Yesterday poetry was celebrated around the world -- the Guardian reported the event with mention of Cafés around the world that offered a cup of coffee in exchange for a poem. The occasion caused me to turn to one of my favorite international collections, The Horse Has Six Legs (Graywolf, 2010) -- an anthology of Serbian poetry translated and edited by poet Charles Simic. On 29 April 2011 I posted "Forgetful Number" by Yugoslav poet Vasko Popa (1922-1991) -- and here is another of Popa's poems. This one is part of a cycle of poems about "the little box" and it involves recursion.
Last News about the Little Box by Vasko Popa
The little box that contains the world
Fell in love with herself
And conceived
Still another little box.
Showing posts with label box. Show all posts
Showing posts with label box. Show all posts
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Can you SEE the monument?
Links to non-intersecting celebrations of April
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
Recently I revisited my copy of Elizabeth Bishop: The Compete Poems, 1927-1979 (FSG, 1999) and turned to "The Monument" -- a poem mathematically interesting for its geometry. Here are the opening lines; the complete text and many other Bishop poems are available online here:
from The Monument by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Labels:
angle,
box,
Carol Frost,
cube,
Elizabeth Bishop,
half-way,
line,
monument,
parallel,
side
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)