3815

JoAnne Growney

Bridges

2017

Since books and computer screens make poetry accessible without memorization – not so in the early days of verse – rhyme, a memory aid, is no longer necessary. Furthermore, visual accessibility means that word patterns may rely on the eyes as well as the ears to achieve recognition as poetry. Herein, we examine shaped structures such as the square stanza, the snowball, and the Fib and consider their adaptability to a variety of poetic situations. It should be observed that format constraints in poetry – constraints as basic as counting syllables – may lead a writer to unexpected arrangements of words and a richness of meanings unavailable without them. The article ends with a nod to the Bridges Archives and its rich selection of articles that feature poetry – and offers a variety of weblinks for those who wish to explore math-poetry similarities.