Poetry Friday: Painfully Bad Math

I blame this Bad Poetry episode of Poetry Friday quite thoroughly on Read, Write, Believe, who started digging out her high school poetry.

I didn’t actually write much in terms of poetry that was for public consumption in high school, but my journals show the bizarre span of my influences. Quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer nestle against the poetry of Dorothy Parker, Judith Viorst, William Penn (Really? When did I read Fruits of Solitude?), George Herbert and Roberts Herrick and Hayden. My own bits of derivative drivel have such exalted company as Shakespeare (Hamlet, Price of Denmark, Act I: Scene ii), Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, and random song lyrics, pieces of articles taped in from magazines, and polite thank-you notes from boys with illegible handwriting (notes I obviously read tons into, since for the life of me I can’t figure out why I kept them!).

I’ve chosen two poems from a particular moment in my life, written a few months apart (And dear readers, I beg you remember I grew up to be an humanities major. I like math — I just didn’t actually know it until year past high school, when I remembered how much I’d loved long division in fourth grade. It really is very soothing…). Thanks, Sara, for giving me a reason to actually look back at all of my poetry. All I can do is shake my head and say, like one of my high school male friends once said in complete bewilderment, “Man. Girls.”

equations

I. x≥+1+1=3

x is greater than or equal to
the sum of one plus
(one, two?)
me plus you
equals three
(we?)

or
is the equation balanced?
is the sum of the quotient
greater than – (us?)

pain+you=me?

(You will be amused to find another of my poems in this vein [there are, in fact, three, astonishingly bad poems in the equation series] has the equation [# of ♂ in a room is ∝ 1/I.Q], that is, the number of boys (in a room) is inversely / proportionate to their average I.Q.! Somebody was feeling bent out of shape and rejected! [And crushing on their math tutor?])

II. ∅ Null
an empty set

as void of life
as an urn of
(ashes, ashes
we all fall down)
as empty as a silent desert
waste
As dark and
(the earth was without form &)
void
And he breathed.
Into his mouth, the breath of
Life and I
began to live.

Yes, do go ahead and vomit.

Fortunately, accomplished poets have written, and are being read elsewhere. Find them at Mentor Texts this week. Not all of you may have your high school scribblings — but the person still exists under a delicate patina of age. Go forth and write more.