The Shape of the World -- a dream of equality

     One of the most vital components of the Washington DC poetry scene is Split This Rock -- an  organization that speaks and acts against injustice.  (Co-founder and Executive Director, Sarah Browning, is a long-time activist and a fine poet.)  One of STR's 2016 programs has been Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016,  a book arts and cultural festival that commemorates the 2007 bombing of Baghdad’s historic bookselling street, and emphasizes free exchange of ideas and knowledge, in solidarity with the people of Iraq.  Several weeks ago at one of these events I met poet Dunya Mikhail and her translator, Kareem James Abu-Zeid, and was involved in discussion and reading from The Iraqi Nights (New Directions, 2015).  Here is a mathy poem from that collection.

       The Shape of the World      by Dunya Mikhail
                                           translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid)
       If the world were flat
       like a flying carpet,
       our sorrow would have a beginning
       and an end.

       If the world were square,
       we'd lie low in a corner
       whenever the war
       plays hide and seek.

       If the world were round,
       our dreams would take turns
       on the Ferris wheel,
       and we'd all be equal.

     A link to the Arabic original version of this poem is shown at the bottom of Mikhail's webpage -- a link that also offers  a recording of her reading this poem, set to music.
     And please note that coming up soon is the  2016 Split This Rock Poetry Festival (April 14-17, 2016) with many excellent workshops and readings.  Learn about it here and register (online registration closes March 31).  See you there.

The world is round . . . or flat!

British poet Wendy Cope frequently includes edgy humor in her poems (she is, indeed, a prizewinner in light verse) -- and I like that.  In the poem below (found at PoetryFoundation.org and originally published in Poetry in 2006), Cope examines arguments of whether our world is flat or round.  Part 2 of the poem involves the interesting permutation pattern that is called a pantoum (Lines 2 and 4 of each four-line stanza are repeated (approximately) as lines 1 and 3 of the next stanza -- and the final stanza is wrapped into the first).

Differences of Opinion     by Wendy Cope

1     HE TELLS HER

He tells her that the earth is flat --
He knows the facts, and that is that.
In altercations fierce and long
She tries her best to prove him wrong,
But he has learned to argue well.
He calls her arguments unsound
And often asks her not to yell.
She cannot win.  He stands his ground.

The planet goes on being round.   

Land without a square

Here is a bit of light verse from the pen of John Updike (1932-2009).

ZULUS LIVE IN LAND 
WITHOUT A SQUARE     by John Updike

               A Zulu lives in a round world.  If he does not leave his reserve. 
     he can live his whole life through and never see a straight line.
                                             --headline and text from The New York Times

In Zululand the huts are round,
The windows oval, and the rooves
Thatched parabolically.  The ground
Is tilled in curvilinear grooves.

Round

Round     by  Russell Edson

      Where there is no shape there is round.  Round has no shape; no more than a raindrop or a human tear . . .

       And though the organs that focus the world are round, we have never been happy with roundness; how it allows no man to rest.  For in roundness there is no place to stop, since all places in roundness are the same.

     Thus the itch to square something.  To make a box.  To find proportion in a golden mean . . .

"Round" is found in The Tormented Mirror (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001).  This blog's posting for June 9, 2011, features another of Edson's prose poems.

Forgetful Number

A lovely poem about more than a number . . .

    Forgetful Number  by Vasko Popa

    Once upon a time there was a number
    Pure and round like the sun
    But lonely very lonely

    It started to calculate by itself