One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle!

Date: May 19, 2026
Theme: Poetry and Poetic Devices
Time: 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Place: St. Agnes Branch Library, 444 Amsterdam Ave, 3rd fl. Or by email (see addresses below).

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

We're back for the 18th spring 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 1836 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 can still participate by email.

Our topic for May is Poetry and Poetic Devices. Poetic devices are what make poetry, poetic. They enhance the musicality, meaning, and depth of a poem. There are countless poetic devices; among the most common are rhyme, meter, alliteration, metaphor, simile, personification, allusion, and imagery.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson applies anaphora, repetition at the start of a verse, to imitate the sound of the sea (onomatopoeia) in "Break, Break, Break": "Break, break, break,/On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!/And I would that my tongue could utter/The thoughts that arise in me."

Robert Browning uses alliteration, onomatopoeia, slant rhymes, creative rhyme schemes, and other poetic devices to tell the story of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." Of the fifteen stanzas that make up the poem, no two rhyme schemes are alike. This 11-line stanza tells its part of the story in AABABAAADDA.

• Rats!
• They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
• And bit the babies in the cradles,
• And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
• And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
• Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
• Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
• And even spoiled the women's chats
• By drowning their speaking
• With shrieking and squeaking
• In fifty different sharps and flats.

We met on April 21 with a fine showing for Poetry and Dance.

AnnaLee opened the One Page Poetry Circle with "The Dance," an ekphrastic poem, in which William Carlos Williams employs numerous poetic devices to portray uninhibited fair goers in a Pieter Brueghel painting: "the dancers go round, they go round and/around, the squeal and the blare and the/tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles/tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-/sided glasses whose wash they impound)." Williams was posthumously awarded the 1963 Pulitzer for Poetry for his Pictures from Brueghel and Other Poems.

Karen read a selection from Cornelius Eady's "Victims of the Latest Dance Craze." The book was the 1985 Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets:

• "O, Jazz has come from heaven" he says,
• And at the z he jumps, arcing his back like a heron's neck,
• And stands suddenly revealed
• As a balance demon,
• A home for
• Stetson hats.

Don read Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" noting the irony of the title, which refers to the first words of a Latin saying that translates "It is fit and proper to die for one's country":

• Everybody does the Disco
• From Baghdad to San Francisco
• Many folk with razzamataz
• Cannot help dancing to Jazz,
• They do the Jig in Ireland
• And it is really true
• They still Morris dance in England
• When they can find time to.

Greg selected an Emily Dickinson poem "I cannot dance upon my toes," which (of course) begins: "I cannot dance upon my Toes —/No Man instructed me —/But oftentimes, among my mind/A Glee possesseth me." We noted the strange capitalizations and talked about how the poet lets us know she is no accomplished dancer, but needs no recognition when at times her mind takes flight.

Diane brought "Crazy Jane Grown Old Looks At The Dancers," by William Butler Yeats in which love is compared to the ferocious tooth of the lion. The poem is raw in its depiction of love in youth, while in older age, ferocity may remain, but without ability to be acted upon:

• Did he die or did she die?
• Seemed to die or died they both?
• God be with the times when I
• Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
• So that I had the limbs to try
• Such a dance as there was danced -
• Love is like the lion's tooth.

Ashley selected a poem by Mary Oliver whose poetry is influenced by observations in the natural world. In "Where Does the Dance Begin, Where Does It End?" from her 2004 collection Why I Wake Early, the poet speaks of nature as being the originator of dance: "Doesn't the wind, turning in circles, invent the dance?/Haven't the flowers moved, slowly, across Asia, then Europe,/until at last, now, they shine/in your own yard?"

Daria delighted us with "Juke Box Love Song," in which the beloved Harlem Renaissance poet, novelist, and playwright, Langston Hughes, celebrates a famous Manhattan neighborhood. The jazz poem was written in 1925: "Take Harlem's heartbeat,/Make a drumbeat,/Put it on a record, let it whirl,/And while we listen to it play,/Dance with you till day—/Dance with you, my sweet brown/Harlem girl."

Christiana brought Denise Levertov's "Caedmon" named for the first poet to compose in English. His 7th century hymn was preserved by the Venerable Bede. Levertov's poem begins: "All others talked as if/talk were a dance./Clodhopper I, with clumsy feet/would break the gliding ring." After an angel appears: "nothing was burning, nothing but I, as that hand of fire/touched my lips and scorched my tongue/and pulled my voice/into the ring of the dance."

Gail gave us a reading of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 128, "How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st." The work was first published along with all 154 of the bard's sonnets in 1609:

• How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st,
• Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds
• With they sweet fingers when thou gently sway'st
• The wiry concord that mine ear confounds.

Cate brought the in-person Poetry Circle around with a reading of Major Jackson's "In the Eighties We Did the Wop" from his book Razzle Dazzle, which reminds us of the culture wars of the era we are living in and adds a message of hope. The author received a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts among other prestigious honors.

• In the eighties we did the wop; you, too, have your dances.
• It is like stealing light from a flash in the sky. I promise:
• no one is blaming you. No one is trying to replace you.
• It's just that you are carrying a tainted clock, calling it European History,
• standing in khakis, eyes frightened like a mess of beetles.

Abigail thought of the haunting, musical strain of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Maud," as the narrator stands outside Maud's home, listening to an orchestra playing inside, "Come into the garden, Maud,/For the black bat, night, has flown,/Come into the garden, Maud,/I am here at the gate alone."

June discovered a poem new to her, "Dancing Toward Bethlehem" by Billy Collins—"surely an homage to Yeats' 'Slouching...' from the March poems by and about Ireland and the Irish. I especially like the first three lines": "If there is only enough time in the final/minutes of the 20th century for one last dance/I would like to be dancing it slowly with you,/say, in the ballroom of a seaside hotel."

Jo also was thinking of last month when she found the anonymous poem, "The Irish Dancer," from the fourteenth century and the earliest reference to Irish Dance. This is said to be the inspiration of Yeat's "I Am of Ireland" poem. The poem ends, "Come ant daunce wyt me/In Irlaunde."

Mindy was immediately reminded of "Danse Russe," by William Carlos Williams, writing: "I love the wild abandon and self-expression let loose in a moment of solitude—the push/pull between loneliness and joy, solitude and civilization." The poem ends:

• If I admire my arms, my face,
• my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
• against the yellow drawn shades,—

• Who shall say I am not
• the happy genius of my household?

Carol sent Bob Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man": "Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky/With one hand waving free/Silhouetted by the sea/Circled by the circus sands/With all memory and fate/Driven deep beneath the waves/Let me forget about today until tomorrow." "This passage makes me think of expressive freedom, dancing freely, singly wildly among the 'smoke rings' of my mind. Yes, there are mystical aspects, possible drug-induced images, and sad, even bitter comments to a muse—but I feel this segment as celebratory, cherishing free movement and life."

Kai selected "When Faces Called Flowers Float Out of the Ground" by e.e. cummings: "yes the pretty birds frolic as spry as can fly/yes the little fish gambol as glad as can be/(yes the mountains are dancing together)". "This joyful celebration of the coming of spring appears to be free form, but Cummings' use of dactylic verse gives the poem structure in spite of its breathless lack of punctuation. The syllabic repetition of stressed/unstressed/unstressed throughout the poem mimics the rhythm of a dance. When read aloud, the poem gallops and gambols with the delightful gaiety of the whirlwind arrival of spring."

If you can make the May 19 meeting, we ask that you bring a poem on the theme of Poetic Devices, 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 by email and through our blog

Choose a poem that is meaningful to you. Can't locate a poem you want to send? Try Poetry Foundation or poets.org. In the meantime, blog with us at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Spring 2026 Schedule
May 19: Poetry and Poetic Devices

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.