The "haiku" is a Japanese poetry form which is expected to have a strong visual imagery and to follow a strict 5-7-5 syllable count in its three lines. Numerical syllable counts do not, however, easily translate into English. Here for example, is a translation (by R H Blyth) of a well-known haiku by Basho.
The old pond--
a frog jumps in,
the sound of water.
Other translations of this and others of Basho's haiku are available online.
Kaz Maslanka, a computer engineer and consultant, an artist and poet, uses mathematical operations and symbols in his poetry; he has a blog about a variety of types of symbolic poetry that offers introductions to several other writers as well. In Maslanka's blog we find his interpretation of the pond-frog haiku by Basho:
Here, too, is Maslanka's "Sacrifice and Bliss" (also collected in the anthology, Strange Attractors):
Poet Bob Grumman has developed a visual poetry series invoving mathematical symbols-- drawing from the Japanese haiku, they are called mathemaku. Grumman also has an interpretation of Basho's pond-frog Haiku:
Gregory St. Thomasino is editor of the postmodern online journal E-ratio ; in addition, St Thomasino is a poet and blogger; therein he presents his characterization of "mathematical" poetry and offers several brief samples, among them, a first type, "mutually inverse operations":
Change + purse = church.
kite + propeller = wing.
to + to = too.
am = be + I
and a second type called a "transversal poem":
multiculturalism ≠ ethnocentricity
government ≠ media
determinism ≠ character and motive
creationism ≠ evolution
St. Thomasino develops the ideas behind his designations in several "mathematical poetry" blog postings, one, two, and three.
A link that connects today's poets--Grumman, Maslanka, and St Thomasino -- to me (and to others of the math-poetry sort) -- is a math-art-poetry project at the Bowery Poetry Club that is being directed by the club's artist-in-residence mathematician-artist-poet John Sims.
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