Lyric Poem · Hope

The First Blank Page

by The QuillOak Editors

Reading room

1The calendar turns over

2to a clean, untroubled white —

3three hundred sixty-five new mornings,

4none of them yet written.

5Whatever last year cost you,

6set the ledger down.

7The page is blank. The pen is yours.

8Begin. The ink is dry.

Original poem © QuillOak — personal sharing is permitted.

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“The First Blank Page” by The QuillOak Editors — quilloak.com/poems/the-first-blank-page

Quick facts

Poem: The First Blank Page
Poet: The QuillOak Editors
Length: 8 lines
Form: Lyric Poem, Rhyming Poems
Themes: Hope, Life

Craft notes

How this poem works

Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.

Shape: 8 lines · 2 quatrains
End rhyme: No regular perfect end rhyme. The poem may still be using slant rhyme, assonance, or internal echo, which this check does not score.

The poem’s silhouette — approximate syllables per line, measured from the text above. Even bars mean a measured line; ragged bars mean the poem sets its own widths.

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Text, source & rights

A traceable edition

Original QuillOak text. Personal sharing is permitted; other reuse requires permission.

Author record: The QuillOak Editorstoday
Source record: QuillOak originalThe First Blank Page, authored for QuillOak by The Quillery
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 46536c3d3c6c15b7…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Rhyming Poems Hope Life

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