Entry 1659 — 4 Emails Back&Forth « POETICKS-

Archive for the ‘Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino’ Category

Entry 1659 — 4 Emails Back&Forth

Friday, December 12th, 2014

Again, I wanted to get my blog entry for a day done as quickly as possibly. Since I also felt at my witful best in an exchange of emails with Gregory St. Thomasino earlier this morning, I grabbed mine and his for here. I hope you’ll find them as entertaining as I am positive they are, but the link to Truck will get you to some excellent work

On 12/12/2014 8:58 AM, St. Thomasino wrote:

dear bob,

is this email address still good for you, and can i direct people to it if they want to buy copies of igne?

otherwise i trust you are okay.

did you see this?

http://halvard-johnson.blogspot.it/2014/12/gregory-vincent-st-thomasino.html

thanks, bob

gregory

Saw it (Yeeks, I’m so off in the cranium right now, Gregory, that when I typed “saw” and saw on the screen what I had typed, I was immediately was befuddled: what was I writing a bout what some carpenter’s tool does? At least I did see it as a verb, so should get some credit for non-dementia.) Anyway, now that I’ve parenthetically made this email something you have to preserve for posterity, let me say that I was pleased to see your Go, which I’ve always like in spite of my suspicion about who the bubbler was, and am always pleased by an Internet reference to Mr. Grumman, a lad I’ve always admired–especially a reference by someone of the Highest Rank!

As for mine health, I’m weller than I’ve been for two months: pretty close to fully okay, in fact. This after having what turned out to be a pinched nerve that practically disconnect my feets from me: i.e., I could barely feel them and the rest of my legs up to my knees; had to concentrate when walking–but could ride my bike with no trouble (which was very fortunate). Back surgery seemed likely but my doctor had me give physical therapy a try, and 15 or so sessions, and home exercises, paid off. I figure I’m now up to 90% of where I should be, and improving daily. Most important for my physically, is that I’m playing team tennis in the senior men’s league I’m in again, and not doing badly.

Ah, email address for igne (which requires italics, you oaf–because of its publisher not its author, needless to say): yes, [email protected] is best. Price to you now $3, to others $5, incidentally, due to inflation (and my poverty). But free to anyone who really wants a copy and can’t afford one or has something to trade.

Specking of money, one reason I’m unusually giddy, or whatever it is I now am, is that I just went $1500 further into credit card debt. Reason: a failed external drive that has a lot of important data on it I never backed up, thinking if the drive was external, it was safer than the hard drive inside my computer. Apparently excessive heat&humidity did it in. I’d never paid much attention to the temperature of my house before this happened. Now keep it down in the summer at a not negligible cost.

Don’t think you have to reply in kind quantitatively–you just caught me in one of my garrulous . . . syndromes (I was going to use “moods,” but realized it was not the right term; “syndrome” isn’t either, but much better, I think. Check with your psychotherpist acquaintances on that, though, and let me know what they think.)

Wow, I think I may now get myself to stop. Except to sign off . . .

allbestBob

On 12/12/2014 11:19 AM, St. Thomasino wrote:

thank you, bob. i made a post on my blog:

http://eratio.blogspot.com/2014/12/my-chap-igne-from-1993.html

i hope that is okay with you. (not that i expect anybody is gonna want to acquire a copy, but what the heck it’s better than doing nothing.)

i came upon the jpegs of the cover and of the title page with my signature by accident. seems some bookseller over in london has a copy for sale and he posted the jpegs (which i then thieved) at his site. don’t recognize the gentleman bookseller’s name. i know some copies are for sale at alan halsey’s site, west house books, but this ain’t that.

i’m glad you are playing tennis. you are more active than i am. i don’t even own a bicycle.

the bubbler is you, bob. and i am happy to say the coast guard rescued you just in time!

thanks, again, for getting back to me (you always do and i appreciate it very much).

.
Oops, does that mean I gotta reply to this?! I guess I will because still in my excessively garrulous zone–on land, not bubbling

btw: i have an external hard drive also, a lacie, but it’s for my floppy disks. i use apple time machine as my external backup — it even backs up my email! i can go back in time and retrieve an email from years ago!

gregory

I think I’m backing every thing up now, too, but have more than one program doing so, with three computers involved, so am not sure what’s going on. I just bought a flash drive that now has back-ups of my most important files as far as I know.

Keep keeping in touch. This coming year will be Very Important in My Life (as I say every end of a year with near maximal inaccuracy), and that means Important in the Lives of All Worthy Colleagues, including those who have bubbled me nearly out of existence.

all best, Bob
.

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Entry 1052 — I’ve Screwed Up Again

Sunday, March 24th, 2013

The entry appearing at my blog today (25 March) was supposed to appear yesterday, but I somehow got it into my head that I’d taken care of the latter, so scheduled the entry that should have appeared yesterday for today . . . and never posted anything for yesterday. So now I have to post this a day late, and have nothing to put in it. Oh, I guess I can announce that Gregory St. Thomasino has just posted a piece of his called, “Notes on Bob Grumman’s ‘Christmas Mathemaku’ and on mathematical poetry generally, or, how to deconstruct a division sign.” It’s at his blog, eratio.

According to Gregory, it “is in response to Bob Grumman‘s blog at the Scientific American Blog Network.” When he announced the appearance of his piece at Facebook, Gregory provided the following excerpt: “Let us then begin at the beginning, and to do so we begin at the ‘division sign.’ Here we see not an obelus, but what we will for our puposes refer to as ‘the long division sign’ (or what is, technically, a vinculum attached to the top of a close parenthesis). We begin here because this ‘long division sign’ immediately identifies the poem as a specimen of ‘mathematical poetry,’ and we have to ask, What role does it play?”

I could spend dozens of pages responding to what Gregory says in his notes but, as I told him, I haven’t time right now–although my attempt to explain Manywhere-at-Once should tell us to how I differ from him in my understanding of mathematical poetry. One response I can’t help but make is to point out how academic (postmodernistically academic) Gregory always is–deconstructing rather than merely analyzing, for instance, and telling us what the thing he calls a long division sign and I call a dividend shed (because it’s where a long division diagram’s dividend hangs out) is technically. Out of curiosity, I went to an Internet dictionary to check its definition of the term and learned that, according to it, a “vinculum” is , in Mathematics, “A bar drawn over two or more algebraic terms to indicate that they are to be treated as a single term,” so that is not what the bar of the dividend shed is, for that is over just one term, and the term it is over is non-algebraic term.

I should add that Gregory’s essay has just about nothing to do with my “Christmas Mathemaku,” which he just jumpos off from into his ideas about mathematical poetry. That was a disappointment. I’d love to hear what someone else as knowledgeable of otherstream poetry or even poetry in general as he had to say about the poem.

As I said in a Facebook comment, his piece is worth reading. I hope it draws a few comments of substance.

P.S., The role I intended my dividend shed to play was to tell the reader to multiply what was immediately above it times what what to its immediate left and consider it to equal what was immediately below it, which is intended to be almost, but not quite, equal to the term inside the shed. Gregory, as readers of his piece will see, will have none of that. I frankly can’t understand why not, but to each his own.

Discount Coupon Code

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Entry 539 — A Poem by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Friday, October 21st, 2011

I liked this poem when I saw it many months ago–enough to get permission from Gregory if I could post it here. I didn’t until now because I had intended to include a critique of it with it but never got around to it. That was mostly because I was pretty sure the critique would offend Gregory, who is very touchy. Not because I planned to say anything negative about the poem, but because, in discussing what it did, I would fail to appreciate the innovativeness of the techniques he’s used in it, and given his own idiosyncratic names to. Right. Just like I do. I’m still not up to critiquing it, but I need something for this blog, so here it is:

Skips

one bus,
said of certain places

which may, at sites, be
or, for such as certain sites

a, saying, or, for standing
a, may be holding places

and doubtless other combinations
one bus.

and if it is but agreeable
a hand or glove or calendar

as, he was
but not in certain places

which, when sounding
just above, and, sounding just above

are gone, or, for some time
by rote or involuntary action

between highest and lowest
is present, and absent, is gone and when

that aspect, to be events
alike, in which they are alike

between highest and lowest
the features

perceived or thought about
seem suddenly, to fit

also spelled insight or solution
the use of, or, as means his present station

and doubtless other combinations
which are themselves

his means
the skin, the hair, the coat

are fairly, then, it matches, either of the two
in which, unfit variations

are discarded
are held at mutual right angles, say

as when a new hat
or sometimes used as synonyms

is part
or,

as a rule, a new hat
is considered of involuntary action

or,
in respect to suspended judgment

in which, a measure of degree
they are, so alike

being highest, possible highest
the skin, the hair, the coat

an irrepressible action
or

due to lips
and doubtless other combinations

attained by involuntary action
as when a new hat is considered part

of one’s coat
or rival, or station

I’m listing it as a language poem. Gregory will kill me for that, if he ever finds out.

Des Moines Pay Day Loan

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Entry 164 — The Definition of Mathematical Poetry, Continued

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino has ended the discussion of what mathematical poetry is at his blog, but invited me to re-start it here, which I gladly do. He e.mailed me the following comments for it (which I’ve slightly edited, for flow):

I think if you (or Kaz) are going to make up the rules for mathematical poetry, then anybody can. Me included.

Sure. But eventually those in the field have to accept one, so what we’re doing is having a competition to determine what mathe-matical poetry should be considered by the world at large to be. To that end, each of us is trying to provide a definition that makes more sense than any of the others.

And I would offer, for starters:
1) It is a fallacy to think mathematical poetry is “doing math.”

What is it doing?

2) The “sum” of a mathematical poem need not be the same for everyone.

As in pure mathematics, it has to have the same value for everyone although it need not be “the same” for everyone. Just as in pure math, two plus two can be eight minus two as well as four.

I note that you have not offered a definition of mathematical poetry. Seems to me such a definition is where we need to start. Here’s mine: a mathematical poem is a poem whose engagent needs to perform some mathematical operation indicated in the poem in order to appreciate it. Very simple.

****

Gregory quickly responded, so I will paste in what he had to say here:

bob, you write:

I note that you have not offered a definition of mathematical poetry.

but bob i have indeed, and that you cannot see that just goes to show that you are either not of sound mind or are indeed a simpleton.

Ah, it couldn’t have shown that we talked past each other, as some people do? Assuming I am indeed either of unsound mind or s simpleton, which is quite possible–unless I’m both, exactly how does pointing that out contribute to trying to find an effective definition of mathematical poetry? That is the main point of this discussion, yes?

When I said you hadn’t defined mathematical poetry, I meant with the two comments you sent me. These I took to be your opening comments in what I called “the re-start” of the discussion that he agreed had ended at his blog. I believe that you gave some sort of definition of mathematical poetry there which I didn’t understand and you would not clarify, or perhaps forgot to clarify, having gotten involved in a different phase of the discussion. Anyway, I wanted the discussion here to be a re-start. My hope was that we could focus on what each of us thought mathematical poetry was, and indicated in careful, clear language as I tired to do above.

So, if you assumed this discussion was a continuation rather than a re-start, would you mind accepting it as a re-start, and provide me with your definition of mathematical poetry? If you did consider this a re-start and believe you defined mathematical poetry with one or both of your first two comments, let me know, and I will critique them on that basis. I’ll let you know in advance, however, that they seem to me woefully incomplete as a definition.

sorry bob, you think you’re so smart, but to an objective person, you’re a basket case. and when you say things like “those in the field,” do you realize you sound delusional?

Shall we declare now that it is accepted by all participants that I’m a basket case and turn to the matter of what mathematical poetry is? I must admit, though, that I have no idea how in the world my reference to “those in the field” makes me sound delusional. I wouldn’t mind you explaining that to me.

why don’t you provide links?

Okay. I didn’t think to before because I figured the very few people interested in what we had to say would know all about it, and because I thought we were starting fresh. Also, because the discussion at your blog is very hard to follow–for me, at any rate. Those interested in the background to this discussion can find a series of relevant comments at Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino’s Eratio in response to a three-part series of posts Gregory put up, beginning on 4 June 2010.

Sorry, I can’t figure out how to make an icon you can click to get to Gregory’s blog. At my Google blog, this was easy. I could do all sorts of thing there that I can’t do here, like change font-size or color. And indent!

****

Okay, Gregory sent me the HTML code I’d been using but could no longer find so what’s above will get you to his blog discussion of this subject–I hope. He also sent me a definition of mathematical poetry:

The “mathematical poem,” if it is to be, or to contain, poetry, must have some poetic elements, as well as some formal symbols and operations of math.

I would condense this to “a mathematical poem is a poem containing formal math symbols and operations.” I would then want to know exactly what is meant by “containing formal operations of math.” Would a reference to a mathematical operation qualify or would any operation in a math poem need to be put in use for the poem to be appreciated, as my definition requires.

I want to emphasize that by “operations of math” I do not mean that the poem will be “doing math.” What I mean is that the poem will be, in some way or in some sense — be that metaphorical, allegorical, but for the most part figurative — mimicking or imitating or finding a trope in that operation (whichever that operation may be). (I emphasize: I do not mean that the poem is “doing math.” Math does math. The poem is representational.)
I’ll add here that a definition of “mathematical poetry” ought to be such that it includes all the very different types of “mathematical poetry” being written, even those that maintain that they are actually “doing math.”

This last part bothers me as a taxonomist because it seems to allow just about anything to be called “mathematical poetry.” Is Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I looked on Beauty Bare” a mathematical poem?

Gregory’s reply of 22 July follows:

I refer you, again, to the analogy. It’s there in my posts. So far as Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I looked on Beauty Bare” goes: Look, Bob, my idea of mathematical poetry is just what I offer in my posts. It’s an exercise in theory, poetics and in grammar. I really don’t think there is any comparison to what you are doing. You can call what you are doing “mathematical poetry,” and I certainly allow for it in my definition (which is meant to be inclusive, but so as not to stifle your creativity), but, if you want my serious opinion, I don’t think what you are doing (which in my book is a sort of vis-po) merits serious consideration.

Gregory, I do not find your definition of mathematical poetry clear. That’s why I ask questions about it. If you want me to understand your definition, it seems to me you are obliged to try to answer my questions. Particularly the ones that you can answer with a yes or a no, such as my one about the Millay sonnet.

My impression at this point is that you define mathematical poetry as poetry in which an operation analogous to a mathematical operation is carried out, using the same mathematical symbols as a mathematical operation. Yes or no, am I correct? Or do would that be how you define some mathematical poetry. If the latter, what other kinds of poetry qualifies in your view as mathematical poetry?

I have a second question: when you say that you don’t think what I am doing “(which in my book is a sort of vis-po) merits serious consideration,” are you speaking of what I call my mathemaku? I can’t see what else you would be speaking of, although my mathemaku have nothing to do with the topic under discussion, which is the definition of mathematical poetry. I have trouble believing you are, though, considering that you bothered to feature such poems at your blog and discuss them as though you considered them worth serious consideration.

****

To this Gregory replied:

At my blog? You refer to the review of “A Selection of Visual Poems by Bob Grumman” dated March 5, 2004. Which you should link to. In it I write: “In my opinion, the mathemaku are without doubt Bob’s best work,

Yet not worth serious consideration?

and they are the four best pieces in this collection.” I think your early mathemaku (circa 1993) have a sort of hand-made, bric-a-brac, economy-of-words charm about them. I reviewed I think it was November 1994 in Meat Epoch your second little collection of mathemaku, Mathemaku 6-12, (1994, tel-let Press) and I referred to them as “learned ku” — translating “mathema” as “learned,” with two syllables, (from, “what is learned,” which is the Greek root of the word) and avoiding any reference whatsoever to mathematics or to “mathematical poetry.” But to answer your question: that’s correct, I do think your visual poetry, which you call “mathematical poetry” and which you maintain are performing mathematical operations, although they may be counted as “mathematical poetry” do not merit serious consideration because there are better specimens available.

Better specimens of what? And why aren’t your reviews “serious consideration?” As is often the case, you’ve lost me.

And about my definition, first of all I make it perfectly clear that what I am offering is a “working” definition, so if you think you can improve it be my guest, but nevertheless I Do Not think there is anything wrong with it but rather I think you should ask somebody in this “field of mathematical poetry” of yours to help you to understand it.

Why can’t you help me understand it by answering the simple questions I feel I need answers to in order to understand it? Why won’t you tell me if my guess at your definition is right or partially right or wholly wrong, and why? What do you mean by “working definition?” Why can’t you tell me exactly what mathematical operations are in a mathematical poem, and what they do in a mathematical poem?

Your confusion is your own creation and it’s gotten repetitive and tedious. (By the way, a mutual friend just read the review referred to above and thinks you “doth protest too much.” Hee.)

What an unnamed “mutual friend” says does not seem too relevant, I’m afraid. But what in the world am a protesting too much about? I was not protesting anything, merely trying to find out what you were talking about.

****

Apologies to Gregory for posting something here of his I thought part of this discussion but he intended as a private message.

****

Yesterday, 24 July 2010, Gregory and I had a long chat on the phone. After he’d gotten through at least ten minutes of uninterrupted excoriation (not always unjustifiably) of me and my poetics and poetry (unless you count my occasional chuckles as interruptions), we had some serious conversation followed by conversation that was downright friendly. I finally understood things he’d written that had confused me, some because my Internet browser can’t deal with certain symbols such as the unequal sign, the “=” with the “/” through it. It showed it as a question mark. And I think he now understands my point about the mathematical operations in mathematical poems not being analogies.

Later, I thought of what I think is a good illustration of my point: Suppose I’m standing near a table a bowl of apples is sitting on and a friend twenty feet away asks me for an apple whereupon I pick one up and jump in the air and propel the apple to him the same way I’d shoot a jump shot in a basketball game. The apple would be analogous to a basketball, the friend to a basket, but my jump-shot motion would not be analogous to the motion of a player shooting a jump shot, it would be identical to it. Analogously, the long division operations in many of my mathemaku are identical to long division operations in mathematics, but they involve terms that are not idential to mathematical terms but analogous to them.

Anyway, Gregory and I are now friends again, and probably won’t be arguing about the definition of mathematical poetry again, at least for a while. Meanwhile, Karl Kempton has e.mailed me that he, for the most part, agrees with my definition. I’ve changed it slightly since then, however. See Entry 169.

Posted in Bob Grumman, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Mathematical Poetry, Poetics | No Comments »

Entry 159 — Two Poem Poems

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

The following are the Poem poems I composed as a response to the mathematical graffiti wall. I consider them rough drafts although the first may be almost finished. I started it after figuring out the poem I planned to add to the wall, which is the poem’s main subject. I’ve revised both slightly since the reading–and misread the poems a couple of times there. Note: both are meant to be funny, sometimes Very Funny, in spots. I now believe I ought to have read the second one first at the Bowery Club, for it did get laughs. The first got none that I heard.

At a Wall, 10 July 2010

On a wall in
the lowest winds of his weirdness
Poem noticed a long
division example.
It showed “mathematics”
being divided by “number,”
giving a qoutient of “spring.”

“Uhn,” he thought out loud
after a moment’s reflection,
shaking his head in incomplete comprehension.
“To get mathematics from number,
you must multiply number by spring.”

“No,” quoth Criticism, suddenly
at his side that a dialogue might transpire.
“Note the term, ‘arithmetic,’
beneatht the term, ‘mathematics.’
The term, ‘spring,’ times ‘number’
equals only ‘arithmetic.’
To that you must add
the remainder to get ‘mathematics.’”

“Ah, so it’s a joke since the remainder
is the term, “hubris,’” responded Poem.
“Mathematics is arithmetic with hubris. Ha ha.”

“You absorb learning most speedily, Poem,
but surely the text is more thanjust a jest.
Surely, it suggests most cogently
how number may majestically ascend
from where it usually winters all the year,
incommunicative, inert,
and almost less than winter,
to what the woods and meadows
celebrate into when multiplied by spring!”

“You’ve paved my grope across this text
most winningly–e’en to the utmost bound
of perfect reasoning,” cried Poem.

“That heartens me, good friend,”
responded Criticism. “But tell me,
does the meaning of this text
completely satisfy you, as a work of art?
For such, I’m sure, its author
has intended it to be.”

“Why, yes, I think so, Criticism.
Wherefore should it not?”

“Ah,” smiled Criticism. “Verily, you may be right.
“Yet I have still a question: how
can such a quantity as spring,
supreme among the seasons,
themselves the rulers of our earth,
be less in value than arithmetic,
however admirable the underknitting
that the spring carries out
of so much of
our scientific understanding?”

Poem paused for three full minutes.
“I must concede that you
could not be more correct,” he finally said.
But surely what the author wants to say
could not more skillfully be rendered;
ergo, how could it be be amiss
to overlook so trivial a flaw?”

“Because, iwht thought, it can
more skillfully be rendered,” shouted Criticism,
producing a magic marker
and with it slashing out “spring,”
replacing it with “1 laneful of May”;
hesitating, then changing “1” to “2.7”–
then angrily changing “lanefuls” to
“meadowfuls.”

“There,” quoth he. “The author’s carelessly
implied disparagement of spring
impales the sensitivity of those
of us with taste no longer.
Do you not agree, good friend?”

“I do,” said Poem. “You, once again,
have forcefully repaired my wayward wits. That done,
O learned one, I ask:
would it be possible for us
to not exchange our views less stiltedly?
Or must we keep on parodying Socrates
and some dull blunderer that Plato
has inserted to make his hero seem astute
to his admirers?”

Poem’s show of resistance
to the instruction
Criticism had been trying to
improve him with came too late.
Criticism had been ignoring him,
concentrating on
calling up Number from before
the universe’s oldest axiom.
The winds ceased,
all words exceeded
the last syllable of enumeration
and a winter commenced
whose value was less
than the absolute value of zero.
Poem steeled himself
for the sort of epiphany
he so frequently
had to undergo,
but if one occurred,
he was not aware of it.

Criticism soon left. For an hour–
or century–after that,
Poem felt Number’s continued presence,
although he could no more see him
than he could see his sibling, light,
there being no longer any matter
for light to bounce to him from–
and he himself had mostly gone,
only his awareness
remaining with whatever it
and light and Number were in,
as invisible as they,
but aching with internalness–
as, for all it knew, were they.

Poem & Number Discuss Mathematical Poetry

The ocassion was the official unveiling
of a large artwork called
the mathematical graffiti wall.
Number, somberly clothed
in the equation defining the sine function
that he might be visible to the audience
gathered to listen to him and Poem
discuss the wall, opined
that while it was arresting as visual art,
and illustrated the Pythagorean Theorum,
the origins of differential calculus,
and other aspects of mathematics
with commendable charm and skill,
some of the applications of that science
depicted onit, involving, for instance,
the square root of a valentine heart, or a tree(!)
made little sense.

“I disagree,” said Poem. “I’m new to the various forms
of mathematical art, but I like the parts you mention..
According to my knowledgeable friend, Criticism,
they marry the purely conceptual
with the exhiliratingly sensual to result in
a wonderfully fresh kind of art,
an art which, among other things,
unghettos any mind flexible enough
to live in two perspectives simultaneously.”

“on the contrary,” retorted Number.
“It merely relieves the creator of such ‘art’
from any need to be coherent.”

“You’re wrong,” snapped Poem. “The effective maker
of such art is forced to be coherent in two ways.
A good example of this is the poem
“to plus to equals too,””
which was composed by a scholar
in the philosophy department of
Fordham University.”

At this point Asterrisk interrupted from off-stage:
“Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino,” said he. “And
it’s Franklin University, not Fordham University.”

“Thank you,” smiled Poem. “Now, what this poem does
is simple arithmetic, which it certainly does
correctly and coherently.”

Number reddened. “Correctly!?
You’re telling us that it performs an addition
that yields ‘too’ as the correct answer?!”

“‘Too’ is a correct answer. But when
I said it does arithmetic correctly,
I meant it performed its operation
according to the rules–it added ‘to’ to ‘to,’
or at least I’m intuitively convinced it did,
as I am intuitively convinced
the answer it got, coherently,
is one correct answer–
the way, it suddenly occurs to me,
4 is the correct answer to what is 2 + 2,
but not the only correct answer,
others being 2.5 + 1.5, and 17.3 – 13.3, and 2 squared.”

“Or your IQ,” he wasn’t crude enough
to say out loud.

“You’re being absurd. Mathematics does
mathematics, poetry does poetry.
This thing does neither. Only someone
of unsound mind could think otherwise.”

“Sorry, idiot, but it does both.”
At this point, the moderator had
to step between the two.
Fortunately, he had anticipated
just this sort of fireworks
when the two confronted each other,
so had two security men on hand.
With their help he managed to keep the peace.
Number, however, refused to continue.
So the unlucky audience was
denied Final Illumination regarding
the main matter of the discussion.

Posted in Bob Grumman, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Linguexpressive Poetry, Mathematical Poetry, Of Poem | No Comments »

Entry 150 — More Discussion with Gregory

Saturday, June 19th, 2010

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino and I are continuing our discussion about mathematical poetry at his blog. Below is the reply I made to his latest comment (with a little minor editing), him in regular type, me in italics:

You say you are “speaking of the set of language-objects used to represent the real world and that you and I differ in what those objects are.”

Would you explain that, please. And, by “language objects” do you mean words and symbols? Are numbers language objects? Are the names we call numbers by language objects?

The things used to express oneself with language: words, punctuation marks, numerals, whatever things like ampersands are called, square root symbols, etc. Numbers if you mean numerals–that is, written numbers. But there are also the numbers in the environment the words for numbers, and numerals, represent.

You say, “poets can be ungrammatical and not wrong but logicians, using words, can’t. You’re just finding users of language who use certain rules and ignore others, and other users whose use and non-use is different.” Would you explain that, please.

All great animals are male. George is a green animal. Therefore George is male. Those are a logical statements. They have to be grammatical. Mathematicians similarly have to abide by their rules–their “grammatical” rules if you want to call them that. Actually, anyone using words has to be reasonably grammatical in order to communicate.

A point of difference between “math grammar” and poetry grammar is that in the case of poetry grammar we can be ungrammatical and still be poetical — and not only that, we can still be meaningful — while if we are “mathematically ungrammatical” we then fall into error. I wish you had addressed this more fully.

I’m afraid I don’t see how I could have discussed it more fully. I’m saying so what if a poet can be ungrammatical and still be meaningful, and a mathematician can’t. A logician can’t, either. I’m saying different specialists use different parts of the grammar of a language, and use it with different degrees of rigor. Actually, I would say that poetry grammar is specialized grammar and that poets don’t break the rules when they break schoolroom grammatical rules.

I wonder:

Is the correctness of math but a matter of the correctness of “grammar”?

Is the correctness of math but a matter of the correctness of operation (of application of operational principle)?

I don’t know. I don’t see what this has to do with your definition of mathematical poetry.

(Axiomatical?)

When I write math I am “doing” math. (So to be “mathematically ungrammatical” would apply here.)

When I read math I am “doing” math. (How could it apply here? Or does it: what if I don’t know the rules?)

Sorry, Gregory, dunno where you’re going.

So according to you “mathematical poetry” is a sub-category of “visio-textual art”?

I can’t imagine where you get that.

According to me, “mathematical poetry” is a sub-category of poetry. It has

no more connection to visio-textual art than to music.

Sometimes you make up your own terms (“texteme”) and other times you use common terms or combining forms like “visio” and “textual.”

Why don’t you use, for example, “semanteme,” “sememe,” “morpheme,” “phoneme” and so on?

I try to use the available terms I know. I believe there is no term for what I mean by “texteme.” I’m not understanding why you are bringing this up.

You say, “no analogy need be involved.” How then do your math poems work, how do they signify, how do they function? Or are they, in the end, just pictures? (Visio-textual pictures.)

When I said no analogy need be involved, I meant–as the context, I think, makes clear–an analogy between the “mathematical sentence” and the “linguistic sentence.” My mathematical sentences don’t act LIKE linguistic sentences, they ARE linguistic sentences. Or so I claim, and that’s why I (at this point) don’t fully accept your definition of mathematical poems.

My mathematical poems work, signify, function just like any poem: they provide a reader with words and symbols (and sometimes other elements, when, for example, they are also visual poems) which the reader decodes just as he would a conventional poem.

How would you describe the grammar of your math poems?

One side of an equation has to equal the other. I don’t know. Some of my math poems use verbal grammar. The “grammar” of mathematics is very simple, for the most part–at the mostly sub-calculus level of my math poems. You follow algebraic rules like multiply both x and y by z in the expression z(x + y). These rules, for me, are just an extension of “normal” grammatical rules, like putting an adjective next to the noun it modifies, using a pronoun in such a way as to make clear what its referent is, etc. I don’t think of them as I use them.

My brain may not be working well, which may be why I’m having a little trouble following what you’re saying here and there. (My doctor thinks I may be anemic. It’s being checked. In the meantime, I’m using that as my excuse.)

all best, Bob

Posted in Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Mathematical Poetry, Poetics | 1 Comment »

Entry 148 — Response to Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Part 2

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

You say, “The ‘mathematical poem,’ if it is to be, or to contain, poetry, must have some poetic elements, as well as some formal symbols and operations of math.”

I don’t understand why you have, “if it is to be, or to contain, poetry.” If you call it a poem, claim I, you are saying that it is a poem, so must have poetic elements, however defined. That such a poem should have “some formal symbols and operations of math,” follows from its being called a “mathematical poem.” Ergo, I would rephrase your definition as “A mathematical poem is a poem containing mathematical elements.”

I would then ask you to say what you mean by “having” mathematical operations in a mathematical poem. That is, would a poem about a child who has to do five long division problems for homework “have” a mathematical operation in it?

Also, to be fastidious, I would want you to spell out whether the symbols and operations should be overtly in the poem. Some, as you probably know, seem to think a sonnet is a mathematical poem because the poet has to be able to count up to 14 to make one.

Which leads to the next important thing I think needs to be done: sort out all the kinds of math-related poems it seems reasonable to distinguish from one another. I would list the following five:

(1) poems that discuss math

(2) poems generated by mathematical operations.

(3) poems that use mathematical symbols but use them unmathematically: e.g., a poem with a square root sign next to the word “Sunday,” which is followed by seven plus-signs, whereupon the poem becomes standard verbal expression.

(4) poems that one or more persons claim arouse some kind of “mathematical feeling.”

(5) poems that perform one or more mathematical operation central to its aesthetic meaning.

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Entry 146 — Discussing Mathematics and Poetry

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino has been blogging about mathematics and poetry at his Eratio blog. When he told me about it on the phone yesterday, I said I’d check it out, which I’ve now done. I left my first comment on it. Fortunately, for once I cut what I said before hitting the button telling his blog to accept it, for my post got rejected. I’ll try in a little while to post it again. Meanwhile I want to post it here, to make sure it’s somewhere, and because maybe one of my two regular visitors doesn’t also read Gregory, or misses posts to it because it’s irregular, which is my excuse.

Hi, Gregory. I’ve decided to tear into your commentary on mathematics and poetry Very Slowly, one idea at a time, to facilitate coherence.

I’ll begin with your statement that “Already (‘mathematical sentence’) (you’re) thinking analogically.”

This is where you and I first disagree, for (as revealed in our long & interesting phone conversation of yesterday) I believe numerals and mathematical symbols are part of our verbal language, just as, in my opinion, typographical symbols for punctuation or to abbreviate are. The mathematical symbol, “+,” for instance, is just a different way of writing, “plus,” or “&.” It therefore follows that for me, a mathematical equation is a literal sentence differing from unmathematical sentences only in the words in it. “a – b = c,” for instance, is a very simple sentence and not significantly different from, “Mary cried when she lost her lamb.”

Obviously, it’s just a case of your opinion versus mine, but I think acceptance of my opinion makes more sense, because it keeps thing more simple than your does. I would say that what most people mean by “words” are “general words,” while words like “sineA” or “=” are “specialized words” or mathematical words–like punctuation marks.

I think in my linguistics, these “words” are all called “textemes,” But it’s been a while since I read Grumman on the matter, so I’m not sure.

Hey, I found a glossary in which I define many terms like “texteme.” It’s not a word but a typographical symbol: “any textual symbol, or unified combination of textual symbols–letters, punctuation marks, spaces, etc.–that is smaller than a syllable of two or more letters: e.g., ‘g,’ ‘&h(7:kk,’ ‘GH,’ ‘jd.’” I coined the term for discussion of various odd kinds of symbols and symbol-combinations like some of those among my examples that not infrequently occur in visual or infraverbal poems.

So, I don’t have a special term for word, as I define it. Yet.

To continue my argument in favor of my take on mathematical expression as an extension of verbal expression, not something different in kind, I would saimply ask what is special about mathematical symbols that should require us to think of them as elements of a special kind of expression? They do nothing that ordinary verbalization can’t do, although they do it more clearly, compactly and elegantly.

Graphs would be mathematical expression–a form of visio-conceptual expression, as is written music. Chemical diagrams but not chemical notation. . . .

I don’t see that there’s any difference between the syntax of mathematical expression (other than graphs and probably other similar things I’m not into Math enough to think of right now) and normal verbal expression. There’s no inflection, I don’t think, in mathematical expression. Which is a triviality.

Conclusion: we need a carefully formed taxonomy of human modes of expression.

Posted in Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Grumman coinage, Mathematical Poetry, Poetics | No Comments »

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Category: Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Entry 1659 — 4 Emails Back&Forth « POETICKS

Entry 1659 — 4 Emails Back&Forth

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Archive for the ‘Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino’ Category

Entry 1659 — 4 Emails Back&Forth

Entry 1052 — I’ve Screwed Up Again

Entry 539 — A Poem by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

Entry 164 — The Definition of Mathematical Poetry, Continued

Entry 159 — Two Poem Poems

Entry 150 — More Discussion with Gregory

Entry 148 — Response to Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Part 2

Entry 146 — Discussing Mathematics and Poetry

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