Filling the Well: Amit Ray and Yehuda Amichai

 

Fun fact: Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day—March 14, 1879.

Mathematics and poetry are the two ways to drink the beauty of truth.

 

– Amit Ray

 

 

Problem in a Math Book

by Yehuda Amichai

 

I remember a problem in a math book

about a train that leaves from place A and another train

that leaves from place B. When will they meet?

And no one ever asked what happens when they meet:

will they stop or pass each other by, or maybe collide?

 

Read the rest of the poem at Poetry Foundation.

 

 

Song from π, by aSongScout

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMq9he-5HUU

 

For more about how this song was written, click HERE.

 

 

The power of x

Choreographed by I Could Never Be a Dancer

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0-zCwSfkOo

 

 

Now it's your turn!

 

WRITE A FIBONACCI (FIB) POEM

A poetic form created by Greg Pincus that plays off the mathematical Fibonacci sequence, a "Fib" is a six line, 20 syllable poem in which each line gets its syllable count from following the Fibonacci sequence. This means the six lines have syllable counts of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 respectively. Some would say the first number of the Fibonacci sequence is actually a zero, so imagine every Fib starting with a beat of silence.

 

WRITE A PI POEM

 

These are the first 20 digits of pi: 3.14159265358979323846 (or, if you're particularly ambitious, the first million digits). Choose one of the following variations:

• The first line of your poem should have 3 WORDS; the second line, 1 word; the third line, 4 words; and so forth. Your poem can be as long as you like, so long as you keep to the sequence.

• The first line of your poem should have 3 SYLLABLES, the second line, 1 syllable, the third line, 4 syllables, and so forth. You get the idea.

• Each word in your poem must contain the same number of LETTERS as the sequence of pi. Line breaks are up to you.

If you leave your poems in the comments, I'd love to read them!

(But no million-digit pi poems, please.)

April 1: Michelle H. Barnes and Cosmo Sheldrake

April 2: Hans Christian Andersen

April 3: Guy Finley, Anneke van Giersbergen and Árstíðir 

April 4: Joseph Campbell and Fabien Weibel

April 5: Salvador Dalí and Pilobolus

April 6: Jacob Nordby and Talking Animals

April 7: Aileen Fisher, XTC, and Takarazuka Ballet 

This week's Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Janice Scully at Salt City Verse. She shares a wonderful book review and interview with David Elliott about his newest children's poetry collection, At the Pond. 

You'll find the National Poetry Month kidlit events roundup at Jama's Alphabet Soup.

Welcome to the Fun Factory!

Luna Park, Sydney, Australia, photo: Sascha Grant

Calling all punsters, all witty-quippers, all wordspinners— 
the fun factory is open for business! 

Last week, Kate O'Neil challenged us to write a poem with words at play. (Read her TLD reader spotlight HERE.)

Someone very wise once said—

duncan c

(Attributed to Benjamin Franklin, George Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson, Babe Ruth, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and any number of others, including Anonymous.)

Kudos to whoever it was. I wholeheartedly agree! 

So in an effort to counter the process of aging (beauty sleep be damned), I've been thinking a lot about this challenge over the past several days. On Tuesday, I shared a playful couplet from Ogden Nash that fits the bill. I could have just as easily shared these two clever lines from Douglas Florian. The humorous and imaginative verse of Jack Prelutsky comes to mind for this challenge, Calef Brown's mash-ups, and several zany poems by J. Patrick Lewis, including this one. In a comment to last week's interview, Tabatha Yeatts mentioned Brian Bilston and Greg Pincus. While Kate suggested malapropisms, ambiguities, unintended meanings, puns, and cliches as sources of inspiration, it occurred to me that wordplay can also be expressed visually—by playing with word sequence or layout, like these examples from Bob Racska's Wet Cement. I like that some of you on the padlet are going in that direction.

The early onset of Black Friday sales this month reminded me of a wordplay poem I wrote back in 2013. It's about the relentless Internet ads that pop up during this season of retail holiday cheer.  Indulge me as I repost it six years later—a brief little affair I call "Cyber Seduction."

Cyber

Seduction

It all began

with cookies. Now

and then, you popped up

unexpectedly.   It was cute,

you were sweet, and before long

you fell into step with my digital footprint.

Just a fling, I told myself, but you wanted more:

my time, attention, undying devotion, a credit card number

and personal security code.  And then it happened.  Black Friday.

It was late. There on my lap in the bedroom, aura glowing, you

told me I was glamorous, well-to-do, elite, and that XL or XS

didn’t matter. “2-for-1,” you said, “a limited-time offer.”

So I gave you my IP address, my credit card, the

works.  Who could resist those promises,

now as empty as my bank account? 

For a time I thought we clicked,

but now I realize I did all

the clicking. And what

once was 2-for-1,

is now just me,

50% off.

© 2013 Michelle Heidenrich Barnes. All rights reserved.

...storrao...

Our fun factory is waiting for your wordplay poem! While there, enjoy the ditties already posted by Michelle Kogan, Linda Trott Dickman, Janie Lazo, Dianne Moritz, Linda Baie, Diane Mayr, and Cindy Breedlove.

Thanks to Irene Latham, our "still and steady" host of this week's Poetry Friday roundup. You'll find her and this week's offerings at Live Your Poem. Join me here for next week's roundup and a big announcement!