Free verse № 116803
Math Poem
1-1 = ½-½
2â2 = 1â1
Taking half from half is the same as taking two from two.
½/1 = 1/2
2/4 = ½/1
Half of a thing is the same as a quarter of two.
(Hang in there, follow the symmetry.)
1*1 = ½*2
¼*4 = 1*1
Half of two things is the same as a quarter of four.
½+1½ = 2+0
1+1 = ½+1½
Two and nothing more is the same as one and one.
Subtract, divide, multiply, add.
Zero, half, one, two.
Can you equate the series?
I wish the tools were here
to render clearly,
math expressions eloquentlyâ
integrals, Laplaces, differentialsâ
love, hate, fear.
Itâs like painting with a greasy finger.
I wonder how van Gogh might have written a poem.
Yeah, I knowâ
with a gun in a wheat field.
57 comments
â¢Â°â¢Gregory Jamesâ¢Â°â¢
And yet an Gentleman may write an poeme about an carrot. And is he not entitled to call it "Vegetable Poeme"? No, no, I suppose he isn't.
You made no secret, in your opening statement on jrodayâs poem, that you find my vote of 9, compared to your 10, âvery sad.â Your ensuing questions sought to draw me into some slip-of-word, a self-made entanglement from which you could close in to inflict pain for your pleasure in accordance with your previously stated intent.
You will understand if I am wary. âA smart fish swims around the bait,â and I have answered your question (in the deleted poem, and rephrased here) as fully and directly as it deserves, considering your stated motive.
Today, I have a red dress to put on, a hat to wear, and cheer to deliver. May I begin by presenting you the enjoyment of a title for your possible development? âDovina, the Dimtard.â Catchy, isnât it? Has a pleasant ring. Using it and my âYesâ answer to your question in jroadyâs poem about whether I find his poem nearly as good as Yeats, you could expound for several pages, and enjoy the merriment of this special season.
Again, Merry Christmas.
I think the truth is that you only gave the poeme a 9 because it flattered you. Let's face facts: POETICALLY, IT WAS A PILE OF WANK. Nearly as good as Yeats? lol. Why didn't you just say 'no' when I asked you?
The logic seems to be 1 + 1 is not poetic, 1 + 1 is maths, maths is not poetic.
Do you know any good maths poemes? The only one I can think of is this little gem by Lewis Carroll (who was a Mathematics Lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford):
And what mean all these mysteries to me
Whose life is full of indicies and surds?
x^2 + 7x + 53
= 11/3
I can think of lots of reasons. For example, they are likely to be poorly educated, uncouth luddites. Mechanics work with their hands, not their brains. What little intelligence they do posses will probably be concentrated in the Cockney Song Department, rather than the Super Literacy Bassoon. Of course truck drivers would have to be semi-literate so they could read sign posts, but that's hardly sufficient qualification to consider soiling with world with your stultifyingly ill-conceived attempts at poetry. In my experience mechanics, truck drivers and builders are brash, unintellectual drones, and if they ever do write something, it will almost certainly be obscenely childish, and scrawled in crayon. I'm sorry but that's just the way I feel.
Consider, by way of explanation, the following questions:
How did Van Gogh, as a painter, make macaroni and cheese?
How did Van Gogh, as a painter, use macaroni and cheese making in his painting?
Thank you.
To rephrase. You are a bum. You have a bum idea about poetry.
To wit, you clearly think poetry, that magical ephemeral gobble that it is, has something to do with almost anything except the skill and technique needed to write good poetry. Consider my original questions for the comment above:
Q: How would a painter, as a poet, write poetry?
A: Why the fuck wouldn't he write it like a poet?!?! You're essentially saying: Frank is a painter. Frank is a poet. Frank writes poetry like a painter, not like a poet. You say this because you think poetry takes little work except for tapping into the meatwell of your tender pre-menopausal heart. Anyone can do it.
Or, you're bound to argue, so -
Q: How would Van Gogh, as a painter, make a chair?
A: Probably all bad, crooked and perspectiveless. You'd think that's cool, I'm sure. Until you tried to sit in it and fell on your detaching uterus. Or bum.
In all honesty, Merry Christmas.
How well would a painter, or a truckdriver like INTRANSIT, or a sculptor like auscot, or a painter like van Gogh, write poetry. That, of course depends on two things - having the imagination needed to put a well understood profession into commonly understandable terms, and poetic ability. Are we clear now? This whole discussion seems insanely inane. I'm bored!
I would add that the most important thing in translating an idea into a poem is that you understand the idea. Take for instance 'A dedication to the Golden Bird~' by Bhaskaryya. The poet who is a negro has clearly been told that having negroes in white society is good. However he has no idea why, so he clumsily throws in words like ethnicity and diversity hence being unable to make any insight whatsoever. Why do you think professors are better at explaining theories to students than other students who merely understand the basics. To understand is to be able to transform and hence better communicate an idea.
It is not obvious where you get the idea that I believe poetry is magical. Your argument does not support your opening statement. Poems that fail to embrace the rules of logic can actually be good poems if they are well written from a sentimental, emotional, or other non-logical perspective. They are inherently no more or less magical than logically written poems.
You have given an example a an unsophisticated man trying to talk and perhaps write among sophisticates, and not doing as good a job of it as a professor could. I see no relevance of this example to the subject.
I agree with you that to be able to transform an idea is to better communicate it. But there are many ways to do that.
What you seem to want is for ideas expressed in poetry to be beyond reproach. That is to say you can say what you like and not be examined on an intellectual level, only on a poetic (that it rhymes) level, which is bow'ls.
You and I seem to have vastly differing concepts on both logic and romanticism. Your first paragraph says that not following the rules of logic is dim, thus eliminating romantic and emotional expressions from intellectual discussion. Your argument uses âa scientific paperâ as an example. Obvious, a scientific paper must be logical, but what does that have to do with the discussion at hand? You then say that because I claim that a poem that ignors the restraints of logic is okay, that I am claiming it to be magical. For the second time, let me say that âmagical,â in my opinion, refers only to well-written poems, logical or not.
Next, you say that what I seem to want is for the ideas expressed in poetry to be beyond reproach. How silly! I criticize ideas in poems posted here almost daily, and welcome criticism on mine. I wish to be examined on an âintellectual level,â as you say, and on other levels. And why would you say that I consider rhyming important when my poems seldom rhyme? I donât get it. And will you now say I donât get it because I am dim and write bowâls?
Can we have a sensible discussion on this subject, or is it best to just call each other names and walk away?
That is not what I said. Not even close! And except for a few lines, which you could point out, and except for a few lines in your poems, which I could point out, neither of us write that way.
The use of logic does not forbid the use of emotion or romantics. I never said it does. Romanticism and logic fit nicely together in many poems. But many other poems lack logic in their romanticism, and they too can be good poems. My I cite a favorite of mine by our departed Shuushin:
Holding On by Shuushin
She would act too eager to please,
prone to furtive backward glances
as we were never quite at ease.
Secretive on past romances;
something unsettled in her past,
prone to furtive backward glances.
I asked her once what spell was cast,
lost deep in thought she closed wet eyes;
something unsettled in her past.
âI hopeâ said she âyou realize
how difficult this is for meâ -
lost deep in thought she closed wet eyes.
She clasped her hands as if in plea
then simply looked away again -
how difficult this is for me.
And so, up to the very end
she would act too eager to please;
her heart had never time to mend
as we were never quite at ease.
You are released to Doom3. Please, sometime, look at Math Poem 2. I think itâs an improvement. Merry Christmas.
Your bigger problem is that you apparently think (and have indeed railed on about many a time) that we only examine, criticise or otherwise deal with poemranker poems according to their logical merits. Don't say, I haven't said this! No, of course you haven't said exactly that. You said it much more bumblingly and malapropismed. The ideas that usually make it into poems ARE hard to critique, especially since they're usually some variation on "God is Love", "Love is both pleasurable and painful", or, and rarely, "Negroes are people too, though obviously a lesser sort." Since it's pretty obvious that a poem is crap without some kind of logic, it IS easy to critique the logic of a poem you don't like and safely conclude that it's crap. And most poems I don't like ARE illogical.
Your other problem is thinking "logical" means something like 'involving numbers or the word Boolean' (cf. Shuushin's respectably logical poem, posted here.) Bow'ls. And another shameful stain on your much-besmirched record.
Where you get the idea that I've "said opposites" is beyond me. Do you mean that the statements "You are a bum" and "You have a bum idea about poetry" are opposites? Consider that in the first statement bum means something like "a hobo or transient" and in the second means something like the sense of "a bum leg" or "a bum pitching arm". Now even you must see their only loosely related.
As concerns your second question, a truckdriver like INTRANSIT would (and does) write poetry at best like a bad or unpracticed poet, and at best like a decent poet. That he writes poems about truckdriving is pretty irrelevant. He writes them like a poet talks about truckdriving, not like a truckdriver talks about truckdriving. Do you see the distinction? I bet not. Despite that the rest of your comment agrees, forgets that it contradicts your earlier position, and then trumps loudly.
I've been bored.
are you expecting a threesome?
-10- 'caues math kicks ass
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