One Page Poetry Circle Archive

Welcome to the One Page Poetry Circle!

Date: December 16, 2025
Theme: Poetry and the End
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 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 1778 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. email.

Our topic for December 16 is Poetry and the End. We are thinking of the end of poetry, the end of the day, the end of the year, the end of the world—any end with do.

Ernest Dowson's poem has a Latin title from Horace, "Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam," which translates as "the short span of our life forbids us to indulge in a long-term hope":

• They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
•      Out of a misty dream
• Our path emerges for a while, then closes
•      Within a dream.

For opposing ways to look at end times we offer Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice":

• Some say the world will end in fire,
• Some say in ice.
• From what I've tasted of desire
• I hold with those who favor fire.
• But if it had to perish twice,
• I think I know enough of hate
• To say that for destruction ice
• Is also great
• And would suffice.

We met on November 18 to discuss Occasional Poetry.

AnnaLee opened the One Page Poetry Circle with the poem Robert Frost recited for John F. Kennedy's 1961 inauguration as the 35th President of the United States. The elderly poet was unable to read the poem he wrote for the occasion because the sun blared in his eyes. He saved the day with "The Gift Outright," which was less politically motivated, and which he knew by heart: "The land was ours before we were the land's/She was our land more than a hundred years/Before we were her people. She was ours."

Jenn brought poetic prose from The Stranger (L'Étranger) by Albert Camus which seems to say we have more strength than we think: "In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love./In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile."

Donald selected "Anthem for Doomed Youth," by Wilfred Owen, an English soldier and poet, known for his writings about the horrors of World War I. The group noted the repetition of sounds and letters. This poem was published posthumously. Owen died in 1918 at the age of 25, a week before the war ended:

• What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
• Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
• Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
• Can patter out their hasty orisons.

Gregory read us "When I Heard at the Close of the Day" from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, (1860, "Calamus" 11) for the occasion of a return of a lover: "And when I thought how my dear friend, my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,/O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish'd me more, and the beautiful day pass'd well."

Diane selected "The End and the Beginning," by Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska, from Miracle Fair, translated by Joanna Trzeciak. The poem speaks of the ways the horrors of war are cleaned up until no one remembers, which opens the door for war to begin again:

• Someone, broom in hand,
• still recalls the way it was.
• Someone else listens
• and nods with unsevered head.
• But already there are those nearby
• starting to mill about
• who will find it dull.

Daria found "Of History and Hope" a poem by Miller Williams read at President Bill Clinton's 1997 Inauguration in which the poet reminds us of our triumphs as well our missteps and that for the sake of our children we must strive for our best selves: "But where are we going to be, and why, and who?/The disenfranchised dead want to know./We mean to be the people we are meant to be,/to keep on going where we meant to go.

Cate brought us "Festival of Bread" (dans L'Ain, la France profonde) by Marie Ponsot, a story of tragedy in a small touristy village of "forty heads" in which a woman loses both a husband and son to suicide, but finds an occasion to go on:

• The village has restored its old twelve-loaf
• common oven, for a Bread Festival.

• The widow shoves her night-time self aside,
• kneads silence down into dough, and lets it rise.

Gale brought the circle around with the beloved sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer," by John Keats, in which the poet's words themselves provide the experience of discovering the beauty of poetry:

• Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
• And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
• Round many western islands have I been
• which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
• Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
• That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;

June sent a second poem by Wislawa Szymborska, "Photograph from September 11" (translated by Clare Cavanagh) which begins, "They jumped from the burning floors—/one, two, a few more," and ends, "I can do only two things for them—/describe this flight/and not add a last line." "To me, the deliberate choice to avoid any kind of conclusion is immensely moving."

Roger chose a poem he could use for December as well: Emily Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death":

• Because I could not stop for Death —
• He kindly stopped for me —
• The Carriage held but just Ourselves —
• And Immortality.

Abigail enjoys Jacqueline Woodson's "Occasional Poem" where a teacher instructs students to write an occasional poem and deals with a difficult student: "I guess them arguing/on a Tuesday in January's an occasion/So I guess this is an occasional poem."

Carol sent Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" commemorating a disaster during the Crimean War: "Cannon to right of them,/Cannon to left of them,/Cannon behind them/Volleyed and thundered;/Stormed at with shot and shell,/While horse and hero fell." Carol writes, "In junior high school, an art teacher asked students to illustrate either 'Charge of the Light Brigade' or 'Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.' I chose the first, my love of horses influencing my choice and learning about the pathos of the tragic military event sealed the deal."

Karen sent Gary Snyder's verse "How Poetry Comes to Me" about the occasions when poetic inspiration makes itself known:

• It comes blundering over the
• Boulders at night, it stays
• Frightened outside the
• Range of my campfire
• I go to meet it at the
• Edge of the light

Kai recalled "Wedding Toast" by Richard Wilbur: "Which is to say that what love sees is true;/That this world's fullness is not made but found./Life hungers to abound/And pour its plenty out for such as you." "This moving, heartfelt benediction invokes the miracle of turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana. The poet draws the comparison to the endless abundance of the blessing of love in a happy marriage—truly a divine gift and a miracle."

If you can make the December 16th meeting, we ask that you bring a Poem about the End, 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. Then attend in person, or email it to one of us by December 16th, 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, blog with us at onepagepoetrycircle.wordpress.com.

Fall Schedule
December 16: Poetry and The End

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.