I am exited by last week's news that Oklahoma poet-- and member of the Muskogee Nation -- Joy Harjo has been appointed Poet Laureate of the United States. Harjo came to poetry via music and she sees in poetry a way of making connections and building understanding.
Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
fromBecoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
arrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
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Struggling through complexity to understanding is a similarity between poetry and mathematics. Beyond that basic connection, however, Harjo's poetry is not closely linked to mathematics. EXCEPT: One of her poems (found online at PoetryFoundation.org) follows a strict syllable count. In a birthday tribute to a friend who has turned seventy, Harjo has produced a seventy-line poem in which the syllable counts proceed as 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . , 69, 70. (In the terminology of OULIPO, Harjo has produced a growth-only snowball.) Here are the opening lines of Harjo's poem:
fromBecoming Seventy by Joy Harjo
Knoxville, December 27, 2016, for Marilyn Kallet’s 70th birthday.
This poem was constructed to carry any memory you want to hold close.
Wearrived
when the days
grew legs of night.
Read more »