Marianne Moore -- counting syllables

     Currently (until 28 April, 2013) at the National Portrait Gallery is an exhibit of video and audio portraits of a selection of American Poets -- browsing on the gallery's website I found here today (and related to the exhibit) a recording Marianne Moore's "Bird-Witted."
     Marianne Moore (1887-1972) was one of my first-loves in poetry.  Her line in "Poetry" about presenting for inspection "imaginary gardens with real toads in them" became my goal also.  And when I discovered that her poems frequently were constructed by counting syllables I began to consider that strategy.  These opening stanzas of "The Fish," found in its entirety at poets.org, illustrate Moore's interesting stanza-designs based on syllable-count-patterns.

              The Fish     by Marianne Moore   

1            wade
3            through black jade.
9                 Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
6                 adjusting the ash-heaps; 
8 or 9                opening and shutting itself like

Grasping at TIME

Different persons experience time differently -- as illustrated by the few lines included below (part II of  "Time" from my new collection, Red Has No Reason).  This musing is followed by the beautifully precise "Four Quartz Crystal Clocks" by  Marianne Moore (1887-1972).

April: along with baseball we celebrate poetry and mathematics

Is it coincidence or design that

     April  is  National Poetry Month
            
           and

   April  is  Mathematics Awareness Month
          (This year's theme is  "mathematics and sports")

In my own reading, baseball is the sport for which I have found the most poetry.