One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle!

Date: October 15, 2024
Theme: Poetry and Mathematics
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 1625 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.
In addition, for those who are unable to attend, you will still be able to participate by email.

If you can make the October 15th meeting, we ask that you bring a poem with you on the theme of Poetry and Mathematics, 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.

Poetry and Mathematics intersect in many ways: poetry and mathematics are both ancient parts of human culture, rhyme and cadence and lines are counted like numbers, both can convey multiple meanings, and both require economy and precision.

Here are a few lines from "Homage to Gödel" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, describing Gödel's theorem: "In any sufficiently rich system/statements are possible/which can neither be proved/nor refuted within the system,/unless the system itself/is inconsistent":

• Gödel's theorem may seem, at first sight,
• rather nondescript,
• but please keep in mind
• Gödel is right.

• You can describe your own language
• in your own language:
• but not quite.

AnnaLee recalls her father, a math teacher, saying that women were overlooked in the field of mathematics because people believed they didn't have the mind for it. He advised that if I wanted to be a mathematician I should attend teacher's college, major in math, and thus insure I would always have a job. "My Dance Is Mathematics," JoAnne Growney's poem about algebraist Amalie "Emmy" Noether, who Einstein believed to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all times, reveals the reality of Noether's sacrifice:

• I heard fathers say, "Dance with Emmy—
• just once, early in the evening. Old Max
• is my friend; his daughter likes to dance."

• If a woman's dance is mathematics,
• she dances alone.

We met September 17 to discuss Poetry and Jewels and found a lot of gems.

Abigail enjoys the way that Elizabeth Barrett Browning uses jewels to signify the treasured things of this world that no longer give pleasure following the death of her beloved in "My Heart and I": "Tired out we are, my heart and I./Suppose the world brought diadems/To tempt us, crusted with loose gems/Of powers and pleasures? Let it try."

Roger found Emily Dickinson's "The Lost Jewel" which shows the transience of precious things:

• I held a jewel in my fingers
• And went to sleep.
• The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
• I said: "'Twill keep"

• I woke and chide my honest fingers,--
• The gem was gone;
• And now an amethyst remembrance
• Is all I own.

Kai chose Dickinson also, "I could bring You Jewels—had I a mind to" which ends, "Never a Fellow matched this Topaz—/And his Emerald Swing—/Dower itself—for Bobadilo—/Better—Could I bring?" "To the poet, a beautiful, colorful flower she discovered in a field is more precious a gift than jewels or any other exotic fancy thing in her power to bestow. For Dickinson, no gift is greater or more valuable than one created by nature and given from the heart."

Larry sent "a short piece of prose that I'm taking to be a prose poem" by Robert Francis, "The Well-made Poem," from The Satirical Rogue on Poetry (1968): "Spare me, please, the man who speaks, whether/disparagingly or approvingly, of the well-made poem./Has he never read or heard that poems are not made/but grow—like snowflakes, like flowers, like seashells?/Has he never perceived that a true poem—like a rose,/like a goddess, like a diamond—is not made but born?"

June thought of John Donne's "To His Mistress on Going to Bed," a seduction poem that refers to gems as distractions, "Gems which you women use/Are like Atlanta's balls, cast in men's views." "My favorite part refers only to 'precious stones,' and always makes me laugh out loud":

• Licence my roving hands, and let them go,
• Before, behind, between, above, below.
• O my America! my new-found-land,
• My kingdom, safeliest when with one man mann'd,
• My Mine of precious stones, My Empirie,
• How blest am I in this discovering thee!

Carol wrote, "As part of my activity with my garden club, I am engaged with STEM education programs for middle school students and found J. A. Hartley's poem 'diamond rain' touching": "diamonds falling/from upside d-d-downside/what a way to die."

AnnaLee opened the in-person One Page Poetry Circle with "Jewel Thief Movie" by the multiple award-winning novelist, essayist and poet, Patricia Lockwood. She loved the poem for its visualizations and personifications of precious stones, many in their raw state. "Reading it brought me back to the old gem room at the American Museum of Natural History and my trip to prospect for fluorescent minerals among the waste rock in Franklin, New Jersey":

• I had dozens of uses, but I was mostly
• flat beautiful. Visitors just gasped
• in the matte-black room where I freely
• fluoresced. They saw me laid on a dictionary
• to demonstrate my transparency,
• which was complete; they could read the word
• everything through me.

Gail found "Jewel Box" a rich, layered work by the Irish poet Eamon Grennan. The poem's jewels of language both literal and figurative, references to shell, ruby, lapis lazuli, sapphire, amber, onyx, and persistent enjambment describe a man's passion for his lover: "before returning to the journey. Dressed,/you select a string of chipped amber/to hang round your neck, a pair of star-shaped/earrings, a simple ring of jet-black/lustrous onyx. Going down the stairs and/out to the fogbound street, you light my way." The poem reminded Gail of Keats.

Phil, a retired geologist, thought of lyricist Leo Robin's "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" from the original 1949 production of the Broadway show "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." While he read it, I (as I'm sure others did) sang it in my head:

• A kiss on the hand may be quite continental,
• But diamonds are a girl's best friend.
• A kiss may be grand, but it won't pay the rental
• On your humble flat
• Or help you at the automat.
• Men grow cold as girls grow old,
• And we lose our charm in the end.
• But square cut or pear shape
• These rocks don't lose their shape!
• Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

Daria completed the circle with "Her Jewelry" a poem by PoetFromAnotherPlanet. The poem describes the author's feelings when asked to make a small selection out of many jewelry items from her deceased grandmother. The poem begins: "They're dividing up my grandmother's jewelry,/An act that feels more final than death" and states, "I want to wear her artist spirit./I already have her poet's blood running through me." A lively discussion ensued about our common feelings that jewelry's greatest value may come from our memories of the wearer. Leanne, who was new to the poetry circle, told us of the Chinese custom that jewels are handed down through men in the family, not women.

Cate couldn't make the poetry circle, but sent Nithy Kasa's "A Father Stops at a Jewelry Store." The author was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo and reared in Kinshasa and Galway, Ireland. Cate noted "I like it for its reference to the father's complex 'thought' of an unripe face beaming." "As he pulled his skeleton/towards the display,/a thought glissaded/onto the unwrinkled glass/like a film only he could see,/an unripe face with pearls on,/beaming."

A note from the OPPC moderators:
We're concerned about the future of the One Page Poetry Circle, now in its 17th year. Since the program's return after the Covid Pandemic, in-person attendance has dropped. In fact, most of the poetry in this letter was emailed to us. Daria Lindsay, a St. Agnes Branch Librarian, has graciously secured a large space on the third floor for our monthly programs. She promotes the One Page Poetry Circle by displaying our posters, and recommending the program to Library members. She prepares our room, and always attends meetings. But if we can't attract enough participants, another program will take its place. Put us on your calendar! Tell your friends! Without participation we'll be forced to retire the One Page Poetry Circle.

Whether a poem mentions anything mathematical or has mathematical precision or economy, choose a poem that is meaningful to you. Then email it to one of us by October 15th, 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, October 15: Poetry and Mathematics
Tuesday, November 19: Poetry and Choices
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.