"Near A Raven" begins thus:
Poe, E.
Near a Raven
Midnights so dreary, tired and weary.
Silently pondering volumes extolling all by-now obsolete lore.
During my rather long nap - the weirdest tap!
An ominous vibrating sound disturbing my chamber's antedoor.
"This", I whispered quietly, "I ignore".
Perfectly, the intellect remembers: the ghostly fires, a glittering ember.
Inflamed by lightning's outbursts, windows cast penumbras upon this floor.
Sorrowful, as one mistreated, unhappy thoughts I heeded:
That inimitable lesson in elegance - Lenore -
Is delighting, exciting...nevermore.
Keith has imposed a purely mathematical constraint based on the number of letters in each word. Beginning with "Poe, E." and continuing throughout the poem's 740 words, each one represents a digit or two of pi. One through nine letters indicate the digits 1 to 9, ten letters indicate a 0, and eleven or more letters represent two consecutive digits (usually 11 or 12).
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing this brilliant variation on Poe.
ReplyDeleteThat's cool that he could actually use math in the poetry and make it make sense. My N+7 poem turned out to be gibberish (with slightly violent undertones).
ReplyDeleteI can actually see this as a legitimate way to make a reference to another piece of literature while playing around with it extensively. At least in his work it was evident that a great amount of work by the poet the second poet went into the creation of the work.
This is crazy cool! I love how it still has the basic feeling of the original and even some of the theme of the original in it, too. And such a unique idea! Wow!
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing this! It's awesome!