When I pick up a pen to write on a particular subject, often it is useful me to try to follow a pattern for rhymes or syllable-counts -- for the effort to conform to a pattern challenges me to think about my topic in new ways. In the history of poetry, rhyme-choices were frequent--yielding sonnets, villanelles and a variety of other forms.
In recent years, online and printed versions of poems have become very accessible and the principle, "Rhymes help us remember" has become less of a focus in poetry. One of the popular connections between math and poetry has been the use of Fibonacci numbers to choose syllable counts; especially popular has been the FIB, a six-line stanza in which the syllable-counts are 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 -- the first six Fibonacci numbers. (Inventor of the FIB was Greg Pincus, and lots of information is provided here in this 2010 blog posting, Poems with Fibonacci number patterns.)
Writer's Digest online offers discussion and samples of FIBS and here's a template for use with students. Below is a FIB that my pencil scratched on paper this morning while I was delaying the important task of cleaning my clothes-closet.
Why
does
my brain
think slower
as I get older?
These are times I want lots of thoughts!
This link leads to earlier postings in this blog of Fibonacci poems.
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