Hello fellow poets! This is Melissa from Mom With a Blog. I welcome you to the Monday Quadrille, where we compose neat little poems of exactly 44 words, that contain a word one of us here at dVerse provides.

The History of Zero

Zero is both a number and a concept. It denotes the absence of quantity. “The earliest known use of a placeholder appeared in Mesopotamia, where the Sumerians used a slanted double wedge in cuneiform to indicate the absence of a digit. In Ancient Greece, the concept of nothingness was acknowledged but not recognized as a number.

The concept of zero developed in India. The earliest known example appears in the Bakhshali manuscript, a text discovered in present-day Pakistan. In the 7th century, astronomer Brahmagupta became the first known scholar to treat zero as a number in its own right, and he defined rules for arithmetic involving zero.” (Source)

Zero in Pop Culture

Zero has been used in popular culture as a name for characters, as well as in many titles of poems✍🏻, songs🎶, and movies🎥. Pictured above is Zero, a robot prototype boss from Sonic the Hedgehog. Other characters include (but are not limited to!) Private Zero from the newspaper comic, Beetle Bailey, and Marvel’s Agent Zero from X-Men.

In the 2005 comedy Zerophilia, the main character has a genetic condition that causes him to change gender every time he has an orgasm. In the 2012 political thriller Zero Dark Thirty, Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a CIA agent on the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

“Zero” is the title of both of these well-known songs you’ve probably heard.

There are many poems written about zero. Here is a sampling of excerpts from a few. Click on the poem titles to read each poem in its entirety.

“Zero” by Dorothea Tanning

Now that legal tender has
              lost its tenderness,
and its very legality
          is so often in question,
it may be time to consider
the zero—
          long rows of them,
    empty, black circles in clumps
                          of three,
presided over by a numeral
                       or two.

from Coming to That by Dorothea Tanning (Graywolf Press, 2011)

“The Meaning of Zero: A Love Poem” by Amy Uyematsu

          —Is where space ends called death or infinity?
                         Pablo Neruda, The Book of Questions


A mere eyelid’s distance between you and me.

It took us a long time to discover the number zero.

John’s brother is afraid to go outside.
He claims he knows
the meaning of zero.

I want to kiss you.

A mathematician once told me you can add infinity 
to infinity.

(Copper Canyon Press)

“Zero Plus Anything Is a World” by Jane Hirshfield

Four less one is three.

Three less two is one.

One less three
is what, is who,
remains.

The first cell that learned to divide
learned to subtract.

Recipe:
add salt to hunger.

Recipe:
add time to trees.

Zero plus anything
is a world.

Originally published in The Beauty (Knopf, 2015)

And now we are at the zero hour. We have come to ground zero. It is time to zero in on today’s Q. In case you missed it: a quadrille is a little dVerse invention, a poem of exactly 44 words (not including title) containing a given word. You may use many rhymes, or zero; you can even include another form (ie: a sijo quadrille or a haiku sonnet quadrille). Whatever you do is up to you, but there can be zero deviation from the rule of your quadrille being exactly 44 words!

Make zero waste. But don’t go subzero!🥶 After you write your quadrille poem, don’t forget to submit your link in Mr. Linky, and come back and read some of the other poems.👍🏻

If you’re new, here is how to join us:

• Write a poem in response to the prompt.
• Enter your name and a link directly to the post containing your poem into Mr. Linky. Remember to check the box to accept use/privacy policy.
• Read other poets’ work as they enter their links into Mr. Linky. Check back as more will be added.
• Please link back to dVerse from your post.
• Have a wonderful time!

Mr. Linky will remain open until 3pm EST on Monday, December 8, 2025.