Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a poet, but I have not found mathematics in his poems. Still, I want to note here a fantastic performance of his play, Mother Courage and her Children, starring Kathleen Turner and a talented ensemble at Washington,DC's Arena Stage. Invited by my neighbors, Mitzi and Pati, I joined them yesterday for a riveting performance. Here is a link to "How Fortunate the Man with None," a Brecht poem heartily sung as "Solomon's Song" in the current musical production.
And here, with a nod to the mathematical bent of this blog, is a quote from Brecht's Mother Courage that involves counting; also, it is one of many examples of a strategy that Brecht uses often and well -- encouraging an idea by speaking of its opposite.
Showing posts with label word play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label word play. Show all posts
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Word Play -- "Of Time and the Line"
Charles Bernstein, poet and teacher, experiments with poetry and prefers "opaque" and "impermeable" writing -- to awaken readers "from the hypnosis of absorption." In the poem below he does, as mathematicians also do, multiplies ideas by playing with them -- here using "line."
Of Time and the Line by Charles Bernstein
George Burns likes to insist that he always
takes the straight lines; the cigar in his mouth
is a way of leaving space between the
lines for a laugh. He weaves lines together
by means of a picaresque narrative;
Of Time and the Line by Charles Bernstein
George Burns likes to insist that he always
takes the straight lines; the cigar in his mouth
is a way of leaving space between the
lines for a laugh. He weaves lines together
by means of a picaresque narrative;
Labels:
angle,
Charles Bernstein,
line,
lines,
math,
poem,
postmodern,
word play
Monday, January 3, 2011
New poems from old -- by permutation
One of the founding members of the Oulipo, Jean Lescure (1912-2005), devised categories of permutations of selected words of a poem to form a new poem; three of these rearrangements are illustrated below using the opening stanza of "Mathematics or the Gift of Tongues" by Anna Hempstead Branch (1875-1937). Here is the original stanza from Branch's poem:
Labels:
Anna Hempstead Branch,
Jean Lescure,
mathematics,
Oulipo,
permutation,
poetry,
word play
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