Sherry Chandler

A few days ago, my friend Donna , who points me to many quirky aspects of the web, sent me a link for GottaBook, where Gregory K. was talking about his new form, a way to combine National Poetry Month and Math Awareness Month: The Fib, a poem based on the Fibonacci sequence. So I put together a post on the subject, thinking I’d roll it out as a balance against 19th century solemnity. But it kept getting bumped by really important stuff like photos of my dogwood tree. And then, this morning, I discover that the Fib has not just hit the NYTimes, the article is number 10 on the most-e-mailed items list. So by now, you all probably know more about the Fib than I do. Nevertheless, here’s what I found on the GottaBook website:

One
Small,
Precise,
Poetic,
Spiraling mixture:
Math plus poetry yields the Fib.

What’s that, you ask? That’s the very first Fib I wrote. What’s a Fib? Well, first a little backstory….

At the 2005 SCBWI-LA Writer’s Day, poet-novelist Ron Koertge mentioned the idea of “warming up” each day by writing haiku. …
I was intrigued, but my geeky mind immediately began to churn. Why just haiku? I wanted something that required more precision. That led me to a six line, 20 syllable poem with a syllable count by line of 1/1/2/3/5/8 – the classic Fibonacci sequence. In short, start with 0 and 1, add them together to get your next number, then keep adding the last two numbers together for your next one.

Here’s kind of a nice one from the GottaBook comments on April 3:

RHYMING

Ants
Can’t
Wear pants
When they dance.
Plus I’ve heard the news
They never put on dancing shoes.

For more about this phenom, including a photo of Gregory K. [Pincus, it turns out] and a quote from Annie Finch, read the Times article, and, of course, you can go to the source.

We have passed half-time in National Poetry Month and I am ready, after Theodore O’Hara, for a quick feint back into the 21st century.

I first met Sam Martin at the Appalachian Writers Association conference two years ago, where he appeared in a full beard and we had a lively discussion over “The Red Wheelbarrow.” Then last year at Hindman we spent a week in the poetry workshop together, studying with George Ella Lyon and Leatha Kendrick. We had a chance to get to know one another a bit and exchange work. The beard was gone but the lively wit and intelligence was still evident. Since then, I think we’ve agreed to form a mutual admiration society.

You’ve read his work on these “pages” before. The poem below first appeared in Appalachian Heritage (Spring 2004). I love the birds that stay the winter. I didn’t realize how important those birds were for me until I visited a place where the birds do not stay.

Preparation

Near the end we return to our birthplace,
enduring Eden where we plucked the fruit
that eased us from these low mountains to feast
on other forbidden delicacies.
Neon lights do not disgrace our hollow,
only a dim bulb that lets us feel more
than we see. An oak crashes at midnight
and interrupts our shallow sleep. Cardinals
search for precious seeds under last night’s snow.
Wine-colored rocks and scattered feathers show
our struggle to be normal and holy.
We say, “When your time comes, you go. That’s that!”
We will end where we began, at our Place:
dirt, trees, creeks, and birds that stay the winter.

— Sam L. Martin

Reproduced with permission of the author.