Monday
Feb152010
Probably by Rosemary Badcoe
Rosemary Badcoe February 15, 2010 at 7:05AM
This is the Collatz conjecture:
pick a number, one dear to you,
one you might allow to brew the coffee
in the morning. If this number is even–
smooth like a sprung dance floor, even as the lake
at twilight when the wind has died–
divide it by two. Nothing so straightforward
stays whole forever. If the number is odd –
like his brother, the one who winks
and runs his hand along your shoulder –
multiply it by three (though that’s a party best avoided)
and add one, your sister-in-law perhaps,
with her raspberry-scented hair
and interesting eye shadow. Apply these rules
over and over. When you get to one, stop.
Theory says you will always be reduced to this,
the only number you can rely on.
Reader Comments (18)
it's good maths, if ruthless. i wonder if 'you' can be 'reduced' to one, however, since one is what you are......
This is great, Rosemary; a HOTPoem if you will excuse the pun. Do you mean for it to be double-lined? That's the default spacing on the site at the moment, but if you want it single-lined just press shift-return instead of return in the editing mode.
I think you should consider axing this line: 'even as the lake
at twilight when the wind has died–'
as it feels out of place and does not parallel with the other parenthesis.
I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read this line!:
'multiply it by three (though that’s a party best avoided)'
Great to have you here,
james
Pete, the 'you' that is reduced stands, for me, as equivalent to saying 'your theories/hypotheses', and works nicely.
james
Hey Ros, great to have you here.
Super poem, but could you possibly follow your own advice and stop when you get to one? Stronger without the last two lines, for me. Probably only me.
B.
Thanks, all. Good to be here! It's not supposed to be double spaced - I haven't got used to your formatting yet.
I did wonder about the lake line, so will think about that. I'm a bit reluctant to lose the last two as I wanted to refer back to the theory, keep the maths idea going.
Ros
Ros, I've taken the liberty of removing the double-lines for you. Hopefully we'll figure out a way to smooth the formatting.
My vote is yes on the last lines, for what it's worth.
james
Hi Ros, great to "meet" your voice - and your maths.... I like this very much. It has a quality of origami to it...
My vote would be to keep the last 2 lines but compress them somehow, the reference feels right but slightly breathy...
k
Being a John Donne groupie, I am lovestruck by the elegant working out of the conceit and the unexpected twists of humour. A high-wire act beautifully carried off. My only reservation was the "interesting" in "interesting eye shadow" just because interesting in this sardonic sense is so commonplace and I longed for a more arresting adjective, something more peculiar (in all senses).
James, thanks for tidying the formatting. I appreciate the vote for the last lines.
Kevin, thanks for the read. Good to meet you too.
AE, thanks for the read. Glad you enjoyed it. I hadn't thought of it having similarity to Donne, but it's good to hear. Good thought about the interesting.
This one still doesn't feel quite finished to me. I'll sit on it for a bit. Greatly appreciate all your comments.
Ros
This is the Collatz conjecture:
pick a number dear to you, (EDIT)
one you might allow to brew your coffee (EDIT)
in the morning. If this number is even–
smooth like a sprung dance floor, even as the lake
at twilight– (EDIT, took the remainder out--found it superfluous)
divide (Take the IT out, for flow) by two. Nothing so straightforward
stays whole forever. If the number is odd –
like his brother, the one who winks
and runs his hand along your shoulder –
multiply (Again, here) by three (Remove the parenthetical)
and add one, your sister-in-law perhaps,
with her raspberry-scented hair
and interesting eye shadow. Apply these rules
over and over until you get to one. (EDIT)
Hi Rosemary,
I hope you don't mind me jumping here to offer my thoughts. I had to look up what the Collatz conjecture was (I'm no math geek), but I enjoyed how you took the mathematical theory and applied it to every day life.
I removed a few things that I saw as unnecessary in this poem...the "it" in the lines "divide it by," as well as the parenthetical statement, which I don't think adds to the poem for the reader. In the second line, I removed the comma to allow some breathing room for the natural rhythm you have going on. Additionally, I think I agree with Brian about the poem's final two lines. Currently, it's more of a telling couple of statements, whereas, if you end on "until you get to one," it allows the poem to live on in the readers mind, well beyond the act of reading. It is as if the reader and the poet has not, perhaps cannot, reach this deduction to "one." However, if you choose to leave the final two lines, I would still consider the other changes I suggested in my edit.
It's nice to meet you, and to see your lovely poem...hope to see more :)
After Literature uses a blogging platform, which kind of expects the content to be prose, where a user would just keep typing in order to wrap single spaced lines, and would press return only to indicate a paragraph break.
If you are typing directly into the Editor dialog box, a "hard return" is interpreted as a paragraph break, not a line break, and an extra line will be inserted.
To create a single-spaced line break, you must do a "soft return" which means holding down the shift key, while pressing return. <shift+return>.
If you are copying and pasting an entire poem directly from a word processing program, some programs fare better than others. This is because all word processing programs embed their own formatting codes, which are then being translated into HTML for the web. Current advice from the platform hosts is to strip out the formatting that your word processor has applied, before pasting into ANY web format.
For the Mac, this is done using the basic text editor bundled with every mac: TextEdit. You paste your piece into a new TextEdit document, then from the Format menu select "make plain text". A warning dialog comes up that you are about to lose all formatting. Say ok. The formatting codes will be stripped out. You then copy the stripped piece, and paste it into the post editor dialog at AL. If you wanted bold or underline or other formatting, you will have to re-apply it in the web interface using the post editor dialog formatting commands.
For the PC, the basic text editor is "Notepad". I'm not sure if you have to do anything special in Notepad. I think it automatically strips your formatted text down to plain text, but I am a Mac user, so I can't be sure on that.
I also had to look up this conjecture. Thank you for that! I looove being inspired to look up stuff.
I agree with Joe about ditching the couple of "it"s.
I see A.E.'s point about the opportunity for uniqueness you have WRT a descriptor for the eye shadow, however at the same time I quite appreciate a certain feminine cattiness in the sardonicism of "interesting".
I also find the ending troublesome. That you can only rely on yerself is a platitude which does not need direct invocation.
I was hoping for more of a twist, at the end.
maybe a return to the trust/coffee image at the end?
great image, that!
I think pretty much everything was hit on, but I haven't had the chance to read much of your stuff Ms. Badcoe, and I saw this one, the title is spot on, and honestly I thought it was a great poem, even the 'interesting' in 'interesting eye shadow' gave me a giggle...
Joe, thanks, you've stuck your knife into the bits I was most unsure about. Thanks for the detailed suggestions. Nice to meet you!
Shari-Lyn, thanks for the editing info and for your suggestions. The biggest problem is the end - I'd like something a little sharper.
Erika, glad you enjoyed it.
Dear Rosemary,
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Best regards.
After Literature