Mathemaku for William Blake
This is one of my favorites of my own poems. Blake is not a central hero of mine, but I do like some of his poems and a lot of passages from his work, particularly the wonderful:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
In my poem the grain of sand is the dividend (that’s what you divide into, for those of you who may have forgotten the terminology—and it took me a long time to remember what was what in long division when I started making long division poems). Most of one world that might be in it is the many-color design under it. My (very loose) idea was to say that the right kind of eyesight can multiply a dreary day into a wonderful world. Add ripples, or an influence spreading out from that world, to it, and you’ll get what Blake found in a grain of sand.
I thought of the “right kind of eyesight” (or, really, over-all sensitivity) as being “unlessoned” or without much formal education and therefore able to see things in an unconventional way, like Blake did. I liked the pun the word makes with “un-lessened,” or “not reduced.” I added “lane-loving” because I think of lanes as wandery and out in the country, sure to go to interesting, happy places.
Poets are usually taught no avoid adjectives as much as possible, but I like them. That’s why I have two in my quotient (the top part) and three in my divisor (what goes into the dividend). I do try for unusual ones, though, such as “stumbled-inert,” whose meaning I hope I don’t have to spell out.
I tried to make my poem visually appealing, but carried out very few visual poetry tricks, “stum
bled” does stumble, and the day is kind of pinched; I think the ripples ripple, and the grain of sand is packed tight.
Diary for 19 November 2011, 6 P.M.: another okay day. Tennis in the morning followed by a snack and conversation with my teammates at a MacDonald’s. Back here, tired, but able after a short nap to take care of my blog and one item for my exhibition at the same time by working up a curriculum vitae for the exhibition which I could post as the day’s blog entry. I already had one of these but it was a little out-of-date, and in need of a bit of revision. It took more than on hour to take care of, for I improved it quite a bit. Still tired, I had troube getting around to my book. I spent some time, off and on, playing Civilization or reading the Tom Clancy novel I started a few days ago, to avoid the book. I finally got to it, although I didn’t do too much work on it, just enough to feel I’d done my duty. I made up a little for that by writing a good longish commentary on another of the poems that will be in my exhibit, “Mathemaku in Praise of Language.” I may get a little more work done today, but I doubt it.
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Whose sleep is the sky.
Aah, you minimalists!
But possibly yours is an equal but different version of the poem; I like Poem physically in his poems, though, and the emphasis on the time the question intrigues him. There’s even a juxtaphor (implicit metaphor) between the motion of the sky and the motion of Poem’s wonder–for me, at any rate.
It just came to my mind as a possible “answer” to Poem’s “question”. Perhaps, yes, because he was physically there.
I’m still working my way in reverse (top to bottom) on your blog, Bobby, so I may find more like these, but I think there’s something really interesting going on in “Mathemaku No. 21,” specifically in the figure after the minus sign. I like the possibilities with the reverse type creating new shapes inside those already created in the mashing up of letters.
Thanks for the look, Kevin.