Monday, June 15, 2009

In our angelic chorus

A new perimathematical constraint for poetry:

1. Select your favorite sequence, {ai}. (An infinite one will ensure that you'll never run out of defining digits.)

2. Select a permutation p of the set of vowels.

3. In the poem you construct, the vowels must appear in the order in which they appear in the permutation from Step 2 (repeating the permutation anew once its ends is reached), and the ith block of consecutive occurrences of the same vowel must contain ai occurrences of that vowel.

As default values, one might take the obvious choices {ai} = {1,1,1,1,...} and p = (a,e,i,o,u).

As yet I've only managed to construct a page or two of semipoetic fragments, like "up sharp gelid mounts, arches high" and "dour pages, iron, unanswering."

Perhaps one might try a random permutation, and a defining sequence such as {3,1,4,1,5,9,2,...} or {2,7,1,8,2,8,1,8,2,...}?

More to come!

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