Sunday, June 13, 2010

Number Poems and Richard Kostelanetz

A Number Poem is a visual formation of numbers who have a verifiable mathematical relationship to each other. The main poetic element in number poems is rhythm or pattern and can be seen by repetitions of certain numbers or operations. Number poems function correctly only when the rules of mathematics are observed. (And in this case Arithmetic)


The following number poems are early works from the Poet/writer Richard Kostelanetz. These works are from the early 1970’s and he was kind enough to share them with us.

The following is titled "Parallel Intervals"




This piece is titled "Two Intervals II"

4 comments:

anandi said...

I didn't find any difference in the first two?

Kaz Maslanka said...

Thank Anand - I deleted the duplicate.

rez said...

How lovely - thanks for these images. Can you point me to anything that's been written about this work that would provide some background and context? Many thanks!

@rrrle and zhang.rle@gmail

Kaz Maslanka said...

Hi Rez,
I am sorry there is not much more I know about Richard's number poems. They are pretty much pure mathematics visually composed to Richard's personal aesthetic. If you care to pursue any of these on your own please let me know and I will share them.
Thanks!
K

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