Algebra has a poetry of its own.
Poetry has an algebra of its own.
1) How is poetry like an algebra equation?
2) What is the ration and proportion of poetry?
3) What is your definition of “earned abstraction”? How does a poem earn the use of abstract concepts and words?
This is the visualization we used in my “Always Coming Home” workshop at the Land Full of Stories Conference for the Story Circle Network in San Marcos, Texas. Drop into your breath and come home to your body. Release places of tension. Go to the place where you feel most at home…either inside or outside…
In this section: 12 poems, 4 photos QUAIL VISITATION Daniel cleaned twin windows facing the mountain. Cleared away grime two years in the making. I cooked supper while he looked out. “What a shame when birds slam into glass.” Then, suddenly, one did. A big sound. Then, down. Tiger prowled the deck to claim his…
You Have to Be Careful by Naomi Shihab Nye from Yellow Glove You have to be careful telling things. Some ears are tunnels. Your words will go in and get lost in the dark. Some ears are flat pans like the miners used looking for gold. What you say will be washed out with the…
Watershed Books 305 N. Main St. Lakeport, California June 2, 2006 Friday 3-5 p.m. Listen to this phrase with your poet’s ears: “Clean up your room.” Memories come up, no? Since we are in Northern California, metaphysical correspondences come up too, no doubt. What is cleaning? Which room? The room of our house? Of our…
We can dialogue with objects and use them as our muses in learning more about place and ourselves in relationship to place. Several presenters at the Story Circles Network “Land Full of Stories” conference brought objects with them as prompts. In one workshop I attended the objects were displayed on top of a table. I…
Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett’s blog supports women writing their memoirs. They just gave me a wonderful compliment by announcing that they have chosen Riehlife as one of their five top picks for the Superior Scribbler Award. Here’s how they described Riehlife: Janet Riehl — an artist in the best and broadest sense of the…
The balance between art and science can be elusive.
Here is my definition, applicable to this post:
Physics: The truth that is matter.
Art: The matter that is truth.
Eden,
Love your connection of how to connect science and art. As always, your wisdom is a welcome addition to the village.
Janet Riehl
Yes, Janet, when it comes to any form of dogma (art or science), the following observation pretty much tells us the whole story.
“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer,
to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
—from The Psychology of Science by Abraham H. Maslow
The indelible memories of our lives are felt, not thought.
Eden,
Your chapter in “An Artist Empowered” titled: Art & Physics: the upshot being this: you can’t measure God with a ruler” is a good reference in this discussion.
Janet
When I told my son, the economist, that I’d always figured him for an artist (music, poetry) he said, “Mom when you get up high enough in math, it has a certain beauty and elegance.” We (being Western culture) have long mused about the music of the spheres, and Hesse’s brilliant discussions of music and math all make such an argument as well.
Now for the algebra of poetry, what comes to mind is the solving for the unknown. An experience that resonates more than it should, an elusive motif, a pattern of words or sounds, are always central to poetry. If there is no unknown, you shouldn’t write a poem (and there is no algebra without an unknown to solve for).
Earned abstraction, I’ll be interested to see more of what people say about this. I still generally tune out of abstraction in poetry, but I am now seeing some limited times when the abstraction is so unexpected, yet so inevitible that it seems almost as concrete as the thud of a door being broken into.
Thanks for getting me into this discussion on an otherwise Monday, Monday.
Thanks, Mary Ruth, for your perceptive response. It’s good to have an online discussion about things that matter to us as writers. I always love the boundary between things that often seem in different camps.
Janet Riehl