tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post1757517873958260361..comments2023-09-02T08:32:23.919-07:00Comments on Mathematical Poetry: On Scott Helmes and Mathematical Visual PoetryKaz Maslankahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10215535360917928880noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-859819442758882622010-06-15T15:09:29.550-07:002010-06-15T15:09:29.550-07:00Dear Kaz
You may be able to answer what 2 + 2 = wi...Dear Kaz<br />You may be able to answer what 2 + 2 = without using "visuals", but you can't answer what does bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket 6574534567 times 455789007642 bracket bracket bracket bracket bracket 876665456 divided by…. I think you get my drift! In fact like most EVERYBODY bar savants you'd say HANG ON!!!! LET ME WRITE IT DOWN --- the relationship to calculation (by humans) to visual-representation seems to be a biological determinant. I'm happy to stand corrected on this but that is my memory of reading.<br />I'll leave the rest to irrelevancy.<br />Love + anarchy<br />TT.O.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-52994611435447025542010-06-14T23:06:40.165-07:002010-06-14T23:06:40.165-07:00I will address a few of these items:
You say all m...I will address a few of these items:<br />You say all mathematics is visual – If I whisper in your ear two plus two equals four – what part of that is visual. I can certainly answer that question without visualizing anything. <br /><br />You imply that the equal sign can only be used with numbers. When I say distance = speed multiplied by time …. Where are the numbers? Obviously there are only concepts not numbers.<br /><br />You say you do not need a good reason for anything. And I say that you do need a good reason for everything if you want me or people like me to take your serious. <br /><br />Lexical poetry is not a term that I created. It has been used for a number of years now within the visual poetry circle. <br /><br />You seem to have a definite idea of what zero is yet I wonder:<br />Is it a point that has no width length or height that sits on a line between -1 and 1?<br />Is it a number that when multiplied with anything it gives only itself?<br />Is it the null set?<br />Or is it just a concept that exists in our mind that cannot be found anywhere much like infinity?<br />Can it reveal itself with all these noted aspects by a single question? <br /><br />KKaz Maslankahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10215535360917928880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-35964234130663085372010-06-14T22:26:35.168-07:002010-06-14T22:26:35.168-07:00Part 2
With respect to the "equality sign&qu...Part 2<br /> With respect to the "equality sign" is CAN'T mean the same thing as it does in mathematics, cos the units you/we are playing with are NOT numbers, nor do they behave as propositional units in a Godellian calculus. The best that can be said for them is they imply (as you rightly intuit) a functional procedure. I don't mind "contradiction" in mathematical poetry, that's its beauty over mathematics i.e. it can play with logics and contain them in the crucible of form. Those "truths" although inexplicable now, may very well be the basis of whole universes; in much the same way as the square root of 2 freaked out the Pythagoreans. Nothing better than poetry swimming in mathematics, or mathematics swimming in poetry. You say "If you say: 4lovemaking x 2arguments = 12emotions then you better have a very good reason to say 12 instead of 8" ---- please note: I DO NOT NEED A GOOD REASON FOR ANYTHING! Your equation CAN equal 12 or 8, an "mathematics" knows how to do it, as does "poetry" --- that "authorial demand" seems faaaaar too ridged --- but I accept your dislike of the procedure.<br /> I note that JoAnne Growney has weighed in with her journey in mathematical poetry and its changing face over time -- I think her correct that it NOW means so much to so many viva la difference!<br />And yes, pure poetry is a beautiful pool to swim in.<br />Love + anarchy<br />TT.O.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-32160256436390056062010-06-14T22:25:32.014-07:002010-06-14T22:25:32.014-07:00Part One—
Dear Kaz,
I apologise if I somehow impl...Part One—<br /><br />Dear Kaz,<br />I apologise if I somehow implied a personal dismissal of Scott Helmes on your behalf. I would also consider it unprofessional to do so in this discussion, if anything I would have intended a metonymy of sorts. My intent being to highlight the apparent contradictory position with regard to his work i.e. both precursor and non-precursor, which seem equivalent to saying A = minus A, which by my reckoning you could easily conclude 2 = 0! I personally don't know his influence on others, but from my position I accept any precursor whether or not I know or knew about them --- whether or not they are directly or indirectly influencing me. My personal experiments in numbers and mathematics is evident in my first book 1974, but by no means as well developed as Scott Helmes.<br /> To get back to the argument / discussion, I think you have developed a strange sense of taxonomy. You say, most people practise "mathematical poetry" which "is" the title of your blog. You then assign that kind of poetry to "others" claiming that what they do is "lexical" (and you are not!?). You then split the project into 2 clearly defined trends "mathematical poetry" and "mathematical visual poetry" --- I must protest! ALL MATHEMATICS IS VISUAL. Placing the denominator above the numeration is a "spatial" relation, ditto the order of a series of brackets in an algebraic equation and the order in which they must be processed. ZERO itself implicitly pre-supposes a POSITIONAL representation. In fact (to get down to the nitty gritty) it appears that one, two, and many are innately connected to our all-too-Human biology --- often translated as "gesture" or body-pointings --- all of which are VISUAL elements (even if we've lost those pointings to some kind of conceptual "formalist" habit). I also note that in your videos you have an (understandably) elaborate system of "gestural" expositioning. It should also be appropriate to point out here that the work of mathematicians in some parts of the world was once divided into 3 part: those who "said", those who "wrote down", and those who did the calculation. We have at present seemed to have folded those elements into each other, as a unity. It reminds me a lot about the complaint of Bakhtin that a "sentence" is meaningless (or if not meaninglesss multivalenced, and therefore un-stable) whereas the same "sentence" turned into an "utterance" has a context, and thereby some sense of "meaning". Separating the body from mathematics does mathematics a disservice, and cloaks many an assumption. Pretending that mathematical poetry "proper" does not have a "visual component" (as the others do?) also reminds me of the early days of "visual/concrete" poetry, when the argument was that ALL page-poetry had a visual component, and that the aaba bbcb ccac patterings are proof positive, ditto their "shapes" and the nature of their jagged "edges" etc. One of Mallarme's achievements was to recognize the vast expanse of white paper on the page. We do mathematics by habit basically because of their positional relationships. I notice that you don't re-title your blog "Equational poetry" inspite of the fact that THAT is where you want to drive you "functional" wedge.<br /> <br />Next Part 2Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-88059892844350064442010-06-13T07:30:11.804-07:002010-06-13T07:30:11.804-07:00Hi, Kaz—
Twenty years ago I used the term “mathem...Hi, Kaz—<br /><br />Twenty years ago I used the term “mathematical poetry” with confidence, believing that I knew what the term meant. It included poetry that used vivid metaphors from mathematics. For example, Diane Ackerman’s line “. . .the world is all subtraction in the end.” Or, from Jonathan Holden, “Making love we assume/may be defined by the equation/for the hyperbola y = 1/x . . .” <br />Later my notion of “mathematical poetry” expanded to include poems presented as geometric shapes such as a square or a triangle. Or visual poems like your poem which describes love as the limit of 1 divided by ego, as ego approaches 0. Or various poetic constructions such as N+7, from the OuLiPo. <br />As I become acquainted with your creations and those of others that you present in your blog, my view of “mathematical poetry” expanded still more—in fact I no longer use the term because it means so many different things to different readers. In my blog I use the term “poetry with mathematics”—intending to include a variety of mathematical poetry ideas under my umbrella. As a mathematician, I think that pure mathematics is also a type of poetry but this is a hard sell to anyone not fluent in mathematics.<br />Still, your readers might want to take a look at my blog entry for April 29 (visit http://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com/ and scroll down for an example of a mathematical formula that I propose as a poem.<br /><br />Thanks for all that you do to bridge the gap between mathematics and poetry.<br />With best wishes,<br />JoAnne http://joannegrowney.com, http://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.comJoAnne Growneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04654717097635624079noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10950488.post-79080702158770748472010-06-13T07:24:47.763-07:002010-06-13T07:24:47.763-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.JoAnne Growneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04654717097635624079noreply@blogger.com