Archive for the ‘From My Poetry Workshop’ Category
Entry 654 — A Fifth of a Mathemaku
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Yesterday a glimmer of a mathemaku crossed my mind just when I was about convinced I was finally permanently non-creative. I’d read an essay in praise of the piano, and I’ve always loved the piano although self-teaching myself to play Fur Elise, or whatever that standard for beginners of Beethoven’s is, was as far as I ever got. In fact, I sometimes consider its invention the most important invention ever. Certainly it’s in the top ten. Competitors would be the invention of writing, the phonograph, the mathemaku . . . I don’t include the invention of language since that was no more an invention, it seems to me, than the human voice, or upright walking.
Anyway, yesterday (and maybe a little of the previous day), I wondered how to make a mathemaku in praise of the piano. “The piano” would be either the poem’s dividend or sub-dividend product. I was able to add only one of the other four elements the poem would need. After thinking my way through three or four versions of it, I wrote, “the way an April countryside celebrates a brook’s twisting, revived consideration of it.” I almost at once added “enthusiastic” to the adjectives modifying “consideration.” Just now, though, I revised it to “the pleasure a countryside takes in a brook’s joyful, revived consideration of it as March turns into April.” Then I deleted “joyful” and changed “of” to “through.” I see a problem with this: it suggests the effect of a piano, not the piano itself. In fact, I’m not sure what exactly it may be a metaphor for. Stay tuned.
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Entry 635 — The Improvement
Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
What I hope is an improvement to what I’ve been working on (a subdividend product) is very simple. I think it makes more sense than the previous version, for it shows my text going into somewhere else whereas previously the text went into somewhere else and came back. It also makes for a slightly more challenging puzzle for the engagent, and my best engagents will like that.
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Entry 634 — Faereality as a Major Theme?
Tuesday, January 24th, 2012
After making the textual design with the sailing ship in it, I got an idea for a mathemaku featuring the ship’s entrance into the world it’s shown in as a partial metaphor for faereality. I worked out a full sketch of the poem but haven’t converted that to an actual poem yet. Now I’m fumbling with another faereality long division in which the following is a partial metaphor for faereality:
When I got this second idea, I immediately went megalomaniac, as I so often do, with thoughts of a Major Triumph. In this case it would be a sequence of faereality long divisions in which faereality would symbolize the wonders of the worlds imaginative children live in. My third frame of the sequence needs just a remainder; I should say, my sketch of my third frame just needs that. I have no other ideas for the sequence, though. I hope I get some–a dream that if I got at least ten, the result would be Very Accessible–and appealing to the many with my nostalgia for childhood.
Note: if you’re stumped by the extract from my poem-in-progress above, decode the following to understand it: ju jt ”cpzippe”–dpejoh jut xbz joup gbfsfbmjuz. Hmmm, I just thought of a better spelling. I’ll save that for tomorrow when, again, I’ll no doubt be having trouble thinking of something to put here.
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Entry 629 — A Poor Poem Poem and a Mathemaku
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
Poem’s Latest Visit to Nowhere
Poem spent the day interviewing
a spoke from a bicycle wheel that was all
that was left of a Schwinn he’d had ten
years ago. He was interested
in the spoke’s relationship
to quantum mechanics
considered chromatically.
This caused a flap.
His present bicycle went nowhere.
Criticism intervened, trying
to rescue the incredibly dead patch Poem
had gotten himself into by
using it to illustrate his thesis
that little boy blue’s absence
was impossible for any poem
to overcome.
Yes, I am as out of it as I’ve ever been. I was hoping my non sequiturs would get close enough to sense for me to do something with them. They never did. But behold: I still eventually steered my text into an at least slightly intriguingly unsettling epiphany. Not that it makes up for the badness of the rest of the poem. But wait. So this entry won’t be 100% worthless, here’s my “Cursive Mathemaku No. 2,” again. While going through my 2011 entries I came across this and changed my mind about it: it suddenly seemed to me the best version of the poem, not the third-best. So I’m using this entry to make public its officially being granted the title of “Cursive Mathemaku No. 2.” Weird how much I prefer it to the one I once greatly preferred to it.
I really like the black lines, I don’t know why. They’re very simple. I think they give the thing thrust, they increase its seeming to be going somewhere. Aside from that, spirals are always a plus.
Note: the yellow cursive reads, “any preposition whatever.”
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Entry 624 — A Change of Mind
Saturday, January 14th, 2012
In Entry 536, I called the following a “misfire.” It made no sense to me. Coming across it again a week or so ago, I completely changed my mind: it makes perfect sense to me, now (if only meta-rationally). I now think of it as being as good as anything I’ve yet done. I also decided my “Cursive Mathemaku No. 2″ is probably better without the colored background I added to it. Sometimes, though, I actually finish a piece permanently.
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Entry 608 — Collage for a Mathemaku
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
Once again two trips to take care of one chore: I took my revision of “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes” and its frame, which I was afraid to try fool with, to a frames guy I’ve done business with before, but his place wasn’t where it had been. A nice lady in the beauty shop next to where it was told me where to find it. Happily, it wasn’t far away. DIGRESSION: I used to be contemptuous of the way “hopefully” was used until “happily” made it okay for me–which I mention because I often try to remember other adverbs like “hopefully” and never can (there are several).
I found my frame guy but his place of business was locked although his door said he opened at ten each day but Sunday, and it was near eleven. I waited a little while, thinking he was probably just late. There was no sign on the door or in the window indicating what might have happened. At length I crossed the street. That’s where the Arts & Humanities Council office was. I wanted to drop off the large unwieldy frame. (I was on my bike, needless to say, so worried I might damage the frame. Well, Olivia, Judy the executive secretary’s assistant, was kind enough to let me dump what I had there. Back home, I tried to call my frame guy. I couldn’t find the name of his place, The Rose Gallery, in the phone book but found something called “Creative Framing,” or something, that seemed to be about where the Rose Gallery was, so I called the number for that. An operator told me the number was no longer in service. Great. I tried to get a number that would work fromthe Visual Arts Center, but the girl I talked to didn’t have it. Finally, after three tries, I got it from information; the first two times I was given the old number. Fortunately, when I called the new number my frame man was there. He’d been late because of something he’d had to do with his son. After making sure Olivia wouldn’t be away form the office for lunch (she had locked my stuff in Judy’s office, and Judy is in New York), I rode my bike to the Arts & Humanities Council’s office, got my stuff and took it to the Rose Gallery. Which was locked! Gah.
Well, almost at once, the frame guy showed up. He’d gone somewhere to collect his mail, which wasn’t delivered to his door but to a box somewhere near. Everything then when well. I now have “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes” nicely framed. It looks good. (It always amazes me how good a frame can make a piece look.) The collage below was an attempt to do what Scott was doing at the time (8 or 9 years ago); I was never happy with it, but think it’s okay. It represents “nothing going on” . . . I think. In my piece, I add “the deepest grammar of January” to it to get “STONE.” It may not be my best mathemaku but, not counting sequences, it’s my largest. I’m wondering if there will be some who like it better than my other long divisions. To add variety to the exhibition is the main reason I’m including it.
Diary Entry
Wednesday, 28 December 2011, 5 P.M. More gab at Spidertangle, most of which I used to take care of the day’s blog entry. A trip early in the morning to get copies of one of my long division poems–because my own printer wasn’t doing a good job of printing, due–I now believe–to insufficient ink, although my computer told me it had plenty of ink. That job, and a little grocery shopping taken care of, I got home only to find out I’d forgotten to collect my flash drive from the people at Staples. I went back for it a couple of hours ago. I feel worn out, as always. I haven’t done anything with my reply to Jake (but yesterday, a little tinkering I did with it seemed to me just what it needed to merge to large blocks of it into a reasonably coherent, flowing whole, so I think I’m close to getting it done).
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Entry 596 — A Final Version of my Sonnet, Again
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
I couldn’t stay way from it. I kept running it through my mind since posting the previous version here a week or two ago, finally coming up with the version below the night of 15 December. Note, each line should be pronounced as an iambic pentameter, including the third.
Sonnet from My Forties
Much have I ranged the kingdoms Stevens forged
Of deeply penetrating inquiries
Into, and deft use of, the metaphor,
And volumes filled in vain attempts to reach
The heights that he did. Often, too, I’ve been
To where the small dirt’s awkward first grey steps
Toward high-hued sensibility begin
In Roethke’s verse, or measured the extent
Of wing-swirled, myth-electric, royal light
That Yeats achieved, or marveled down the worlds
That Pound re-morninged splashingly to life,
But failed as dismally to match their works.
Yet still, nine-tenth insane though it now seems,
I seek those ends; I hold to my huge dreams.
Diary Entry
Friday, 16 December 2011, 11:30 A.M. I have a few small exhibition-bookkeeping chores yet to do that I’m letting go for this weekend so I can concentrate on the stack of reviews for Small Press Review I have to do. One of them will be of I, a novella by Arnold Skemer that I find excellent but a very slow read, in the best sense of the description.
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Entry 590 — Playing at Being an Abstract-Expressionist
Sunday, December 11th, 2011
This is a third version of the subdividend product in my division of “the the” poem:
I quite like it. I experimented with quite a few different colors, none of them seeming to work until I added the maroon, which made a huge difference for some reason. Now I have to figure out how to use it in a poem.
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Saturday, 10 December 2011, Noon. I have to get my Christmas chores–basically a Christmas letter and cards–out of the way. So I’ll be concentrating on that for a few days. I just posted my blog entry for today, and I arranged it so my second printer can print some copies of my “Christmas Mathemaku, No. 1,” which takes care of my pledge to work daily on something connected to the exhibition–but I hope to do more, like print out some copies of it. I want to try to sell a few signed copies at the A&H office. I lost the morning to tennis, and the after-tennis coffee session, this time at a Dunkin’ Donuts place. I sometimes think I should give up tennis–becauwse (1) I’m lousy at it and (2) it takes time from my cultural activities. But I’m pretty sure I need it–as a break from cultural activities, and for simply being with others. The exercise is probably good for me, too. I have to admit that it can be fun when I’m not too horrible (as I was this morning).
6 P.M. This afternoon I went out on my bike again. I got two more picture frames, some ink for my new printer ($100!) and had some things printed out–parts of my very large “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes.” Since then, I’ve put my “Christmas Mathemaku, No. 1″ into a frame. Haven’t done much else.
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Entry 585 — A Decorative Touch
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
For me, one of the saddest things about my final years is how much I’m continuing to learn about making poems. For instance, consider the value of simple decorative touches you can apply to a word in a visual poem, such as the ones in the remainder of my “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes,” that I’m trying to put into exhibition-worthy shape:
Previously the letters were all black. I changed them to brown. That was all I thought I would do, but then I thought I might as well experiment with background colors in the manner above. I had the change shapes a number of times, but eventually was satisfied with the above. I didn’t learn to do this kind of thing when I worked up the remainder, but learned it more solidly–and I was old when I first learned, four or five years ago, when I did, “Mathemaku for Geof Huth”–if I remember its name correctly. No big deal–in fact, it should be in this case since a remainder shouldn’t be to visiopoetic as to possibly detract from the core of a poem. Just an added pleasure (if successful).
I think the reason so many old people want to teach is that, since they know they won’t have time fully to enjoy the little things they learn, they want to feel others, if they get to them early enough, will. So listen to your elders, you young shits reading this! (Oops, there I go again.)
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Monday, 5 December 2011, 8 A.M. I feel a little blah but eager to get some work done. I just finished breakfast–after getting the blog entry for today done, and setting this one up for tomorrow. Now to the main chore of today: putting together some stuff to show Judy at Arts and Humanities. I thought tomorrow, when I have a doctor’s appointment near her office, would be a good time to see her for details about my show. I want to leave a specmen for advertisement–the “Hi!” one–and maybe something else–with commentaries.
It’s now two-and-a-half hours later. I reframed my “hi” piece–to get it into a frame with a thing on the back allowing it to be displayed on a flat surface, in this case, a counter that’s in the middle of the room my exhibition will be in. A trivial job but one I have all sorts of trouble getting myself to do generally. This morning, I just did it. I haven’t taken any pills, either! I also revised the seventh frame of my “Long Division of Poetry,” printed it, then took care of a commentary on it.
Noon Report: I did some effective work of my “Mathemaku for Scott Helmes,” then used a few comments on my revision of its remainder in my next blog entry, so that’s out of the way. I’m really humming, but I won’t be able to keep it up.
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Entry 582 — Ten-Year Mathemakuical Triptych
Saturday, December 3rd, 2011
Kathy Ernst a long time ago was kind enough to commission a work of mine for to hang in her husband’s place of business. When I dawdled, she suggested I send them my “Mathemaku for Tom Phillips,” which I had done, partly in water color, at the Atlantic center of Art in 2011, and Kathy had taken a liking to. I wanted to send her something new, though, that would fit her husband’s scientific/technological business. So I worked up a triptych. There was one big problem with it: I had to make it in pieces because my computer was too small to hold an image the size I wanted this to be (eleven by seventeen inches). At length, I printed all the pieces involved, intending to make three collages. At that point I got collagist’s block. That lasted six or more years–until today. Today I got it on disk. It only took two or three hours of work. Ridiculous. Of course, I haven’t had it printed yet, but I feel optimistic that it will look okay. Here’s the third frame, which is what it originally looked like except for a few very small changes:
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Friday, 2 December 2011, 9 A.M. The big news of today is that last night or this morning, while I was lying in bed between periods of sleep, I realized that now the I had a computer with much more storage space than my previous one had, I could make decent copies of the frames of my “Triptych for Tom Phillips” and have them printed from a CD at Staples. I’ve already made copies of the images I’ll be using–only to discover I already had better copies in a computer file. All that exhausted me. Time for a nap.
No nap. Little done until I finally went back to work on the Phillips piece. I finished it at just after two. When I started putting it together, I thought it a dazzling summation of my whole life. Halfway through it, I told myself I ought to finish it despite how worthless it was. It’ll probably look okay framed, though.
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