Question to a Global Community of Poets: Math Formula to Write Poetry?
Do you write poetry because some divine inspiration strikes you — or do you write poetry like the art of cooking: Better yet, do you compose poetry following mathematical formulae and equations? I ask this because HubPages is increasingly becoming like a global village of poets. What do you think, how do you write poetry? More importantly: How should poetry be written?
Thank you.The most simplest answer to your question that I would answer is that "I write poetry because I love writing poetry."
I have always heard only broken heart people can write poetry. I agree to this statement to some extent. If you write poetry in general the circumstances you are facing might affect the way of your writing. By this I mean, when you are in a scenario (happy/sad), you can better express yourself in words. If you enjoy writing poetry or anything you are the type of person who can express their emotions through words and feel at ease. Many people write because they feel that they have said it all through their writing/poems.
You feel like recording all of the emotions, and when you go through your own composition eventually, you have a sequence of scenes flashing through your head regarding that situation. As a result, poetry does not have to be about a broken heart; it can be composed in any situation, I believe but our emotions and feelings do trigger something valuable.
We should write more about optimism, joy and happiness, in my opinion. More inspiring and motivational poets are needed in these days. There are some poets who write about technology, so do they have to be heartbroken? I think,no.
Others may be fascinated by the grace of a poetry, just as mathematicians are delighted by an elegant proof. A treasure to which readers return is an idea or an image presented in just the right language—so that it could not be said better. It's especially exciting for me to read a poem from a poet who is skilled in mathematical language and employs mathematical images to make a poem come alive.
Howard Nemerov (1920-91) was the United States Poet Laureate from 1988 to 1990. He was a combat pilot during WWII. Here are some lines from the poem Figures of Thought that capture the core of a mathematical model.
"To lay the logarithmic spiral on
Sea-shell and leaf alike, and see it fit,
To watch the same idea work itself out
In the fighter pilot's steepening, tightening turn
Onto his target, setting up the kill,
And in the flight of certain wall-eyed bugs . . ."
There are several love poems that use mathematical imagery to communicate their feelings; instance the concluding lines of Bin Ramke's poem Gravity and Levity:
"This is a bigger world than it was once,
it expands an explosion it can't help it it has
nothing to do with us with whether we know or
not whether our theories can be proved
whether or not a mathematician
knew a better class of circles
(he has a name, Taniyama, a Conjecture)
Than was ever known before before--
not circles, elliptic curves. Not doughnuts.
Not anything that is nearly, only is, such
a world is hard to imagine, harder to live in,
harder still to leave. A little like love, Dear."
(The conjecture involved elliptic curves and was famously used in the 1995 demonstration of Fermat's Last Theorem. Is love a force that exists beyond the proofs of theorems? Beyond our wildest imaginations?)
Lewis Carroll, a poet and mathematician, relates the story of a mouse's tail in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland using a long-tail-shaped arrangement of words. A concrete poetry is one that is presented in the shape of its subject. A broader category is visual poetry, in which the shape of the poem is related to the message of the poem in some way.
For poets as with musicians and mathematicians there is a sub- or semi-conscious inner ear that hears and keeps track of properties such as the number, the quality, and the duration of the sounds in a poem. In the four-line stanza just above, the bold-uppercase syllables designate accented or stressed syllables and there are four of them in each line. Poetry in which accents are counted is called accentual verse; if syllables are counted in each line we have syllabic verse. Poems written in English are more likely to be accentual that syllabic, but the traditional Japanese forms such as Haiku count syllables (three lines with syllable counts 5, 7, 5). Much of the poetry written in Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish) is syllabic rather than accentual.
Although there need not be an underlying pattern for a poem, in those works that please the ear it is likely that some pattern exists. Still, just as we do not need to know the key of a musical composition to enjoy it, similar ignorance is acceptable with poetry.
Many forms of poetry use numeric formulas. The formulas usually indicate a prescribed number of syllables that the define the type of poem, or poetic form used. For example:
haiku. A haiku is a poem of three lines and a total of 17 syllables: five syllables on the first line, seven on the second line, and five on the last line. (I am not good at writing a haiku)
Sonnet. A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines, with 10 syllables on each line. ( I am thankful, I recently learned to write it from Manatita brother)
Similarly, Cinquain. A cinquain poem is a verse of five lines that do not rhyme
So on and on....
I sometimes count syllables, and sometimes don't. As far as it is in a good flow and sounds good to ear, deliver the emotions. It is good. Poetry is good in all of its forms. Interesting thing is people who say they don't like poetry still reads it and enjoy it.
More interesting thing is everyone can relate themselves to it one way or another. Abstract form of poetry is something I like but I believe, I can't write it. I think, a good poet keeps on practicing his skills throughout his life. Poetry is all about emotions, I believe. 
Sorry for such a long reply"I think, a good poet keeps on practicing his skills throughout his life."
~Very interesting post all in all. Thank you.By the way, I love your poems. I can't write poems like you, I believe.
I have read all of them Thank you for sharing your beautiful poems!
Blessings always!
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