Poetry made visual with math terms

     As the year ends I have been revisiting books not seen for a while -- and one of them is Concert for Violin and Loneliness (Criterion Publishing, 2002) by the Romanian poet Mircea Goga (b. 1948). This collection was translated by Doru Radu and me.   Here are several samples in which Goga uses mathematical imagery to enrich his poems.

Poems by Mircea Goga

Proportions

Like an iceberg
of which only an eighth is visible --
of death we show only
life . . . 

                         Toward the Open Sea

                         Circles breaking by water
                         waves move out:
                         we announce ourselves to the Open Sea . . .

                         circles in water we scatter ourselves whispering only
                         whose compass is this?
                         whose was that stone?

         The Poet

         An elephant that transfers the value
         of a tusk onto the page . . .

Mircea Goga is a descendant of award-winning Romanian poet Octavian Goga (1881-1938)    Here is a link to some of his poetry.  And here is a link to previous posts in this blog that include poetry and other info from my friend and co-translator, Doru Radu.