Comments on: The Quantum Constant of a Fracas

By: Quasimofo

Quasimofo — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 21:56:02 +0000

I did a little music in H.S. as a dumb snare drummer learning 4/4 time, repeating measures, rests, beats, notes, and cadences…useful for writers and arithmaticians… math does = music.

But one other thing i’ve come to notice, is that sex=math and math=sex. Now i’m not trying to be a giggolo or pretend like i’m some expert…but have you ever drawn a Caresian Coordinate Plain on your lover? It’s very fun to plot coordinates. …And you know, calculating that whole lunar bit and all is useful for avoiding pre-menstrual algoritms and finding the best time to perform long division. Crop circles are a good make-out place…just don’t get caught having ‘close encounters of the erotic kind’ when the aliens come back, cause abduction is a bitch! You might be taken away to the planet Tralfamadore and by the time you get back, your girlfriend/boyfriend might be 100 years old due to relativity. It’s something to think about. Be sure to take your tazer or pepper spray.

By: savagewave

savagewave — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:27:50 +0000

I always had a hard time “doing” math. I kept asking “Why” and none of my teachers answered that. I don’t think they even heard the question, even though I was asking it loudly and was definitely speaking English. I didn’t have the reasoning power in grade /high school to figure out the why’s on my own. I attended college as an adult (with two children by that time) and miracle of miracles! I was able to figure out math’s why’s myself.
One thing that I learned and now hold close like a secret, miniature math friend living in my pocket is that … math = music / music = math
that is tres cool.

(oh, and crop circles, reduced to their mathematical and numerical basis then converted to the correlating math music is berry berry interesting to listen to)

-Tara

By: josh

josh — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 04:54:14 +0000

Quasimofo,

I liked the piece and didn’t see it as an indictment at all. As far as I’m concerned, there is far too little pedal to the metal stuff that incorporates the language of math. Math is a language and folks forget that, I think. Physicists take that language and describe what they see. Look at einstein’s field equations: a huge set of partial differential equations in a single line of eigth symbols, offering a peek at things like the actual shape of the universe. It’s practically haiku.

By: Quasimofo

Quasimofo — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:57:34 +0000

Josh, my apologies. I don’t really hate-hate math…but have always had a hard time learning it being right-brained or whatever and have some bad memories of algebra instructors yelling at me: “You should have memorized the quadratic formula in 5th grade!” There are and have been some very cool ‘math people’…Einstein who said “Imagination is more important than knowledge”, Stephen Hawking, etc. In addition to being a poetaster, I try to keep an open mind and teach my kids/get them interested in mathematics. We recently read “The Number Devil”…very interesting. The “Quantum” poem is not really an indictment on math–just a little funning combining two uncommonly associated art and sciences…poetry and math. In short, there doesn’t have to be some undeclared gang-war/emnity between poets and mathematicians and the two are not exclusive of one another…and i didn’t mean to imply otherwise…

The ‘square roots’ of these implications go way down into the ground! So profound you might round to the nearest hundredth of a sexy barista!

By: josh

josh — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:44:51 +0000

Why all the math hate? It baffles me how many poets, who strive daily to reduce what they wish to say down to some minimal aspect, encoded for their readers (or themselves) hate math. There seems to be some odd pride in hating math.

In full disclosure, I must admit that I am a math guy.

By: Quasimofo

Quasimofo — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:50:11 +0000

Thank you guys for your poignant feedback on this poem I wrote a while back after reading “Mr. Tomkins in Wonderland” (fictional physics primer)to my kids..i appreciate these objective/subjective observations. Ironically, I hate long poems and math too, but had such a motivation to explore that poetic frontier (or find if indeed there was such a thing) thru experimental forms it inevitably went against the grain of today’s short poem…The shadey specters of Homer and Virgil held hemlock syringes against my head and said they might reserve some niche for me in that Inferno of virtuous pagan hell (for writing a rambling). I call that style the Mach 5 Nonsensical A.D.D. style (to be silly). In other words… pure polished doggerel with a shit-eating grin! I longed for something thats coitus imagination and high-jinx jingle would blow the reader’s panties off into new dimensions of the cosmoverse…and floating there naked, they would have no remorse handing God back the fig-leaves… So, if you haven’t figured (which makes a fig out of ‘u’ and ‘re’) that I’m full of shit yet, this will really make your mind up:

Characteristics of the Mach 5 Nonsensical ADD School of Poetry,
the made-up genre in which this poem is written:
1). Nothing makes sense and yet it does.
2). There is and isn’t an ever-present element of consistent contradiction.
3). Nature, what the hell is that!? I grew up in an apartment
complex across from a Drive-In Theatre.
4). There is a strong emphasis on the interconnectedness
of the Cultural Political and Economic Spheres and the
repercussions (due to my 5th concussion) of Mass-media
upon an increasingly diminished populace of enlightened individuals
with inklings of ‘What the Hell’s up!?!’
5). True Fart is made ‘by the few for the feud’—yes ma’am,
I’ve got the market cornered on low-brow..and the corner marketed.
6). The only difference between me and the other members is—I’m nonsensical (or maybe just in need of intense therapy)…

thanks guys…

By: Christopher_Lauer

Christopher_Lauer — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:05:31 +0000

I hate long poems. Tangent–When I write, often I write “just because.” When I read someone else’s writing, “just because” is not a good enough excuse. Yes, a double standard. But, in your case, why? (And in a future case, regarding me, you can cut and paste most of this critique into a critique of my writing.) What does it say? What aspect of society is really being commented on here? There are some really good parts in here. Some parts reminded me of a tempered Baraka. Others reminded me of Corso. What’s up with all the physics stuff? Man, I hate it math, and I hate when I echo former writing teachers, but anyone and everyone can write confusedly. An 8-year-old can write something that can utterly confound me. I believe poetry should take you closer to some inexplicable truth, or bring you to the point of nearly touching something unattainable. Or twist reality to force you to think, which I think you’ve done here, at times. But poetry could be poetry just to be poetry. In the end, I like it. Write more. But what happens if you distill this. Eliot’s Waste Land is distilled down from a long, long rambling poem. And, The Waste Land has been written. Are you taking us farther, further, into the wasteland? Or, are you trying to get us out? Please, help get me out!! Give me some footing in this Pomo mire! I don’t need anymore fragments to shore against my ruins! Fun to read! Fun to critique!

By: fogman

fogman — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:24:18 +0000

“got some from the emperor..oh, happy birthday..”

yeah, lots of good moments here, and once I finally read through it in one sitting (after several partial scans) its surprizingly cohesive – in a very random pun-filled giggly acid-drenched stream-of-consciousness way. I can’t figure out exactly what it is I like in this (maybe the equations) but it’s certainly creative.

By: savagewave

savagewave — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 18:02:37 +0000

I did take the time to read this (I am soooo lazy) late late last night / early this morning.

If I just read it and don’t try to “figure it out” I like it.

If I try to make heads or tails of it, I just get mad.

There are many moments in this piece that are very attractive for one reason or another; good alliteration and assonance, great beats and patterns, profound phrases, novel concepts, twisted POV, surprises, etc.

so yeah, i’ll probably read it again.