate the cones.”

Daria read “Be Glad Your Nose Is on Your Face,” “Imagine if your precious nose/were sandwiched in between your toes,/that clearly would not be a treat,/for you’d be forced to smell your feet.”

Mae read James Carter’s “The Moon Speaks” which is a concrete or shape poem, forming both a circle and with bold first words, a crescent: “I, the moon,/would like it known – I/never follow people home. And neither do I ever shine.” Of course, the moon also does not speak.

AnnaLee closed the circle with a poem by Eloisa Amezcua with an intriguing and titillating title, “I Haven’t Masturbated in Five Days for Fear of Crying” (the link is to a podcast with some discussion of the poem). The poem begins, “because we know distance too well/because the blood bank didn’t have enough blood for nana & her new knee/because I see your car a car like yours parked across the street from my apartment.”

We welcome your comments about these poems and all things poetry. Please blog with us here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com. You can respond to our posts by clicking the little rectangular speech balloon at the top and near the date of this post.

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

Next One Page Poetry Circle Oct. 1, 2019—Poetry with Odd Titles.

Have you ever read a poem because you were intrigued by the title? Whether a title attracts you or repels you, it can have a powerful effect on your reaction to the poem itself. A title often gives you an idea of what a poem is about, but it can also be deliberately misleading. This is all part of what we mean by “odd titles”; titles that for some reason or other stand out in your mind.

L. L. Barkat’s poem (just below) is almost all title:

Meet Me in a Minimalist Poem Where We Can Wear
( )

James Wright’s poem “In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Has Been Condemned” has a grounded and provocative title. Yet the poem takes the reader on an enigmatic trip across the River Styx.

I will grieve alone,
As I strolled alone, years ago, down along
The Ohio shore.
I hid in the hobo jungle weeds
Upstream from the sewer main,
Pondering, gazing.

I saw, down river,
At Twenty-third and Water Streets
By the vinegar works,
The doors open in early evening.
Swinging their purses, the women
Poured down the long street to the river
And into the river.

I do not know how it was
They could drown every evening.
What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore,
Drying their wings?

For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia,
Has only two shores:
The one in hell, the other

In Bridgeport, Ohio.
And nobody would commit suicide, only
To find beyond death
Bridgeport, Ohio. 

Post a poem you like that has an odd title and let us know why you like it! Or make a comment about the ones we selected.

Blog with us here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall 2019 Schedule
October 1, Poetry and Odd Titles
November 12, Poetry and Optimism or Pessimism
December 10, Poetry and Confession

5:30 – 6:30 pm, St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave. (81^st St.), 3^rd Fl.

~Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.

ReCap of September 17, One Page Poetry Circle Meeting

Welcome to the Fall 2019 season of the One Page Poetry Circle where people gather to examine the works of established poets.

At the start of the Poetry Circle on September 17th, the St. Agnes library presented us with a recognition of our ten years of volunteering at the library. We were thrilled with this love letter from our favorite library. What an apt segue into our evening’s theme of Epistolary or Letter Poems!

Abigail opened the circle with Archibald MacLeish’s “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth” which describes a cold ending to life on earth, “I pray you,/you (if any open this writing)/Make in your mouths the words that were our names.”

Roger read “Love Letter” by Sylvia Plath suggesting the changes made by love, “Not easy to state the change you made./If I’m alive now, then I was dead.”

Cate read Carolyn Guinzio’s “The Wire Fence Was Bent Where a Deer Jumped Over” with its plea to care for each other, “I am ready, every day/as I pass, to cast over/a glance and make sure/all is still still, to drag you/out – or leave you there – /in your designated air.”

Gail read “This is a Letter” by Rebecca Dunham which begins with a rich description of fall, “This is a letter to the worm-threaded earth./This is a letter to November, its gray bowl of sky riven by black-branched trees./A letter to split-tomato skins, overripe apples, & a flock of fruit flies lifting from the blueing clementines’ wood crate.”

Denise read Clint Smith’s heart-breaking poem about the Middle Passage, “August 1619,” from the 1619 Project for the New York Times Magazine, which ends, “The soft hum of history spins/on its tilted axis. A cavalcade of ghost ships/wash their hands of all they carried.

Daria read Joy Harjo’s “Remember” which presents the world from the tradition of Creek culture, “Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you./Remember language comes from this./Remember the dance language is, that life is./Remember.”

Carol read “Letter to NY” by Elizabeth Bishop, written to her former love, Louise Crane, “In your next letter I wish you’d say/where you are going and what you are doing;/how are the plays, and after the plays/what other pleasures you’re pursuing.”

AnnaLee read an excerpt from Horace’s “To Maecenas” in which the narrator seeks to advance a cause, “Just so the hours drag on that hinder me/in my ambition to advance myself/in the sort of project that, if carried out/Successfully, is good for anyone.” AnnaLee brought David Ferry’s translation, which is not available on line; but this link leads to a different translation of “The Epistles.”

Kai could not attend, but thought of Mark Strand’s “The Continuous Life”: “Explain … that you live in a blur/Of hours and days, months and years, and believe/It has meaning, despite the occasional fear.”

Mark your calendars for the October 1st One Page Poetry Circle, which begins at 5:30 at the St. Agnes Branch of the New York Public Library, 81st Street and Amsterdam Avenue, NYC.

All are welcome. Bring friends!

Fall 2019 Schedule
October 1, Poetry and Odd Titles
November 12, Poetry and Optimism or Pessimism
December 10, Poetry and Confession

Abigail Burnham Bloom and AnnaLee Wilson

The One Page Poetry Circle is sponsored by the New York Public Library and is open to all. St. Agnes Branch Library is handicap accessible.