One Page Poetry Circle Archive

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

Date: Tuesday, December 11
Time: 5:30 - 6:30 pm
Place: St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave. (near 81st Street), 3rd Floor
Theme: Poetry and Wine (pdf)

Find a poem! Show up! Read a poem! Discuss a poem!

We're back for the eleventh season of the One Page Poetry Circle where people gather to examine the works of established poets. While there's no instructor and this is not a workshop for personal writing, once a month OPPC gives everyone a place to become teachers and learners to explore the form, content, language and meaning of poetry. Since the circle began, participants have selected and discussed 1010 poems and have read countless others in pursuit of poetry that speaks to them.

Wine and poetry go back a long time together: the festival of Dionysus, in Greek mythology, and Bacchus, in Roman, celebrated wine and poetry. Wine has been a muse to poets, and all too often a curse, in all cultures.

Percy Bysshe Shelley's fragment, "The Vine-Shroud," combines the "flourishing" growth of the grape with the ruin below in Italy:

• Flourishing vine, whose kindling clusters glow
• Beneath the autumnal sun, none taste of thee;
• For thou dost shroud a ruin, and below
• The rotting bones of dead antiquity.

Writing about the start of vineyards in California, Robert Louis Stevenson stated in Silverado Squatters that "Wine is bottled poetry."

In 2016 the word "wine" was banished from books published in Iran. It wasn't always so. Once there was a strong tradition of wine-themed poetry. In the opening lines of "Pass Around the Cup Fair Maiden," the 11th century poet and Sufi Master, Hafiz (born in Shiraz!) wrote:

• Pass around the cup fair maiden,
• Because Love seemed easy at first,
• But now I see how difficult it is.

We're looking forward to seeing you at the December 11th One Page Poetry Circle, and drinking in the poetry you bring on the subject of Wine. Whether a poem concerns wine, takes a stance on drinking, or was composed under the influence, choose a poem 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 at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall 2018 Schedule
Tuesday, December 11, Poetry and Wine

Join us in the Spring!
Tuesday, February 12, Poetry and You
Tuesday, March 5, Poetry and Food
Tuesday, April 2, Poetry and Mystery
Tuesday, May 7, Poetry and Longing

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.