One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the Virtual One Page Poetry Circle!

We're at the end of the sixteenth 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 1547 poems and have read countless others in pursuit of poetry that speaks to them.

We met on December 19th to discuss Poetry and Mysticism.

AnnaLee looked for ways in which mysticism related to the here and now. She opened the circle with verse VII, from "Sunday Morning" by Pulitzer Prize-winning, American Modernist, Wallace Stevens. She loves how the writing imagines a boisterous chant to the rising sun, voices entering the waters of life, the choir of sounds made by the trees, and the fellowship of mortality in which humans leave their mark upon the world: "And whence they came and whither they shall go/The dew upon their feet shall manifest."

Cate found a metaphysical work by Jane Hirshfield, in which the author plays with time. Hirshfield was influenced by Zen Buddhism, science, and biology. The poem, titled for its first five words, begins: "I imagine myself in time looking back on myself—this self, this morning,/drinking her coffee on the first day of a new year/and once again almost unable to move her pen/through the iron air." We noticed its slant rhyme and its ironic play on words. At the poem's ending, the author asks: "And that other self, who watches me from the/distance of decades,/what will she say? Will she look at me with hatred/or with compassion,/I whose choices made her what she will be?"

Susan read Adam Zagajewski's "Mysticism for Beginners," in which the narrator has a sudden insight into the meaning of life. He sees that memories in his experience, "are only mysticism for beginners,/the elementary course, prelude/to a test that's been/postponed."

Daria found mystical poet William Blake's "The Divine Image," which brings a message that both God and Man are one, and that all humans, no matter their creed, skin tone, gender, or state of mind, are worthy: "And all must love the human form,/In heathen, Turk, or Jew;/Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell/There God is dwelling too." Blake, who lived from 1757 to 1827, received criticism for his radical beliefs.

Jane thought of a much beloved and enigmatic Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." The poem begins with a man pausing in a wooded area near an empty farmhouse on his journey during the darkest evening of the year—the winter solstice. With simple imagery and few words Frost creates an outer world of silence giving the stage to our inner voices to ponder life: "The woods are lovely dark and deep,/But I have promises to keep,/And miles to go before I sleep,/And miles to go before I sleep."

Gail completed our circle with a reading of Debora Greger's "A Single Night in the City of Gold," in which a once splendid movie theater, the protagonist's state of aloneness, and a tragic-comic Chaplin movie classic—Gold Rush—come together in a magical connection.

• O silent film of my life, unwind!

• It wasn't the wind but the silence that howled,
• ecstatic in the emptiness at the heart of the West.
• But Chaplin had a mystic's hunger
• for the finer things: he boiled his boot.
• He wound a shoelace on a fork.
• He tasted shame for me, and found it sweet.

Abigail read "The Owl" by Edward Thomas, and felt the melancholy today of the owl's cry heard in 1917 as the narrator thinks of what he "escaped and others could not":

• And salted was my food, and my repose,
• Salted and sobered, too, by the bird's voice
• Speaking for all who lay under the stars,
• Soldiers and poor, unable to rejoice.

Roger loved "Haunted Houses" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow with its expression of how those who have gone before us, linger with us, "So from the world of spirits there descends/A bridge of light, connecting it with this,/O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,/Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss."

Scott wrote, "The worst thing that can happen to a parent is the death of a child. When my brother died at 20, I read through the sympathy cards that poured in. I did not find them comforting—except one. A friend of the family who was a bit of a mystic herself sent Kahlil Gibran's 'On Children.' While perhaps not a source of comfort, it serves as a reminder that the loss is not just theirs. It begins": "Your children are not your children./They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself./They come through you but not from you,/And though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

June sent "the poem whose title is usually shortened to 'Tintern Abbey,' which is one of my favorite poems by William Wordsworth, my favorite Romantic poet. This section enables me, a practical person who lives in the everyday, to glimpse the sublime joy of mysticism." The poet describes a mood in which "the burthen of the mystery" of this world is lightened:

• Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
• And even the motion of our human blood
• Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
• In body, and become a living soul:
• While with an eye made quiet by the power
• Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
• We see into the life of things.

Kai felt the simplicity and depth of "Prayer" by Marie Howe which ends, "Help me. Even as I write these/words I am planning/to rise from the chair as soon as/I finish this sentence." Kai comments, "The poet captures the constant and almost wistful human yearning for spiritual connection, for feeling the presence of the Divine in our lives, while acknowledging how difficult it is to cut through the noise of busyness of the mundane to reach a place of oneness with God."

Carol discovered "Ghazal 119" by Rumi, "This instructs the reader to find kind people, sweet friends, and to turn away from bitter companions who turn life to vinegar, 'getting more sour with time.'"

• I don't need
• a companion who is
• nasty sad and sour
• the one who is
• like a grave
• dark depressing and bitter.

Philip looked for Jewish mystical poems and came across "Think of yourself as nothing" by The Maggid of Mezeritch: "Think of yourself as nothing,/And totally forget yourself when you pray./Only have in mind that you are praying for the Divine Prescence/You can then enter the Universe of Thought,/A state that is beyond time." This mystical poem reminded him of Emily Dickinson:

• I'm Nobody! Who are you?
• Are you — Nobody — too?

Christine had been waiting for the right One Page Poetry Circle theme to send us the two opening lines from a poem by German-language poet Rainer Maria Rilke, saying "these words speak to me." Here is the full first verse of "I Am Much Too Alone in This World, Yet Not Alone":

• I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone
•      enough
• to truly consecrate the hour.
• I am much too small in this world, yet not small
•      enough
• to be to you just object and thing,
• dark and smart.
• I want my free will and want it accompanying
• the path which leads to action;
• and want during times that beg questions,
• where something is up,
• to be among those in the know,
• or else be alone.

Jane S. found two poems in her beloved copy of News of the Universe: Poems of twofold consciousness chosen and introduced by Robert Bly. She compares "I Live My Life" by Rainer Maria Rilke: "I live my life in growing orbits,/which move out over the things of the world" to David Ignatow's "I should be content/to look at a mountain/for what it is/and not as a comment/on my life" observing that the poets seem to be grappling with "two sides of the same idea...I love them both and my life is richer for it."

See you in the spring! In the meantime blog with us onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Spring 2024 Schedule
February 20, Poetry and Paint
March 19, Poetry and Rabbits
April 16, Poetry and Insects
May 21, Poetry and Growth

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

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