One Page Poetry Circle Archive

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

Date: Tuesday, November 13
Time: 5:30 - 6:30 pm
Place: St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave. (near 81st Street), 3rd Floor
Theme: Poetry and Simplicity (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 1099 poems and have read countless others in pursuit of poetry that speaks to them.

By abandoning unwanted descriptions and unnecessary words, poetry achieves simplicity-expressing much with little. There have been one word poems and one line poems such as the haikus by Ozaki H?sai: "In a kindling fire I can see all my furniture" and "I've become completely alone and the evening sky."

Henry David Thoreau composed a two-line poem:

• My life has been the poem I would have writ
• but I could not both live and utter it.

Poems that express simplicity don't need to be short, just elegant, as in these opening lines from "The Meaning of Simplicity" by Yannis Ritsos:

• I hide behind simple things so you’ll find me;
• if you don’t find me, you’ll find the things,
• you’ll touch what my hand has touched,
• our hand-prints will merge.

We're looking forward to the poems you bring on the subject of Simplicity. Whether a poem speaks in simple terms, concerns simplicity, or expresses its meaning with ease and grace, 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, November 13, Poetry and Simplicity
Tuesday, December 11, Poetry and Wine

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.