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Photo by Silvia Corradin
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The September Poetry Challenge was for poems related
to mathematics and/or arithmetic. There were a number of clever entries. Congratulations
to the first place winner, Marina Manoukian, and to the second place
winners, Deetje
J. Wildes and Kristin Procter. The three poems are very different. The judge was Linda Wallin, whose poem was used
in the previous post.
We
will start with the second place poems.
Measuring
Marigolds
I
recall the inchworm song.
Sang
it with a friend years ago.
Two
and two are four,
Four
and four are eight,
Eight
and eight are sixteen . . .
Today
I
measure time.
The
year I graduated.
The
year I met my husband.
Our
fiftieth anniversary.
The
day he died.
by
Deetje J. Wildes
The
judge liked the turn in this poem, which gave it emotional punch.
Love and Arithmetic
(a Fibonacci Poem)
What
can
numbers
possibly
teach a poet’s heart?
What good is eleven in love?
-
Kristin Procter
The
judge felt that this poem made good use of the form, in which the number of
syllables per line is determined by the Fibonacci sequence.
The
winning poem is presented as a series of equations which, as Linda Wallin says, do
a good job of describing an important aspect of the human condition. Here it
is:
How to stop
asking about variables and instead notice function
1.
If x = the earth
1a.
x² = the earth spinning on its own axis
2.
And y = the sun
2a.
xy = the earth orbiting the sun
3.
And x² + xy = the seasons
4.
Then f (x² + xy) = how we change with the seasons.
~
Marina Manoukian
Each
poet whose work is published on this blog retains rights to his or her own
poem.
Bios:
Marina
Manoukian
is a reader and writer living in Berlin. Working towards a Master of
English Philology, she likes bees and loves honey. Find more of her work
at marinamanoukian.com
Kristin
Procter lives in Massachusetts, where she collaborates
on workshops and open mics for motherwriters. Her writing has
been published in Mom Egg Review, 3Elements, and Understory, as well as in anthologies.
Deetje J. Wildes is an enthusiastic
member of Western Wisconsin Christian Writers Guild. She enjoys making
music and experimenting with visual arts.
Check
back tomorrow afternoon or evening for the October Challenge.
©
Wilda Morris