One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle!

Date: December 17, 2024
Theme: Poetry and Lists
Time: 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Place: St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, 3rd fl. Or by email email (see addresses below)

Find a poem! Show up! Or, send a poem by email!

We're back for the seventeenth fall season of the One Page Poetry Circle where people examine the works of established poets. While there is 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 1660 poems and have read countless others in pursuit of poetry that speaks to them.

GOOD NEWS:
The One Page Poetry Circle has returned to the St. Agnes Library. (Thanks! everyone who turned out for our November program.) In addition, for those who are unable to attend the Dec. 17th program, you will still be able to participate by email.

If you can make the December 17th meeting, we ask that you bring a poem with you on the theme of Poetry and Choices, with copies for others if you can.

If you're unable to attend, send us the poem you've selected with a comment on why you chose it. We'll share the poems with you in person, by email, and through our blog.

A list poem, also called catalog verse, uses a list of words or phrases to convey a topic, idea, or emotion.

Abigail, who always enjoys pockets, admires the satire of "Why We Oppose Pockets for Women" composed by the suffragette Alice Duer Miller. The poem concludes with her 8th reason: "Because pockets have been used by men to carry tobacco, pipes, whiskey flasks, chewing gum and compromising letters. We see no reason to suppose that women would use them more wisely."

AnnaLee remembered attending a poetry reading by Allen Ginsberg in the early 1960s, and thought of "Howl" with its inventory of condemnations against modern society: "I saw the best minds of my generation.../who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high.../who bared their brains to Heaven under the El.../who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes hallucinating Arkansas.../who were expelled from the academies for crazy..."

We met in person and through email for the November 19th program on Poetry and Choices.

Abigail was intrigued by the difficulty of choosing a word painted on a rock as described by Joanne Durham in "Words Matter: Choose Wisely": "I choose wisely,/so understanding remains/for the home that needs it most."

AnnaLee found J.V. Cunningham's "Choice" with its insistent rhythm and choice rhymes on the marriage vow, and how, if circumstances change, one might undo that choice without breaking the contract. The epigrammatic poem begins:

• Allegiance is assigned
• Forever when the mind
• Chooses and stamps the will.
• Thus, I must love you still
• Through good and ill.

Lucy, who loves trees, selected Mary Oliver's "The Black Walnut Tree" in which the narrator and her mother have a difficult choice between their love for the beautiful tree and its market value. Lucy especially admires the poem's ending, in which the freedom of the tree, which "swings through another year/of sun and leaping winds/of leaves and bounding fruit," is contrasted with "the whip-/crack of the mortgage."

Judy brought the horrifying "Traveling through the Dark" by William E. Stafford, in which the narrator decides what to do with a dead deer at the side of the road: "I dragged her off; she was large in the belly./My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—/her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,/alive, still, never to be born."

Larry sent David Wagoner's "The Water Lily" about the choice of a photographer gazing at a pond, "To lift his eyes among wrinkles, to lift one shoulder/And one slow corner of his mouth, to take no picture/But slowly to turn away,/To take nothing away but his mind's eye."

Gail brought and Rochelle sent "Choices" by Tess Gallagher, in which the narrator intends "to cut saplings,/and clear a view to snow/on the mountain." Upon seeing a nest in the branches, however, she refrains from cutting any of the trees. Gail, "loved the simple, accessible story-telling quality of this short, free-verse poem and the lyrical power of its final (and only) rhyme."

• Suddenly, in every tree,
• an unseen nest
• where a mountain
• would be.

Cate selected "July 1, 1982" by Ishmael Reed. She liked the structure and the way the poet centered each line of the poem on the page. She was struck by how little the poet had to write to convey the desperation of people trying to make choices about their lives. The final lines stood out to her as a stark choice: "In the Viet Nam War/58,000 Americans died by homicide/59,000 Americans died by suicide."

Roger enjoyed the approach of choosing the not so well-off lover over the wealthy one described by Dorothy Parker in "The Choice":

• You—you'd only to whistle low,
•   Gaily I followed wherever you led.
• I took you, and I let him go, —
•   Somebody ought to examine my head!"

Daria chose a poem by an unknown author, "I choose to live by choice," saying it spoke to her values. The narrator presents a series of contrasts: "I choose to live by choice, not by chance,/ To be motivated, not manipulated,/To be useful, not used."

Eileen read "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley saying that the last two lines, "I am the master of my fate,/I am the captain of my soul," convinced her that the narrator had chosen to take control of his own destiny.

Jeanne sent "Praying" by Mary Oliver, where the poet "is making choices with her imagery (...many that delight me). Not the blue iris, but weeds or small stones; not elaborate words; not a contest, but a doorway and a silence":

• It doesn't have to be
• the blue iris, it could be
• weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
• small stones, just
• pay attention, then patch
• a few words together and don't try
• to make them elaborate, this isn't
• a contest but the doorway
• into thanks, and a silence in which
• another voice may speak.

Carol responded to the simplicity of William Henry Dawson's "There Is a Difference" and his choice to look at the glass as half full: "If you would ever happy be,/Don't be sour with all you see,/But be joyous, happy and free."

Kai sent John Berryman's "Henry's Understanding," writing, "This powerful and evocative poem is the last the poet wrote before taking his own life. It describes the almost casual and nonchalant choice he faces to step out of comfort and familiarity to end his life forever: a deceptively simple description of a decision that would shatter the lives of those he leaves behind, sleeping in their beds, peacefully unaware of his late-night torment":

• ...it occurred to me
• that one night, instead of warm pajamas,
• I'd take off all my clothes
• & cross the damp cold lawn & down the bluff
• into the terrible water & walk forever
• under it out toward the island.

June sent "Things to Think" by Robert Bly, "As a pessimist, I would love to 'Think in ways you've never thought before,' especially that a telephone message could be 'vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats'" or: "Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,/Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose/Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers/A child of your own whom you've never seen."

Scott assumed that someone would choose Frost's "The Road Not Taken" but he prefers Stephen Crane's "The Wayfarer":

• The wayfarer,
• Perceiving the pathway to truth,
• Was struck with astonishment.
• It was thickly grown with weeds.
• "Ha," he said,
• "I see that none has passed here
• In a long ime."
• Later he saw that each weed
• Was a singular knife.
• "Well," he membled at last,
• "Doubtless there are other roads."

Linda read her own poem, "All Lives Matter," with its message that we can choose to understand one another through listening and sharing in "the rainbow/after the rain."

Whether a poem mentions lists or contains one, choose a poem that is meaningful to you. Then email it to one of us by December 17th, 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 at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall Schedule
Tuesday, December 17: Poetry and Lists

Abigail Burnham Bloom, abigailburnhambloom(at)gmail(dot)com
AnnaLee Wilson, annalee(at)kaeserwilson(dot)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.