My poem for today is below, but first a bit about the format, called Fibonacci. From about.com:
Leonardo Fibonacci was an Italian mathematician born in 1175. Among his many accomplishments, he is best known for introducing the “Fibonacci Sequence”. The sequence is as follows:
0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987,…
In other words, you add the first two numbers to get the next number.
What’s remarkable about this sequence is that it is also found in nature. For instance, flowers often have 34, 55 or even 89 petals (but NOT 35, 56, or 90). It’s also found in nautilus shells, seed heads, pine cones, leaf arrangements and vegetables (number of spirals).
But how does this relate to poetry? Well, here is a Fibonacci poem composed by Gregory Pincus, a California writer who popularized this type of poetry less than a year ago:
One
Small,
Precise,
Poetic,
Spiraling mixture:
Math plus poetry yields the Fib.
See how it works?
1rst line is 1 syllable.
2nd line is 1 syllable.
3rd line is 2 syllables (the sum of the 1st & 2nd line)
4th line is 3 syllables (sum of the 2nd and 3rd line)
5th line is 5 syllables (sum of 3rd and 4th line)
6th line is 8 syllables (sum of the 4th and 5th lines)
…and so on.
A Fib That’s The Truth
My
friend
is not
her cancer.
She will kick its butt
and be a miracle story.
