The New York Times ran an article about this man, Gregory K. Pincus, who started writing poems that follow (syllabically) the Fibonacci sequence.

I immediately thought of all of you (of course) and thought we should play along.

Interestingly, I found out about it on a knitting blog.

You might also wish to read Mr. Pincus' blog

My first Fib

Words
Sounds
Making
Poetry
Playful, picturesque
And entertaining the masses
Don't want to stop making poems to amuse you all.

I don't get it, CW. What exactly do you do?

In mathematics a Fibonacci sequence is constructed like this

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34... with each number being the sum of the previous two.
The sequence given is the basic one. It starts with 1,1. Other variations with two different starting numbers are possible.

This odd poetic form consists of lines where L1 has one syllable, L2 has one syllable, L3 has 2, L4 has 3, L5 has 5 etc.

There's a thread containing examples over on the OEDILF board. They are mostly stopping at Line 6 as the line length builds up very rapidly thereafter and is pretty indistinguishable from prose.

Oh, I should have just cut and pasted that article so the explanation would be right here. Sorry!

Anyone else going to try writing one?

(cross-posted from LJ)

The Sound Test *clears throat*

One,
One,
One two,
One - testing,
Testing one two three,
One - Mary had a little lamb,
Mary had a little lamb - yep; all seems fine to me.

The Monsoon Arrives
(Shamelessly plagiarized.)

Drop,
Drop,
Drop, drop,
Drop, drop, drop,
Drop, drop, drop, drop, drop,
Drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop,
Clouds cavort across the sky like rutting elephants.

Two very fine Fibs! Loverly!

quote:

There's a thread containing examples over on the OEDILF board. They are mostly stopping at Line 6 as the line length builds up very rapidly thereafter and is pretty indistinguishable from prose.

There are also examples on the blog that CW referenced. I wanted to know the rules anyway. Thanks, Bob, for posting them.

If you find them indistinguishable from prose, then I am wondering if you feel the same about Haikus. They remind me of Haikus, which I have always had a hard time distinguishing from prose.

I
Like
Writing
These verses;
While they're not easy,
They're much easier than DDs.
However, limericks are always my favorites.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

I quite like them if they stop at line 6 or even 7 but going on line 12 has 144 syllables and line 16 has 987 which is, I submit, prose.

Should
I
defy
my old man?
Easy in theory,
But harder in reality:
I want to try to do it though I'm not sure if I can.

... continuing Shu's creation ...

My success or failure depends
On how I behave
On weekends
Amen
The
End

quote:

I quite like them if they stop at line 6 or even 7 but going on line 12 has 144 syllables and line 16 has 987 which is, I submit, prose.

I see your point, Bob. 144 syllables would be prose, and who'd even bother to count them?

Shu and Jerry...excellent! I particularly like the inverted one, Jerry!

I'm not sure what the longest line of poetry is, but the length of a line does not determine a text's being prose or not. It would be the meter, which in the case of a line of 144 syllables or 72 or 48 feet, would be interesting. Maybe a really long line of poetry could have more than one caesura. Hmmm. Also, I have to disagree about haiku. One of the criterioa for haiku is that two images be described by tha language which juxtaposed create a third unstated one, which seems most poetical to me.

quote:

1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34

I
Am
Certain
If I try,
I can make this rhyme
Have reason; if not rhythm or
The scansion of an ode. But it will pass the basic scheme
Of Fibonacci's lovely pattern, though I'll end with twenty-one and call it done. Good Night!

Excellent Fib, Jo!

quote:

Also, I have to disagree about haiku. One of the criterioa for haiku is that two images be described by tha language which juxtaposed create a third unstated one, which seems most poetical to me.

I would agree with you, Zmj, if haikus are correctly written. It's just that many of them aren't. Often anyone thinks he can write one without knowing the criteria.

plaintive mating calls
of the spotted doves at dawn
natural-high coo

I'm not certain how Haiku got mixed with Fibonacci poems, but I haven't written Haiku in years and thought I would give it a try.

Fluttering green hope
Clings to branches, new and frail.
Spring, returned again.

if
we
want a
novelty
Fibonacci style
poem we must create one now
and let our audience
admire our
special
skill,
Write?

Oooh - I like the reversal of the pattern there, Jerry. Nice touch!

I like everyone's haiku, too . . . should we start a new thread, you think?

The Fibs and Haikus, as English forms, count syllables. The number of lines and the number of syllables per line are fixed. Even the variations on these forms are still counting syllables.

If one thinks about how English is actually spoken, it would seem that instead of syllables we should count metrical feet.

quote: it would seem that instead of syllables we should count metrical feet.

Very interesting idea, Frank. I tried, and it was fun.

We sure-
ly could
Count metric feet,
But do the lines become
A bit too long to comfortably scan?
A line of (let us say) eight feet would seem the maximum.
Accordingly, we have to keep the metric-fibonacci poem confined to relatively short concerns.

Hi, shufitz!

I think one could only do 5 line stanzes, or 10 line stanzes if the line lengths reversed.

It isn't clear what would signal the end of a line. Often a rhyme does that or a comma or period.

Then one might ask, is it an interesting form in English? I guess it's an interesting sequence in Mathematics.

It isn't clear what would signal the end of a line.

The meter the poem is written in. (There's a lot of oral poetry in the world composed in languages without writing systems. NB: the Iliad and the Odyssey were oral compositions.) These days a carriage return signals the end of the line. Many MSS of older poetry do not format the poem by lines. (Paper was expensive and they used all of it. Sometimes lines were designated by single or double virgules. Because, as I said above, Classical poetry did not use rhyme, it was not used to indicate anything. As for counting feet or syllables, I am not sure what you mean. Classical poetry couted feet, that is long and short syllables. This is because Latin and Greek distinguished between long vowels / diphthongs and short vowels. English and other modern European languages distinguish by stressed and unstressed syllables. (It is known that Ancient Greek, like Vedic Sanskrit, used pitch accent instead of stress.) The Japanese don't count syllables in haiku, they count moraes. Evidently, prosody in poetry is more complicated than most laymen believe.

The reason I bring up the question about when a line should end, is that this would be a way to justify the Fib as an interesting form in English.

At the moment only a carriage return signals the end of the line, as you mention. I don't think that this is enough to make the Fib an interesting English form. Why pick this sequence from the infinitely many available sequences? The interest in the Fibonnacci sequence has nothing to do with English, but rather with the popularity of this sequence among some mathematicians.