4.18.2006

Busy around here lately with family matters (my daughter is spending half the school year in Bangladesh).

Nothing much to report on the poetry frontier. Enjoying the fibs. Working out some math (I hope) for some extended projects. Am interested in how a math proportion can signify balances or equilibria between different dimensions of a piece. Looking at the rug in the living room for inspiration.

Say, for example, that 7 is the number of quatrains in a section of your poem. That gives you 7x4 or 28 lines. So say you have 4 parts with 7 sections each, giving you 28 sections to the whole poem.

You've thus established a very simple "ecology" or echo-system for the different particulars of your poem : each part reflects the whole (at least numerically, which is one way of starting). And it turns the individual lines of your poem into elements of a web or network.

This is a strange way to write, admittedly. Lends itself to various quandaries & mishaps. But it was one of the ways that Dante wrote. & he could write.

No comments: