OK - I will admit that this poem is a little "strange" - and clearly a very early draft. But I wanted to get up a poem that was different from what we normally encounter here. And your Critical comments are very welcome. After agonizing over it for 3 days, I am still not sure which way to take this - other than scrap 2/3 of it and begin again.

Numbers

“Two is solid and tingly
like the Liberty Bell -
Eight is rough, hard
like a stone while
Ten is smooth like
a pebble on the beach”

Richard Friedberg
An Adventurers Guide to Number Theory



At night, as I fall asleep
transported to a world of dreams
I wonder if
computers dream of niumbers
Do they count electronic sheep ?

There’s nothing more dehumanizing
than to be “treated like a number”
a mere cog – a cipher
existence reduced to a measurement
“greatness” judged by our height
rather than how high we reach

Does the world belong
to those with the passion
to make the numbers dance
where each is an individual
prime numbers divisible
only by themselves


d;-)


“When One made love to Zero,
spheres embraced their arches
and prime numbers caught their breath"

Raymond Queneau

The idea of imagining what machines might dream about , if they were sentient, has been done before, and the punch line as to whether they "dream of electronic sheep" is itself rather well known and branded by a specific writer, Philip K.Dick. His novel is "Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep", which was the book on which Ridley Scott's movie Blade Runner was based. Dick's title is an ironic reference to the plot, about self-aware androids violently considering the nature of their existence. Your use, I'm afraid, lacks irony and does not advance on the original idea, which is what an inspired borrowing should do.
The problem with taking a phrase or title so closely identified with a famous writer is that you are obliged to use the borrowing as a springboard to an entirely original work of your own, inspired by but very different from the inspirational source. Hemingway borrowed the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" John Donne for his book on the Spanish Civil War, and didn't merely insert it into a work at face value, for decorative purposes. The title made a suitable counterpoint for his succinct, gripping narrative of men trying to maintain "grace under pressure".

What you have here is not a poem, but a series of questions that are flat and rather ordinary bits of poesy one finds in many poetry workshops blue penciled off the page.

You don't seem to be writing about anything; your passive tone is something you perhaps think provides your writing with a lyric sway and a spiritual lilt, but poetry , by the sorts of poets we discuss here, even the ones some of us don't particularly enjoy, have a tougher language. They are interesting to read at least in so far as they , for the most part, appear to be attempting to crystallize the best language for their experience, and the ideas that follow suit.

No ideas but in things.--William Carlos Williams wrote that and it's excellent advice to anyone trying to write poems . Your problem is that you want to write about abstract things, metaphysical things, mystical things, and desire to join the farther reaches of scientific hypothesising with dreamier theological daydreaming but you ignore the world of things, which is our senses can measure and experience with certainty. You rarely begin with the material, you rarely convey a theme that might be based on actual experience, you are hardly ever convincing in any emotion you suggest chiefly, I believe, because you start with a skewed idea of what a poem should be and tailor your writing to suit the template you've adopted.

Hi Denny, I have some errands to run, but I wanted to let you know I gave your poem a couple of look-overs. (The quote by Queneau is a killer), 8 reminds me of two bodiless people French kissing, happily stuck in the missionary position; forever. I’ve been in much worse binds. Don’t get me started on 3, 6 and 9.

Denny just borrowed the line about electronic sheep. He plans to return it when he is finished with it.

Jack

Ted - you echo my own feelengs about this as well. Which is why I questioned whether I should "throw 2/3 of it away". . It also seem to me that the "poem" is totally "disjointed" with no cohesiveness to it". The top part, including the quote from Richard Friedberg is going in one direction, while the bottom half including the quote from Queneau is going in a totally different direction.

I almost feel like cutting it in half, discarding the whole top half and concentrating on the last two stanzas and the Queneau quote as the lead in.

d;-)

"He plans to return it when he is finished with it." ????

No idea what you are talking about Jack. It seemed like a "hook" to tie this poem to, but, as Ted notes, it didn't work. Too Cliched. If I want to continue this poem, I think I need to concentrate on the Raymond Queneau quote and parts of the bottom half of the poem.

d;-)

TED - you said -

"Your problem is that you want to write about abstract things, metaphysical things, mystical things, and desire to join the farther reaches of scientific hypothesising with dreamier theological daydreaming but you ignore the world of things"

The reason I originally started with the quote by Richard Friedberg was to emphasize that not everyone sees "Numbers" as "abstract things". YOU may see them that way - but not everyone else. I agree, however, that I totally failed to capture what Friedberg was try to say. And that is what I am struggling with. To Friedberg, Numbers inspire love, hate, fear and amusement - all the emotions we normally attribute to human interactions.

Tobias Dantzig ("Numbers, The Language of Science") wrote - "The number belongs to God". Numbers, like people, can be real, complex, amicable, excessive, imaginary, perfect squares, Irrational or prime. They have character all of their own. Words, however are simply a combination of things we made up - letters. They have only the meaning that we give them. Numbers, on the other hand, have an intrinsic meaning that exists outside of our "creation" You keep wanting to refer to everything outside of your personal experience as metaphysical things, mystical things How about looking "outside of the box"

d;-)

OK - I have managed to convince myself that, with the help of Ted, that this poem needs to go in a different direction - maybe employ the concepts and "jargon" of "Number Theory" buried within the text itself.

Number 2

“When One made love to Zero,
spheres embraced their arches
and prime numbers caught their breath"

Raymond Queneau

I sometimes wonder if
I’m being excessively irrational.
Here I am, in the prime of my life
with infinite possibilities ahead,
limited by only imagination, yet
confounded by the complexity of
an imperfect world

There’s something dehumanizing
about being treated like a number
a mere cog – a cipher
existence reduced to a measurement
“greatness” judged by our height
rather than how high we reach

The world belongs to those with passion
to somehow make the numbers dance
A world where each is an individual
prime numbers divisible
only by themselves.



d;-)

Hey, HAP,

3, 6 and 9 always bring up an image (out of Spiritus Mundi, or maybe Monday, no doubt) of a monkey sitting on a streetcar chewing tobacco. Then terrible things happen. I think this is the source of my pathological fear of little rowboats.

Cheers

one of those "rarities" where it is equal to the "sum of its divisors" Six can be devided by 1 - 2 - and 3. And 1+2+3 = 6. So elegant - so "perfect".- not the least bit "excessive".

LOL

d;-)

Denny, a number, by definition, is an abstraction. It is a mathematical construct invented by men and used to count real things. Likewise, the marking “7” is a symbol, another abstraction, for seven things.

Queneau imaginatively used phrases like “made love,” “embraced” and “caught their breath” to suggest that numbers have human characteristics.

In your revision, however, you continue to use only abstractions – possibilities, imagination, imperfect world, passion. How about specific examples instead?

In the next-to-last stanza you say it’s dehumanizing to be treated like a number. Yet in the last stanza, you urge people to be like a prime number. Don’t these two ideas contradict each other?

Your last stanza also says – the world belongs to those individuals with passion who make the numbers dance. Again, how about some specific examples of what it means to be an individual, to have passion, to make numbers dance? Show (with specifics), don’t tell (with abstractions).

Actually MaryAnn - numbers are more "real" than words. Words have only the "meaning" which we impart to them - they are simply the combination of artificial Letters which have no meaning at all. But Numbers have a "character" of their own - quite distinct.

You seem to miss the point of using -

I sometimes wonder if
I’m being excessively irrational.
Here I am, in the prime of my life
with infinite possibilities ahead,
limited by only imagination, yet
confounded by the complexity of
an imperfect world

Come on MaryAnn - you used to be a Math and Science Major. Let's have a little FUN with Numbers - become a little "irrational"

.d;-)

denny, I think you should junk the poem and try to write a poem about something that is solid, has density, is something a reader would recognize, and try not to insert an editorializing cliche or a vacuous "summing up" that turns you efforts into post cards and photo captions. You seem unable to get away from the tired phrase, the dog eared adage, the trite truism; you need to try very, very hard to transcend your worst habits as someone attempting to write poems. At present , they seem intractable.

Actually MaryAnn - numbers are more "real" than words. Words have only the "meaning" which we impart to them - they are simply the combination of artificial Letters which have no meaning at all. But Numbers have a "character" of their own - quite distinct.

You are wrong, denny. Both words and numbers are man-made abstractions that mean only whatever we say they mean.

The word "six" could mean this * * * * instead of * * * * * * .

I agree with Ted, junk this abstract poem and try a new one.

Not wanting to be square, I need to figure out how to write a poem about -


1.41421356237. . . .. . . . . . or

pi .. . . or perhaps even

e

TAP

d;-)