Entry 362 — My Defixation Continues
First, another definition:
Visiomathematical Poetry: mathematical poetry containing a strong visioaesthetic component. I’m posting this as an example of my belief that a variety of poetry should be named on the basis of what it most is, not automatically called “visual poetry,” for instance, because it is partially visioaesthetic, as many of my mathemaku are, and as linguexclusive poems that calligraphy has prettified are.
Next, the contents of a post sent to New-poetry:
First off, this is a test to see if an attachment will show up when this e.mail is posted. If not, one can see what it contains at http://tipoftheknife.blogspot.com/2011/01/tip-of-knife-issue-3.html?showComment=1296227493737#c7300633740752662346. Scroll down to my “EE-Winter.”
Secondly, to those who believe non-Wilshberian works like this piece are the equivalent of someone kicking an elk skull and calling what they’re doing “poetry,” what such a work should be called. Not “visual art,” by the way, since everything in it is textual–the verbal text of words and the mathematical text of mathematical symbols (to wit, the absolute signs [the verticals], the minus signs, and the remainder and what I call the “dividend shed”).
Thirdly, I’d love to hear what anyone makes of the poem. Everything in it can be paraphrased–if one knows how to read math and solve simple cryptograms. I call it a cryptographic mathematical poem, by the way.
Third, something with nothing to do with poetics definitions, a comment to Bill DiMichele’s blog I just made in response to a brief comment of someone who found Bill’s latest entry “wonderful”:
As one with work in the post, I thank you, Caio. As one with work in the post, however, I have a request: couldjah say why you think the post wonderful? Partly because of my work, for instance? Partly in spite of my work? Sorry for this slightly annoyed comment, but I find way too many comments to blogs and discussion groups to be nothing but close to useless thumbs up or down. On the other hand, it is nice to know when anyone cares enough about something on the net to actually comment! Hardly nobody done does that. So a sincere thanks, anyway. (And the stuff Bill has gathered, aside from mine, is wonderful, isn’t it!
persnickedly yours, Elderly Bob
Now a comment about my mathemaku about “winter,” or–more accurately–about what some might call my analytical perfectionism. In the original version of the poem, the remainder was simply “little lame balloonman,” a quotation from E. E. Cummings’s “In just-spring.” Thinking about it yesterday, I can’t remember now why, I realized that the remainder should not be positive, because what it was being added to to get the (negative) dividend was negative. That meant that any positive remainder could not be added to it to make it equal the negative dividend (negative because a negative value was chosen to multiply a positive value to try to get it). This bothered me greatly because I need my mathematical poems to be mathematically accurate, however little many others believe they can’t be. I couldn’t quickly figure out how to remedy the poem. At length, though, the obvious answer occurred. It was to make “little lame balloonman” negative. (I had to keep “little lame balloonman” as my remainder because that’s what the remainder in each of the other three poems in the set this poem is part of are.)
To make the arithmetic more clear simply divide 2 into -3. If you make the quotient -1, then your remainder will be -3 minus -2 or -1. Which makes sense because if you turn the -1 into a fraction to get the quotient 100% accurate, you’ll get negative one-and-one-half.
Next, another thought inspired by the nullinguists: if a visual poem is not poetry, why need it be visual? Adjectives count more than nouns?
Last, a Comment on “Cleave”: the reason “cleave” is famous among aesthlinguists is that it has two official definitions that are exactly opp0sed to each other, “to separate” and “to cling to.” I mention it here because its fame is due to its nature’s being so extremely rare. Even the masses prefer a word not to contradict itself. I feel sure that even some certified lingusts do also.