Entry 567 — Multiplication & Long Division « POETICKS

Entry 567 — Multiplication & Long Division

What follows is a piece it took me practically a week to get done, if it is indeed now done.   It’s the first lesson hand-out for my exhibition.

                    THE JOY OF MULTIPLICATION AND LONG DIVISION

Multiplication is the best of the arithmetical procedures we learned in grade school for use in poetry because of something you might not expect of it: its richness.  Consider something as simple as the poetic idea that “sunlight + soil = flowers.”  Add sunlight to soil and you get flowers.   (Well, you need more than that in real life, but not in poetry!)   A nice enough idea that makes a pleasant poem because it expresses an old idea in a somewhat new way.  But now try multiplication: “sunlight x soil = flowers” and think of the richness of what then occurs: each particle of the soil is now multiplied by the sunlight, not just the soil as a whole added to by the sunlight.  Each particle of soil and each photon of sunlight interact to form something new!

THE POETIC POSSIBILITIES OF MULTIPLICATION AND LONG DIVISION

Multiplication is the best of the arithmetical procedures we learned in grade school for use in poetry because of something you might not expect of it: its richness.  Consider something as simple as the poetic idea that “sunlight + soil = flowers.”  Add sunlight to soil and you get flowers.   (Well, you need more than that in real life, but not in poetry!)   A nice enough idea that makes a pleasant poem because it expresses an old idea in a somewhat new way.  But now try multiplication: “sunlight x soil = flowers” and think of the richness of what then occurs: each particle of the soil is now multiplied by the sunlight, not just the soil as a whole added to by the sunlight.  Each particle of soil and each photon of sunlight interact to form something new!

I imagine it in visual terms, addition versus multiplication:

Is not the rectangle not only a larger but a richer instance of flowers  than what addition yields (even if they’re only square flowers in this case)?

 And then there’s long division.  As a mathematical poet, I love this procedure more than any other mathematical procedure, for look what it allows me to do with soil and sunlight:

The form allows me not only to show the effect of multiplying “soil” times” sunlight to get “flowers,” but also to show that by adding “robins” to “flowers,” I can get “spring.”  The overall image is still simple but has more details than a simple multiplication could provide.  And the form keeps the person engaging the poem in it longer, and the longer one is exposed to a poem, the more one should get out of it.

 

I imagine it in visual terms, addition versus multiplication:

 Is not the rectangle not only a larger but a richer instance of flowers  than what addition yields (even if they’re only square flowers in this case)?

 And then there’s long division.  As a mathematical poet, I love this procedure more than any other mathematical procedure, for look what it allows me to do with soil and sunlight:

                                                         

The form allows me not only to show the effect of multiplying “soil” times” sunlight to get “flowers,” but also to show that “robins” added to “flowers” will result in “spring.”  The overall image is still simple but has more details than a simple multiplication could provide.  And the form keeps the person engaging the poem in it longer, and the longer one is exposed to a poem, the more one should get out of it.

Diary Entry for 17 November 2011, 7 P.M.:  Sort of a crappy day, for me and my partner in doubles got clobbered in a league match this morning.  The team as a whole won two of three, though.  I actually felt pretty good on the court for a change, but made a lot of unforced errors.  As for my cultural productivity, it was about the same as it has been.  I got the thing above done, then used it to get this entry done.  Then I worked a while on my book, finally getting the part about what I’m calling the brain’s “Anthroceptual Management Center,” or “AMC,”  right, although the rightness is very badly expressed.  I’m hoping to pick up speed on this section of the book tomorrow.

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Entry 1118 — Floundering « POETICKS

Entry 1118 — Floundering

I felt very good about my three haiku and how well they’d work in the long division I was hoping soon to get done.  Then almost as though I were purposely trying to make a lesson out of the thing, I had second thoughts about it.  Here are the haiku I had again:

rainy afternoon;
private eye (fictional)
exiting a cab

the Atlantic
before ships were anywhere on it
except its edges

9 faint winter poems
unseveraling
into long ago

These made up what I would call the second draft of the poem, the first being the notes I displayed a few entries ago.  I’m not counting the apeiron draft–the draft (really, drafts) in my head before I scribbled my first draft.  (Love that word, “apeiron!”  Thanks, Irving–for using it in one of the works of his I had in my latest Scientific American blog entry, as you all should very well know, having gone to it at least nine times since it was posted!  It means the emptiness from whence everything came.  More or less.)

Okay, first point I’m attempting with this lesson to instill in all those what wants to know what’s what when it comes to Poetry is that what I had when I’d scribbled my notes was a wholly unconsolidated item-cluster poem.  I have no term for it, yet.  There are those who prefer such a thing to any other kind because it lets the reader go pretty much wherever he wants to.  Many tiny pleasures versus a large single pleasure that consolidation can yield.

My second draft, if we include the long division elements I spoke of that would go with it in the form I once thought it was headed for is a semi-consolidated item-cluster poem.  I thought it was a fully-consolidated item-cluster poem but the unifying principle I’d worked out for it failed to effectively unify it, I thought.  Still, there would be those who would prefer this version above any others–because reducing the risk of tedious wandering for meanings, but not forcing a quickly tedious single meaning on one–by allowing, that is, the reader to be creative.

My initial unifying principle was zero times private eye equals poems that put one into the past, and the mood the latter image suggests comes close to the mood suggested by the image of the Atlantic prior to Columbus’s voyages.  Moreover, the 9 poems image will cause exactly the same mood the ocean image does if an ellipsis is tacked on to the text expressing it.  I think my haiku excellently connotative but fail to lead to a mood that makes sense.

Here’s what I think the meaning of draft #2 approximates: reading about a private eye multiplies the zero one’s life is when one begins reading into the thrill of an ocean awaiting to be discovered over.  The problem is that the detective is not close to being a Columbus.

rainy afternoon;
private eye (fictional)
exiting a cab

ships for the first time
somewhere on the Atlantic
besides its edges

9 faint winter poems
unseveraling
into not yet

I’m not sure what I was up to when I changed my Atlantic haiku.  I guess I thought my private eye was involved in a case, so wanted ships on the Atlantic that were involved in their equivalent.  But their equivalent was much too consequential than whatever it was the private eye was involved in.

As for the poems, they were properly consolidating but ”into long ago?”  The detective was into the future not the past.  Hence my change there.  But now I want a fourth draft that keeps the private eye.  I still want the poem to  celebrate escape reading and the search for truth, but a lesser truth than Columbus’s discovery of the trans-Atlantic route to the New World Columbus made.  My “not yet” is poor–just a marker I will surely improve on.  Meanwhile, I have to dump my Atlantic haiku.  No, not dump, just remove for use somewhere else.

Lesson to be continued when I have more to say.

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Entry 538 –At a Loss for Subject Matter « POETICKS

Entry 538 –At a Loss for Subject Matter

I’m so at a loss for subject matter for this entry that I am going to take care of it with two haiku-like texts of mine I scribbled sometime during the past month or so on scraps of paper.  One is part of a long division poem I haven’t had the energy to convert into a finished product; when I wrote the one underneath it, I thought it might lead to a long division poem, but nothing yet has developed from it.

                          a sleepful
                          of cherry blossoms just
                          coming into their own

                          the mountains
                          where two continents are
                          learning into each other
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Entry 1117 — 3 Haiku « POETICKS

Entry 1117 — 3 Haiku

I’m pretty much out of it again, and have to pick up a new lawn mower then use it. So just the following haiku today:

rainy afternoon;
private eye (fictional)
exiting a cab

the Atlantic
before ships were anywhere on it
except its edges

9 faint winter poems
unseveraling
into long ago

They are from the scribbled notes I posted two days ago, the final versions of my still-not-done new long division poem’s quotient, dividend and sub-dividend product, respectively.

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One Response to “Entry 1117 — 3 Haiku”

  1. Conrad says:

    Bob,

    love the first one: very film noir-ish

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Entry 590 — Playing at Being an Abstract-Expressionist « POETICKS

Entry 590 — Playing at Being an Abstract-Expressionist

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.

* * *

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 1123 — Guest Appearance « POETICKS

Entry 1123 — Guest Appearance

One good thing that happened as a result of my recent foolery with an ellipsis is this from Marton Koppany, which he calls, “Hunch–for Bob”:

HunchForBob

Meanwhile, I revised my ellipsis poem yet again.  I believe I am now done with it:

16June-A-small

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3 Responses to “Entry 1123 — Guest Appearance”

  1. karl kempton says:

    a keeper for certain

  2. Bob Grumman says:

    Thanks, Karl! Whether you meant mine or Marton’s! But I know you meant both, right!?

  3. karl kempton says:

    speaking of yours

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Entry 560 — Continuing with my Cat Mathemaku « POETICKS

Entry 560 — Continuing with my Cat Mathemaku

Okay, back to my cat poem.  I thought about it last night while awake at one point.  Two changes came about, which are shown.  The poem may be done except for the final work-up.  I’ll probably do it in my cursive style.

 Tough poem to work on.  Just your standard happy cat, but . . .

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Entry 1119 — Dead Poem « POETICKS

Entry 1119 — Dead Poem

Poem-in-progress:

13June-A-small

I struggled with this thing most of yesterday–in my head.  Just couldn’t get it right.  I couldn’t choose between having the private eye and the Atlantic as its center.  This morning, I kept foundering, finally giving up: hence the title of this entry.  I tried to cheer myself up by think how good an instructional failure it was.  Then something close to the above occurred to me that seemed to make some sense.  I’m not yet satisfied with it. but may accept it into Mine Oeuvre as is.

Meanwhile, I like my private eye image.  Haven’t been able to think what to do with it, though.  (Thanks, Conrad, for your positive comment on it, by the way.  You see the image just the way I do!)

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Entry 537 — Notes Re: “The Before” « POETICKS

Entry 537 — Notes Re: “The Before”

I think it near-universal an instinct of human beings to want to share knowledge–to find it before anyone else, of course, but then to share it.  Not merely to feel superior but to give others the pleasure of it.  I think I may have this instinct to any extreme.  It is certainly why, unlike most poets, I’m rarely satisfied to present a poem with no comment.  Perhaps I would if I believed anyone would catch on to what the poem was doing without help, but I don’t think so, for I don’t merely want to explain the poem, but hold forth on the creative process; my own quirks as a poet, and person; whose work I’ve stolen from; why the poem I’m discussing is great–or not great; and almost anything else I can think of. 

Here, I want to gab about the work I posted yesterday–mainly about why I consider it a failure.  I believe it began with my thinking of its dividend, “the before/ the best colors quiet/ (permanently) into.”  Probably in slightly different words that I played with.  I still liike this expression although it only means “one’s happiest memories.”  But poetry basically consists of trite comments gussied up.

The graphic at the top is a negative image of a detail from one of my cursive mathmaku.  The blue fragment of text in it is most of “any preposition whatever,” a locution I feel will work anywhere.  The poem, incidentally, was to be part of a set of four inter-related poems, one or two of the others also using details from prior mathemaku of mine. 

Around the time I came up with the dividend’s text, I scribbled “mapling into a full moon.” This enchanted me, I think because L delight in using nouns as verbs.  But I was also thinking of the color of the moon (a favorite image of mine) abd iof maple syrup.  And the latter’s taste.  I added “evening” because of some vague thought of a (printed) evening somehow turning into a (cursive) moon in some maple-like manner.  That is, the sap of evening was being collected by the form of the moon.  Many of my mathamuical terms are touched with this kind of weird rationality, or pseudo rationality.  Sometimes I believe it works, sometimes not.  In this case, not.  In spite of how nice the cursive part of it looks.

The divisor was forced.  I just couldn come up with an appropriate image, so grabbed “pond,” because I like ponds almost as much as I like the moon.  I made the image “poetic” with “breeze-trilled.”  It’s a kind of silly hyphenated adjective that I’m prone to.  Some of them work, at least for those not biased against heightened rhetoric, but I don’t think this one does.  Actually, I believe I may have taken the pond from another mathemaku in my quartet, having found something better for the poem I took it from.  It was more political there than here, the “certification” having to do with the need for places to get away from totalitarianism to.  (I’m semi-obsessed with the BigWorld’s extreme preference for credentials over abilities.)  I think the liquidity of the pond works nicely with mapling, and the darkness of the quotient works with “evening.”  This is important since the term under the dividend is supposed to result from themultiplication of the divisor by the quotient.  But both still seem off to me.  At this stage, I’m not sure whether to change them or replacethem.  So far, I have no ideas for doing either.

My remainder I threw in because I couldn’t think of anything else.  An ampersand can work anywhere, in my opinion, but I use it too often, and should not have here. 

Sometimes when I write out an analysis of a poem I’m dissatisfied with, I write my way to solutions.  That didn’t happen this time.  Oh, well, I found it fun to do!

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Entry 608 — Collage for a Mathemaku « POETICKS

Entry 608 — Collage for a Mathemaku

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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