Review of One Page Poetry Circle—Sept. 19, 2023 Meeting

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle!

We met in person at the New York Public Library, St. Agnes Branch and through emails to discuss poems from a favorite poetry book. Between our in-person meeting and our virtual one, we received an outpouring of poems!

Abigail chose Walt Whitman’s “Of the terrible doubt of appearances,” first read in a book that her husband was given, Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, edited by Ben and Anthony Holden:

I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

Roger thought of his favorite lines from “Julius Caesar” in his complete works of William Shakespeare, as Cassius reflects on how he once saved Caesar’s life:

…And this man
Is now become a god, and Cassius is
A wretched creature and must bend his body,
If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

Daria selected “Woman Work” from a volume of Maya Angelou’s poetry. Written in the first person, the poem begins with a 14-line drumbeat of drudgery created by seven steady 2-line rhymes: “I’ve got the children to tend/The clothes to mend/The floor to mop/The food to shop.” The structure shifts in the middle of the poem to four 4-line verses addressing the natural world, and ends: “Sun, rain, curving sky/Mountain, oceans, leaf and stone,/Star shine, moon glow,/You’re all that I can call my own.”

Susan thought of “Home Burial” by Robert Frost, “who would bury five of his six children before he died. I know grief and child loss very well. When I read this poem, I become the wife at the window. I become the angry, silent husband. I am inside their pain and desperation”:

The little graveyard where my people are!
So small the window frames the whole of it.
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?
There are three stones of slate and one of marble.

Kai writes that “Praise by former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass has been my favorite book of poetry for more than forty years.” One poem that she comes back to time and again is “Songs to Survive the Summer.” Here is a snippet from this long poem: “The squalor of mind/is formlessness,/informis,/the Romans said,/it has no form,/a man’s misery, bleached skies/the war between desire/and dailiness.”

Eileen brought “Here” by Grace Paley from a collection of the poet’s works. The poet, an activist, was born in the Bronx in 1922 and died in Vermont in 2007. Eileen commented, “This was the most romantic poem I have ever read.” The poem ends in these unexpected lines:

That’s my old man across the yard
he’s talking to the meter reader
He’s telling him the world’s sad story
How electricity is oil or uranium
And so forth    I tell my grandson
Run over to your grandpa    ask him
To sit beside me for a minute    I
am suddenly exhausted by my desire
to kiss his sweet explaining lips

Susan discovered “Virus” by Jack Coulehan while looking through the Journal of the American Medical Association. Coulehan asks the reader to consider the virus’s dependence, “on others without a self without/the endless forms most beautiful/or music or even a whisper.” Coulehan wrote poetry in his youth and then began again when he was “burnt out and in crisis. Help arrived in the form of a writing teacher. He thrived as a poet and doctor.”

Richard also selected a Robert Frost poem, this one from the most modern and limitless volume of poetry, the Internet—where, at the Poetry Foundation’s web site, he found Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” He added a photo of Frost reading this much beloved poem, which begins: “Whose woods these are I think I know./His house is in the village though;/He will not see me stopping here/To watch his woods fill up with snow.”

Philip sent a poem from one of his favorite Poets, Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” He comments, “Have known old age in good/bad times. Still curious and still keep on trucking”:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Gail found two poems. The first poem we read—“Oranges and Lemons”—was inspired by her recent reading of George Orwell’s 1984. The familiar old English poem that children sing dates back to 1760. Orwell used it in his prophetic novel to foreshadow aspects of the plot. It begins innocuously: “Oranges and lemons/Say the bells of St. Clement’s/You owe me five farthings/Say the bells of St. Martin’s.” But ends ominously: “Here comes a candle/To light you to bed/And here comes a chopper/To chop off your head.” Gail also brought The Golden Book’s Famous Treasury of Poetry, a collection of children’s poems she bought when her children were young. From this she shared Emily Dickinson’s “The Snake”: A narrow fellow in the grass/Occasionally rides;/You may have met him,—did you not,/His notice sudden is.”

June sent “Poetry” by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid. “I love its many surprises. The book from which it comes, one of many I read this summer, is Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation, edited by Roger Housden. I love the book because I love so many of the poems!”

And I, tiny being,
Drunk with the great starry void,
Likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss.
I wheeled with the stars.
My heart broke loose with the wind.

Christiana remembers when she was 5 or 6, she and her brother began spending more time with their maternal grandmother. Though her grandmother never had a chance at higher education, she taught herself from books “borrowed” from family members. She loved poetry books. When her grandchildren visited for weeks during the summer, she read to them daily, and recited poetry that she knew by heart. Christiana writes, “Her tour-de-force, ‘The Lady of Shalott’ by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, is way too long for our One Page Poetry Circle, but is forever imprinted on my being: ‘On either side the river lie/Long fields of barley and of rye,/That clothe the wold and meet the sky;/And thro’ the field the road runs by.’”

Linda mentioned The Zen of Therapy by Mark Epstein in which the author explains why and how he uses meditation in his practice, and in which she was introduced to “Snake” by D. H. Lawrence:

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

Larry chose “Nude Descending a Staircase” by X. J. Kennedy from the anthology, Contemporary American Poetry, edited by Donald Hall. “I have so many favorite poems, that the word ‘favorite’ becomes meaningless in this context. I had the habit of marking favorites in the Table of Contents, and this poem got my highest mark—not just a ‘dash,’ but a ‘cross’!”: “Toe after toe, a snowing flesh,/a gold of lemon, root and rind,/she sifts in sunlight down the stairs/with nothing on. Nor on her mind.”

Carol sent “Your Feet” by Pablo Neruda: “But I love your feet/only because they walked/upon the earth and upon/the wind and upon the waters,/until they found me.” “Neruda’s keen focus on simple elements draws my attention to color, nuance, sights, sounds, detritus, I would normally miss—but most of all, he draws me to what/whom he loves. I have Chilean friends who introduced me to his work and I have missed these friends and the time we used to share before Covid. Seeking out his poetry again brings back those cherished times among friends.”

Scott writes, “When I was an e.e. cummings fan in high school, I encountered his collected Norton Lectures from 1952-53, ‘i: six nonlectures.’ He reminisces about his childhood, his education at Harvard, his experiences during the Great War in Paris and New York. He concludes each nonlecture by reading some favorite poems. Most are from the traditional canon, though his taste is impeccable, and he even shows good judgment in selecting his own work, including the always delightful ‘in Just-spring’”:

In Just-
spring        when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman
whistles    far    and wee                                                                                 

Cate is drawn to books about Colorado, where she spent much time. She brought the poem “Over Colorado” by the Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott, who was born and died on the Island of St. Lucia. Walcott taught at Boston University, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, and was knighted. Cate especially loves these lines from the poem: “Colorado, rust and white;/The snow his praise,/the snow/his obliterator.”

Dugg brought and performed two of his own poems, reading us a Haiku first: “I forget roses/then true love reminded me/we are the blossoms.” Although the One Page Poetry Circle is for the appreciation of published works, the group enjoyed the recitation.

AnnaLee brings the circle around with her favorite volume of poetry, a much dog-eared copy of John Ciardi’s How Does a Poem Mean, which she’s been carrying with her since her high school English teacher used it to teach the junior year poetry section. “This paperback has seen Westfield, New Jersey, Syracuse New York, Bloomington, Indiana, and New York City. It’s startling to find my 16-year-old handwriting in the margins as I worked to crack the poems’ meanings. One of my favorites, “Deciduous Branch” by Stanley Kunitz begins: “Winter, that coils in the thickets now,/Will glide from the fields; the swinging rain/Be knotted with flowers; on every bough/A bird will mediate again.”

Whether a poem talks about change or changed you, choose a poem that has meaning to you. If you can attend the Poetry Circle, bring a poem, with copies for others. If you’re unable to attend, email your selection to one of us by October 17 with a brief comment on why you chose it. Can’t locate a poem you want to send? Check out Poetry Foundation or poets.org. In the meantime, please blog with us here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.                                                                        

Fall 2023 Schedule
October 17: Poetry and Change
November 21: Poetry and Promises
December 19: Poetry and Mysticism

Abigail Burnham Bloom, abigailburnhambloom@gmail.com
AnnaLee Wilson, annalee@kaeserwilson.com

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 December 1, Prose Poems

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

We met on November 1 to discuss Prose Poems. We loved discussing the difference between poetry and prose and found it to be a thin line indeed.

Abigail opened the circle by reading the first paragraph of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita which begins, “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.” Nabokov incorporates the images, meter, alliteration, and density of poetry into his prose.

Roger read the words of two great presidents: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Pearl Harbor Speech” telling the nation about “a date which will live in infamy” and Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address.” We found Lincoln’s words to be more like poetry, more evocative with more rhythms and figures of speech as he contrasts the living with “these honored dead.”

Hazel read Antony’s famous funeral oration from William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,/And I must pause till it come back to me.” Clearly written in poetic lines with an iambic pentameter rhythm the words have the sentence structure of a prose speech.

Phil read the beautiful conclusion of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy in James Joyce’s Ulysses: “then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.” Like Nabokov, Joyce was also a poet whose prose is as rich and beautiful as his poetry.

Gail read “Allegory of the Cave” by Stephen Dunn based on Plato’s vision. A man attempts to tell his fellow prisoners what he has learned in the twentieth century but finds himself unable to communicate effectively and eventually, “He just stood here,/confused, a man who had moved/to larger errors, without a prayer.”

Elizabeth read a review from Poetry Magazine by Frederick Seidel of a book of poems by Jonathan Galassi that approached poetry itself, “In the middle of Galassi’s life’s journey, in the middle of the dark woods, the road forked. Galassi had no choice —and chose—and wrote these poems. You have here the music of civilized decency superintending a heart raving and roaring like a lion.”

Eileen read Grace Paley’s “Here” which states with lovely simplicity what life is like for her, “Here I am in the garden laughing/an old woman with heavy breasts/and a nicely mapped face.”

AnnaLee closed the circle by singing a ballad, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” a true story of racial injustice, written in the Civil Rights era by Bob Dylan, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature. In the final twist of the refrain, “Oh, but you who philosophize disgrace and criticize all fears/Bury the rag deep in your face/For now’s the time for your tears,” Dylan gives America permission to cry.

Between prose that reads like poetry and poetry that reads like prose, we found the two delightfully intertwined and inseparable. As Peter Johnson explains, “Just as black humor straddles the fine line between comedy and tragedy, so the prose poem plants one foot in prose, the other in poetry, both heels resting precariously on banana peels.”

We look forward to seeing the works you select for Poetry and Endings and to discussing them with you on December 13. Bring a poem of a known poet. Bring a friend. Show up! And widen the circle! Without your support the library may find other uses for the spacious room they’ve given us.

Blog with us here at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall Schedule:
December 13, Poetry and Endings

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.