Michael Basinski
Thinking of Bob Grumman. Wow. Those were the days. I seem to recall it started with letters To Port Charlotte, Florida – home of Bob and his Runaway Spoon Press (RASP), which I Recall he said he started as a children’s book press. His innate playfulness and innocence were always wonderfully obvious. His “children’s book” A Strayngebook is marvelous, and I would read it to my daughter often with great delight. A Strayngebook set, I think set the parameters for all that came after. Then there were the conferences and meetings of poets, Columbus, Boston, etc. Bob was there. But he never had any money so he had to come on the cheap, which is to say, riding the hound: The greyhound bus. It is 1,450 miles from Port Charlotte to Boston and from Port Charlotte to Chicago: 1,263 miles. Those my friends are long, long bus rides, a lot of odd stops in out of the way places with an always changing bizarre cast of fellow travelers. Did he, like Kerouac, make ten baloney sandwiches for the trip? But he made these trips, repeatedly. Now, I think of Bob riding the bus, hour after hour, one day melting into another. Bob G. outside some 24-hour rest stop restaurant in some small Maryland, Pennsylvania Twilight Zone air thick with moths and insects buzzing around fierce bus depot light dreaming of poetry. It was his labor he engaged for poetry. So, Bob Grumman was a rebel with his feet firmly in other stream poetry. He was a true bohemian. He told me part of his livelihood was from his job as a pool skimmer. Bob lived poetry. I believe his supreme achievement as a poet and artist was his ability to create and to embrace new forms. New forms, from the size of RASP books to his own unique math poetry, to the space he created via RASP for aberrant types of poetic writing. He fostered creativity looking to forge nonrestrictive writing. He smashed into the rigid state of poetry and he did this as a pacifist. I miss him. Bob, I am just now waiting for the bus.
John M. Bennett
Bob Grumman was a friend, and an important presence in my life for as long as I knew him. What fascinated me about him was his enthusiasm in seriously considering all forms of experimental/avant garde literature, and making very serious efforts to understand it and to think about it. This included text poetry, visual poetry, audio and sound poetry, and many other forms and formats. He was relentless in his thinking and writing, a true enthusiast with no axes to grind. He was not a "critic" or theorist who tried to apply a prerset ideology or theory to a work. This made his efforts at understanding others' work especially useful and stimulating; it was especially useful for the kinds of writing he was interested in, to which no existing intellectual or scholarly apparatus would apply. His books about other poets were groundbreaking, especially in that he was among the very first to write extensively about all the new writing that was being born in the 1980's and 1990's. His own work as a poet was fascinating as well, for example his Mathemaku and related forms. His generosity was also manifested in all the books of others' writing he published through his Runaway Spoon Press, which included several volumes of my own, during a time when it was extremely difficult to publish anything truly innovative. I'll be forever grateful to Bob; for he was one of the first to seriously try to understand my at times very strange approaches to writing, and for his true friendship. He was a real mensch.
Geof Huth
https://dbqp.blogspot.com/?q=Grumman
Jake Berry
Where and how we met is lost to me. Probably through Mike Miskowski, Jack Foley or I could have seen something he wrote in a mag or a review in Factsheet Five.
At any rate, what Richard Kostelantez has written affirms much of my own experience of Bob. He was taking care of his mom. He had acquired a photocopier. This placed him a step ahead of the rest of us who were saving our coins and hitting Kinkos late at night for special deals. Bob turned that copier into something that resembled his character - open, diverse, self-made, and independent. Runaway Spoon was something only Bob could have invented.
I can’t recall if it was a phone call or a letter that initiated me into his love of argument. Probably both. It wasn’t email. This was before all that. Amid our exchanging of histories and affections for various arts and artists he latched on to the fact that I had spiritual inclinations. They weren’t toward any particular religion, and certainly not any sort of fundamentalism, but Bob seized it as an invitation. At first I was reluctant, trying to avoid a confrontation, but for him it was sport. He sought argument but not agitation. He was direct and thorough but gentle and good humored. He was an atheist, materialist and very capable of producing coherent, logical arguments in favor of his position. Eventually, we agreed to disagree, but keep the topic open for further debate. There were several topics about which we had long running debates. I don’t think either one of us ever won one of them. Perhaps we kept them going because that was one of the fundamental elements of our friendship.
Bob was probably the easiest publisher I’ve ever had. You sent him the manuscript. He turned it into a book and sent you a copy. If you liked it he sent more copies and copies out the usual channels. He once told me one of my books was beginning to show a small profit and asked if I wanted beer money or more copies of the book. I took the copies.
If someone wrote a bad review of his work, or anything he published, they could expect a response from Bob complete with extensive argument. It was a game he played to win.
He labored over his own work - especially the sonnet about which he wrote a book including every revision. It was the mathemaku that seemed to delight him. For most of us engaged in what was then called experimental or even avant-garde (does anyone use these terms anymore?), we loved the moments of discovery, not knowing where a poem might lead. Bob didn’t work that way. He knew every twist and turn. He knew every point on the map before he charted the course. If you discovered something in his work that was not included in his account of it he would happily grant you the right to do so, but you would do so knowing that your interpretation was your own invention, not what he intended.
This sounds like Bob was combative. He was anything but. He was warm, generous and conciliatory. It was simply the case that he made sure he knew what he was talking about before he started talking or writing.
Several years went by after we made the transition to electronic communication and publishing when we were out of touch. There was no reason for this. He was busy writing reviews, blogposts and more mathemaku. I was busy with music and poetry. In that interim I published a broadsheet then an electronic mag called The Experrioddicist after his term ‘experioddical.’ He didn’t entirely agree with the liberty I had taken with the word he coined, but he supported it through commentary and reviews. We found one another on Facebook before it became the impediment it generally is now. Neither of us cared for the software, but it was another format for presenting new work to the world. I started a page there under the Experioddicist rubric and asked him to post something. He once again questioned my extension of the terminology but supported the work that appeared there.
We planned further collaborations - publishing as well as poems or whatever we could invent. I knew he’d been through some health issues, but he had recovered. Then one day an email arrived that said Bob was gone the day after a checkup had given him a clean bill of health. One of many things we agreed on was that the medical establishment was frequently wrong. I wish it had been right this time because I miss Bob’s presence. We need his work, his voice, his insistence that we keep all portals open. I’m looking forward to one day buying a copy of the complete mathemaku and working my way through each one, knowing that I am probably getting them wrong.
Márton Koppány
Bob was special. One of the best creatures, most innocent souls and sharpest thinkers I've ever known or known about. His unique mathemaku will grow in time. And for me he was a very close friend and an invitation into visual poetry for two decades. I'll always miss him.
This is how I got in touch with Bob in 1996. I was living in Milwaukee with my wife who was an MA student at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Based on info picked up at Woodland Pattern, I started sending out my old black and white sequences (written in the eighties) to different magazines and presses, Runaway Spoon Press among them. Bob kindly reacted, and he brought out a small book of mine soon, which became my first book ever. Had the "another submitter" not sent Bob back the letter meant to me, we wouldn't have gotten in touch - or would have gotten in touch much later. Chance had a role, as usual. Bob calls himself "maximally incompetent", which is of course the opposite of the deeper truth, but he liked to belittle himself and to make jokes about himself, and that is something I always loved about him and found very relieving. He was maximally competent, but never played the power games.
This is the cover page of Bob's book in Hungarian, edited and translated by me, and published in 2000 by Kalligram (a small press in Bratislava). It contains his essay on MNMLST poetry plus a good selection of his early mathemaku. Bob was also included in the three special issues of Kalligram Magazine, brought out in the 1990s and early 2000s when I had the opportunity to work for that small press and realize a few projects with them.
(BG d. 2 April 2015)
Growing up in Norwalk, Connecticut, where his family had a certain prominence (as one bridge over the Merritt Parkway is marked “Grumman Road”), he decided not to go to college, instead enlisting for four years in the US Air Force. He never spoke about that experience with me. I gather that, not unlike other aspiring writers my age, he moved to Los Angeles and tried to get into filmmaking without success. Eventually, he took a degree at Cal State-Northridge, where the poet Daniel Halpern and sculptor Betty Beaumont had gone a decade before, though both were younger than him.
One Norwalk anecdote I remember has him shooting baskets by himself when three black guys pull up to join him. One of them was Calvin Murphy, who went onto a distinguished college and professional career. As they agreed to play two-on-two, Calvin got the white guy. Bob’s memory is that Calvin’s first pass was so strong it nearly knocked Bob over.
As a writer, Bob likewise played big league ball, albeit mostly in small provincial playgrounds. However, because both his critical prose and innovative poetry were strong, common understandings of the new poetries in our time will acknowledge him. Nobody else, in my considered judgment, read innovative poetry as closely or imaginatively. For this last reason alone, his essays will be irreplaceable forever. Fortunately, his well-chosen literary executor Geof Huth is gathering his invaluable blog posts into a single source.
In his personal letters, Bob was forever apologizing for what he could not do—for how hard it was for him to get done his work as a poet, as a critic, and as a micro-publisher. I couldn’t understand why not, as he didn’t suffer from a visible lack of energy or culture. A few years ago, I tried to enlist him as a co-author or at least a collaborator of identifying “Small Press Classics,” which I thought him capable of doing off the top of his head; and though I kept his name in the manuscript, nothing ever came. Perhaps I should have given him a deadline, which I don’t do, even with interns working on a project, because I regard such as strictly for children who will never become adult.
None of my colleagues worked so hard to stay unrecognized. Refusing to promote himself or even his friends whose success might in turn benefit him—the latter a strategy at which some other contemporary poets are impressively skilled—I think. he expected to be posthumously honored for his integrity. Not so, except by me here.
———————
(2 February 1941-2 April 2015)
With his regular contributions to the periodical Small-Press Review and his book Manywhere-at-Once (1990), Grumman became a major critic of avant-garde American poetry. His strengths were, first, relating new developments to the high modernist tradition and, then, penetrating close readings of texts that would strike most readers as initially impenetrable. For instance, looking at George Swede's “graveyarduskilldeer,” Grumman notices, “Here three words are spelled together not only to produce the richly resonant ‘double-haiku,’ graveyard/dusk/killdeer//graveyard/us/killdeer, but strikingly to suggest the enclosure (like letters by a word) of two or more people (a couple–or, perhaps a// of us) by an evening–or some greater darkening.”
Very keen on distinctions, Grumman coined useful discriminatory categories where previous commentators saw only chaos: “infra-verbal” and “alphaconceptual” are two examples. He has also published many books of poetry, some of them featuring poems that mix words and numbers, which, with typical readiness to classify, he calls “alphanumeric.” Not only did his micropress Runaway Spoon rank among the most active publishers of the best experimental writing but his press's catalogue demonstrated how witty the conventions of a publisher’s book list can be.
1.
Peace is an odd and easy thing,
on the big list at the top
and on my little list topmost too.
Everybody wants peace except those
who mislead us. We fear them and vote
them toys of power.
My favorite pieces are chocolate double-devil’s food, a piece of Cindy’s rhubarb pie,
those early pieces we never talk of but lie about, dream of and blush, and, oh!
I like a piece of the action, but better a peace every body walks away from whole.
Peace treaties I love only because I so hate war and
the bootdirt that dies for every nothing and
so I hate peace treaties while loving peace.
And speaking of the single heart
I give you the hot red peace of my garden’s rose blood bud.
I found peace in wisteria, peace walking the creek
softly calling my dog’s name.
I give you piece of mind, if only for the poet’s instant
of word, three of them lasting about 1 & 3/10ths seconds
– peace of mind –
then on tics cable, playlist
dings, rings, reminders, siri’s
and so forth.
2.
(This is a short section of the poem
where the poet joins the Peace Corps for two years
behind yesterday’s truce line.)
3.
Peace is a political poem with a word,
for example, ______________________________
put “Gaza” there, “Guantanamo” “Nixon”
perhaps “Putin” ”Ladin” “Supreme Court” “abortion.”
So many killers.
But it’s not politics this poem wants, it’s peace.
Bicycle wheelspokes want peace, kayak paddles do,
my purple heart scrapbook, blue, mauve and faded.
That sentimental puppy eyes creep out get well soon card wants icky sad peace
and I won’t spend life in a theme park,
no to Clint Eastwood’s image for mayor,
celebrity crap sucks –
I get along with my neighbors, the batshits among us,
don’t accept capital punishment or public death theatre,
bombings, hate, rape, snuff, execution, slaughter and the like.
And there’re few people I’ll ever trust with my peace, I mean given
all those skyscraping corps and power grids, toll roads, sky specs,
shipping containers, blinking conspiracists, survivalists, even
stars, bars, pizza and nazis – gad!
Daily newspapers scare my hair off and are seldom trustworthy.
Would you elect Sinclair Broadcasting or USA Today King of Peace?
4.
So, were I a seer with other than tumbled vision, I’d say
watch out, citizen,
beat feet.
When bigshots start talking up peace
someone’s about to go to war.
Mark Young to Tom Beckett, Jan 21, 2007, 10:17 PM
Have done a rough download of the first (volume of the E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S) interviews & page count is fine. There's a bit of tidying up I can do to reduce things.
My suggestion would be to use 11, stopping with Jean Vengua's - which (a) then gives a link with the first interview of Volume 2 & (b) doesn't include me as subject. I was thinking of suggesting we add Bob Grumman, but decided against it because it means we can then have his colour piece on the cover of the second volume. We can use Geof's colour piece as cover of Vol.1, because there's a fair amount of discussion about it within the interview, & this way we can show it in all its glory, not have to use a b&w version.
Bob Grumman to Tom Beckett, 22 Jul 2007, 6.23 PM
I've finally gotten the stuff you requested for volume two of the Interview series.
7 visual poems attached in jpg: 4-Part “The Odysseus Suite;” “Division into Poetry001; ” “Homage to Athena;” “Hardy Haiku.”
Plus 2 corrections:
INTERVIEW CORRECTIONS
"and even then only as a semi-serious hobbyist" REMOVE "as"
"and didn’t like them as much as I like the same works in books I" CHANGE "like" to "liked"
Plus BIO:
Bob Grumman
(b. 2 February 1941) is a substitute high-school teacher living in Port Charlotte, Florida. with a cat named Shirley. His specialty as a poet is visiomathematical poetry, but he also composes conventional poems (mainly about an alter ego called Poem), infraverbal poems (i.e., poems that happen mostly or entirely inside words) and unmathematical visual poetry. A critic, too, he is notorious for believing visual poems ought to be semantically meaningful, and for his attempt to provide a proper taxonomy for all forms of poetry. He has a website, comprepoetica.com, from which one can go to his poetry/poetics blog, po-X-etera.
For over ten years he has been a regular columnist writing about otherstream poetry publications for Small Press Review. His one mainstream appearance was in volume 25 of the Contemporary Authors Autobiographical Essays series (Gale Research, Detroit: 1996). He has had several chapbooks published, as well as a children's book, A StrayngeBook, and two full-sized books, Of Manywhere-at-Once, Volume One, and Shakespeare and the Rigidniks, all three of the latter published (naturally) by his own Runaway Spoon Press. He should have two more books in print by Fall, 2007, a science fiction novel called The Atlantreality Box, and a study of contemporary minimalist poetry called From Haiku To Lyriku.
I hope this is all you need. Lemme know if not--and thanks again for what you've done and will be doing for me and many others with your Interview series.
M.Y. to B.G., (c.c. T.B), Oct 5, 2007, 10:16 AM
Please find attached a pdf of yr interview from e-values in its more or less final form. Could you give it a checkover to see if there's anything you want to add or to change or there's a last-minute typo that you've missed in all previous incarnations. Using a two-page view will give you a fairly good idea of how it will appear.
A couple of things. I've made the changes you requested. I've taken the visuals out of the interview - the piece for Karl has been included at the end, & the other will be used on the back cover so we can keep it in full color. I've cropped the title from “Homage to Athena” so it's not duplicated. & I've given the Odysseus Suite numbers, but if there's another way you'd like them to be titled please let me know & I'll amend.
The anthology won't be published until December, but because it's quite substantial - although reasonably straightforward - I'm getting it together now.
B.G. to M.Y. , Oct 6, 2007, 5:18 AM
I just glanced at it. Will get back to you about the text when I've had time to go through it. The graphics are fine--but can you take out the "Mathemaku No. 24a," etc., titles from the Odysseus Suite, now that you have the other title?
Thanks for sending this.
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 6, 2007, 3:47 PM
Have attached a pdf of the vispo sans duplicate titles. Could you check that it's okay by you.
B. G. to M.Y., Oct 6, 2007, 10:31 PM
The section looks most excellently good to me—thanks!
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 7, 2007, 1:44 PM
Am glad you're happy with it.
& if you could be tempted to contribute to my ezine Otoliths — http://the-otolith.blogspot.com; you'll find some familiar faces there — I'd be delighted.
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 8, 2007, 11:57 AM
Your ezine (e.zine?) is one I am and have been tempted to send something to, Mark—lots of good stuff in it and, yes, many familiar names and good new ones. I've decided my problem about getting my poems published now is that I tend to publish them all at my blog, then feel like that takes care of them. Also, there haven't been too many new ones for a while. Also I'm lazy. Also, I tend to lose track of them. But thanks for asking, and I will try to send you something for your next issue, if it's not tomorrow.
I also may have a change or two in Geof's interview of me to request once I force myself to go through it. Sometimes I like hearing myself babble, but right now I'm not in the mood to. But if you don't hear from me for a while, use it as is. I'm sure it's close to fine.
Aah, I'll give you the one change I know of so far: fix it so the bio says From Haiku To Lyriku has been published. I'm pretty sure I checked the interview once before and think it's okay, but I'll try to go through it again soon.
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 16, 2007, 8:47 PM
Are there any publication acknowledgments I should make for yr pieces?
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 17, 2007, 6:50 AM
I just checked, and I can only remember where one of them was first published, and am not certain it was indeed first published there, and think the others never really published--that is, I had them at my blog, and/or sent copies to friends, etc. So I think it best not to acknowledge any of them. If anyone ever does a collected works of my stuff, I'll get Geof to help me get the record straight. I don't like not acknowledging publishers who were kind enough to publish me, but I'm pretty sure I've mentioned them in print, with praise, for their support, to keep them from being too upset with me.
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 18, 2007, 9:32 PM
You interested in doing a collection?
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 19, 2007, 5:58 AM
Yikes, thanks for asking I hadn't been thinking in that direction, but—sure. How many pages? One problem is that so much of my stuff is now in color, which is good for the Internet, but not for books. But I have enough mathemaku in black and white for a chapbook. Could do longer, too, with a mix of stuff. So, lemme know your thoughts on this.
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 19, 2007, 7:37 AM
Up to 76 pages (+ 4 for title page etc.) but at least 56. Color is fine since I'm doing all the Otoliths vispo books in color (ask Geof about their quality). Would prefer some text - intro, essay or poems). Time frame say six months away (I've got Spencer Selby in the next round I'm bringing out — December — & David Baptiste Chirot & Márton Koppány in the following round).
Helpful?
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 19, 2007, 8:13 AM
Yes! The length would be just about right for my "collected mathemaku" (by probably another name, but I'm not sure). I've been thinking on and off that I need to get that in print for a couple of years now. Will definitely have an intro. The first fifteen mathemaku are textual poems (in my opinion--they're all text plus simple mathematical symbols like plus and minus signs). Oh, one more question: what size page? There may be a few of my poems that require a large page. Can you do fold-outs? If the answer is probably not, or no, no problem. Almost all my mathemaku should be okay on 6 by 9. The few that might not be are toward then end of the set, which will be chronological, and can be dropped.
You got me excited!
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 19, 2007, 9:34 AM
Might pay to check out the Otoliths Storefront at Lulu,
There are ten page previews of each of the books.
&, you're right, I can't do fold outs. Though I've been known to do a mighty fine tapdance.....
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 19, 2007, 11:12 AM
Okay, clicked into your site and found that I've been there before. Takes me a while to get organized about stuff like this. I now think I have a good idea of what to send you. Last question for a while, I hope: should I send you a print-ready adobe file?
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 19, 2007, 11:45 AM
Either import everything into a Word doc — preferred — or send jpegs (sequentially numbered) & text files as separate entities. If the Word doc ends up being large - which it will with jpegs - either split it into parts which I'll recombine or use YouSendit (a free service though you get the occasional promo email for a while after) to transfer. When I get home this afternoon, I'll send you a mockup page of #62 which will have the requisite dimensions given in its properties.
If you think I might need a pdf for reference purposes, by all means send me one.
M.Y. to B.G., Oct 19, 2007, 3:08 PM
Page attached.
B.G. to M.Y., Oct 19, 2007, 8:03 PM
Okay, I should be able to do it Word.doc. My preference, too—but not that of others in my experience. I hope to do a little on it each day or so, then concentrate on it during my Christmas vacation and get it to you in January.
M.Y. to B.G., T.B., Nov 1, 2007, 9:09 AM
Attached is harry k stammer's draft for the cover of the second E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S collection. I've asked him to change the position of the barcode to the left hand corner so it doesn't override the text, & I've asked if he can make it a little smaller.
With that in mind, your thoughts........
T.B. to M.Y., B.G., Nov 1, 2007, 9:27 AM
Looks very good to me with the exception of the barcode position. It's a striking cover. My sincere thanks to all.
B.G. to M.Y., T.B., Nov 1, 2007, 10:16 AM
Great cover--except for the bar code. Yes, in the left corner, smaller would be much better. He might also consider making my image smaller. That shouldn't hurt it.
M.Y. to B.G., T.B.. Nov 1, 2007, 10:17 AM
barcode moved on harry's new pdf..
T.B. to M.Y., B.G., Nov 1, 2007, 10:59 AM
Looks fabulous.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 11, 2008, 9:36 AM
I now more or less have the pieces for the collection of my poems you're going to do ready. A problem has come up, though. It involves twenty or so of the pieces. They are too big to fit on a page, but when I reduce them to fit, they lose too much definition. This may be due to my rather inferior equipment. I don't know that much about it, so can't say.
A question: If I sent the difficult pieces to you large, could you then get them to fit the pages without loss of definition? Is there any other way we could go? The ones giving me the problem are all or mostly originally 11 by 8.5 inches.
Sorry to bother you with this. I hope it's not a major problem. I can't remember how we handled the back cover of the second interviews book. But that worked fine—with something originally 11 by 8.5 inches.
Aside from all that, happy new year!
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 11, 2008, 10:28 AM
Send me three or four of the jpegs as they are, I'll convert them to the page size & you can make a decision once you see how they look.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 11, 2008, 11:12 AM
Okay, good, — thanks. Will send them to you Saturday--unless I have time to, tomorrow, which right now looks unlikely.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 12, 2008, 3:07 PM
Okay, I got to this chore today, so here goes (a second time—the first time I sent the damned thing to myself):
Mathemaku in Memory of my Mother has a lot of small text.
Mathemaku No. 6-Set I can make to fit okay, but I think it'd look better a little smaller than I can get it. Also, I'm having trouble (through inexperience) getting all the margins right—and in synch with the margins on other pages. You did say it'd be okay with you if I sent the graphics in one file at a time, which would mean you'd take care of the lay-out of each page. But I don't want to do this if it'd be too much trouble for you--and it would be a lot of pages since all my pieces are graphics.
Mathemaku No. 7 is one of the difficult ones, for me.
Mathemaku for K.S. Ernst is at best barely legible in one spot, probably the hardest one I have to reduce without losing something fairly essential.
Mathemaku for PaulKlee. I can get this so-so, but want to see how your shot at it works.
Looking over what I have, I now think only a third at most need help.
Thanks for doing this for me!
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 12, 2008, 3:55 PM
These would be how the ones you sent look on the page. With the K.S. Ernst one, I unlocked the ratio & added a smidgin to the height, because I'm assuming it's the "textile" box that you're concerned about. I can probably crop the edges of the jpeg & make the image a little larger, & I can also make the outside margin - depending on whether it's on the recto or verso page - a little narrower to increase the overall size some more. All the others are in the original proportions.
See what you think.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 12, 2008, 11:48 PM
These seem fine. Two of them didn't look the way I wanted on my screen but printed out fine, so I think a big part of my problem is only the way they look on the screen, which isn't necessarily how they'll look on a page.
So, how do we do the next phase: can I just send you the graphics in order (when you're ready for them), and let you know which will need a change of size, and have you make the size changes and the lay-out? I will also be sending you, separately, a ten-page introduction, give or take a few pages. Oh, and I'll include title-pages for the four sections I'm dividing my pieces into with the pieces so the order will be set with no need to insert anything.
Thanks much for your quick help!
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 13, 2008, 12:07 AM
Send me the graphics in the order you want them to be — & don't be surprised if you find you want to change the order once you see it in continuous layout. You don't need to format the introduction — I can do the page sizes, font, etc. — but, please, no page numbering or section breaks.
For convenience, send the jpegs to me ten per email. It might be a bit fiddly, but it'll be easier for me to manage.
Are all the titles incorporated in the jpegs?
Look forward to seeing them all.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 13, 2008, 4:40 AM
I wasn't planning page numbers, but have three places I'd like section breaks. Should I just tell you where they are? Three of my four sections are sort of sequences, so their order shouldn't change—for instance, one consists of Mathemaku 1-20. The order isn't inviolable
but they're numbered, so . . . Ditto one that's a set of number variations. The third is my Odysseus Suite, which was in the Interview collection, and is numbered. The other one I prefer last. I think I have the order I want, but maybe not.
Okay, if I can send the jpegs ten per email. Or is there no space limit for the sender?
The titles are incorporated in the jpegs in most. I need to check. I want to incorporate a title in each of them. Some I put titles on reduced copies of that I'm not sending you, so have to put them on the larger copies.
Thanks. I take it you don't care when I send them to you? I can get them to you in a week, but would prefer having a couple of weeks. I'm trying to take care of a backlog of stuff I should have gotten done in 2007 right now.
Hey, what kind of editor are you, anyway? You're really on the ball!
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 18, 2008, 7:12 AM
I'm now calling my collection, tentatively, April to the Power of Pythagoras Times Now. I've just finished a rough draft of my introduction to it that I'd like you to look at if you have time. Any suggestions welcome. Also, I want to make sure it's print-ready. Note that one of its two graphics will need to be reduced to fit the page.
I hope to have the poems in the thing going out to you over the next four or five days.
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 18, 2008, 8:07 AM
Send me the intro & I'll have a look at it. Also, I'm hoping that the title has been graphically rendered so it can become a cover.......
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 18, 2008, 12:36 PM
Yikes, Mark, I can't believe how often I decide to send someone an attachment and forget to attach it. Should be on this one, though. As for cover, yeah, making a cover out of it is a good idea. Hadn't occurred to me. I'll see where I can go with it.
M.Y. to B.g., Jan 18, 2008, 12:47 PM
Thanks for the attachment. Will get to it shortly.
Cover size is 9" x 6" (h x w). My standard order is title at the top, author lower down, & Otoliths in about a 12pt font in the bottom right hand corner. Everything full color. You might also want to think about a b&w version for use as a title on the title page (author & Otoliths left off; will add them in normal type later).
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 19, 2008, 4:31 PM
Managed to convert it to Word on my old pc. A couple of preliminary things. You talk below about graphics but there were none included. A result of my conversion or something else? & a quote from Zukovsky is mentioned but doesn't appear.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 19, 2008, 9:45 PM
Oh. Those things are graphics that I guess weren't included in the attachment. I'll send them to you with this (I hope). Okay, I've attached them.
By the way, I'm noticing that a lot of my graphics are only 200 ppi--because when I did them, that's all my computer at the time could handle. Will that be a problem? Is there any way to boost the ppi of such things without simply re-doing them?
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 20, 2008, 8:15 AM
I have a cover done for my Otoliths collection. Should be attached (300 ppi, that being as much as my computer can handle, apparently). Feel free to nix it if you don't like it--I have no idea whether it works or not.
M.Y. to B.G., Jan 20, 2008, 2:13 PM
Like the concept. A thought to ponder on. Have the full title inside, on the spine, in descriptions / blurbs etc., but on the cover just have April(Pythagoras)(Now) as it currently stands. & Otoliths should be smaller, & a smidgin more to the right. I'm the minor party in this convention.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 20, 2008, 11:21 PM
Yes. I meant to tell you in my cover post that ordinarily that's what I would have done but the thought crossed my mine that a translation might be necessary. So I'm fine with that. I also later thought I would replace it with "A Selection of Mathemaku."
Okay on "Otoliths." Didn't know how exact to make it. I'll try to get another draft to you today.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 21, 2008, 1:14 AM
Amazingly, I got right to it, and changed the cover. I also did a title page. Both should be attached.
B.G. to M.Y., Jan 21, 2008, 5:09 AM
Here goes. Wish me luck. I'm gonna try to e.mail you the poems in my collection plus title-pages which you may not want. Attached are the two title pages to my first section, then 11 poems—a little over the ten you requested. I hope they get to you.
Mon, Jan 21, 2008, 6:52 AM
I e.mailed this group to myself, so had to re-do it. I hope I got it right. Anyway, it includes the section title-page. A blank page should follow that. Then Mathemaku 1 - 10 in order--11 pages because there are two pages for Mathemaku 4.
Mon, Jan 21, 2008, 7:27 AM
Another section title page that should be followed by a blank page (not sent), then just 4 pieces since they're comprise a separate section.
Mon, Jan 21, 2008, 8:17 AM
More to come, but I got hung up with having to embed titles in large graphics--on a very slow computer. Should be two more batches. Hope to have them to you tomorrow. Too tired to keep going on them now, though.
Tue, Jan 22, 2008, 5:55 AM
A section title page I don't want a blank page after, then ten mathemaku.
Tue, Jan 22, 2008, 6:16 AM
Last Batch: Mathemaku 11 through 20. I hope the transfer worked and that I didn't leave you or others with too much work.
M.Y. to B.G., Feb 2, 2008, 1:58 PM
Attached is a very rough, first-run pdf just for you to check out layout, piece presentation, etc.
I would suggest that you only use the Zukofsky jpeg in the intro; the other two can be referred to by page number in the text. Would also suggest you remove the expansion on Against Infinity - without the pieces to refer to, it doesn't add everything here. (Though, if you can get permission to use some of those pieces you refer to, & with more text, it would be good for an issue of Otoliths.)
Let's know what you think.
B.G. to M.Y., Feb 2, 2008, 11:33 PM
Thanks —I opened your package just now, on my birthday (Groundhog Day). Great timing! Looks pretty good to me, but at page 37 ten of my pieces go missing (Mathemaku 11 through 20). A few other minor glitches I'll give you a list of eventually. And I'll re-do the introduction in accordance with your suggestions. I have a busy weekend scheduled but should be able to get to the introduction during the week sometime.
M.Y. to B.G., Feb 3, 2008, 10:44 AM
Happy birthday groundhog!
Reason the pieces are missing is that I never got them......Could you resend.
B.G. to M.Y., Feb 3, 2008, 1:19 PM
Boy, the excuses some people come up with!
Seriously, here they are. I remember getting confused when sending everything—I thought I only sent one attachment to myself that I got to you eventually, but evidently not.
M.Y. to B.G., Feb 3, 2008, 9:06 PM
You're going to have to send them to me as individual jpegs. I can't open this file on either my old or new PCs.
B.G. to M.Y., Feb 4, 2008, 12:54 AM
Oops, yeah, I forgot that's how we were doing it. Soon.
Feb 4, 2008, 1:06 AM
Okay, here, I hope, are the right jpegs.
M.Y. to B.G., Feb 29, 2008, 10:49 AM
Am waiting for you feedback before proceeding......
B.G. to M.Y., Feb 29, 2008, 12:58 PM
I hope you got the missing poems. I did send them to you, but maybe they didn't arrive? I was waiting to get your second dummy of the book back before fully responding. I do have a revision of the introduction that I'll attach. I will probably want to polish it.
M.Y. to B.G., Feb 29, 2008, 2:32 PM
Got the missing poems. & I was waiting, both for the revised intro plus you also said you had some thoughts on version one that I was waiting to see. Also, could you save your Works documents as Word docs — there's an option to do so — & send me in that format. I can't open them on the current pc, have to boot up the old one & wait ages because the antivirus software doesn't work properly, then convert & email the new doc to myself.
B.G. to M.Y., Feb 29, 2008, 9:29 PM
I tried to save the file as word doc, but it just saved it the way it was. So I saved as word perfect doc. Also as rtf. I hope you can read one of them. Let me know. I'll get back to you this evening. Off to substitute teach now.
Mar 1, 2008, 11:32 AM
I've just looked at the proof copy of my collection, and don't think I have that much to say about it, after all. There are a few pieces I want facing each other that don't because the section title pages weren't in the copy. That should be easy enough to take care of. I also noticed that some of my long divisions of "poetry" are different in size . I want all the dividends the same size. My fault: I thought I got them matching but didn't. Again, it should take much work to get them right. In a few instances, I'm not sure I like where my caption of a piece is, so may want to change them. That's about it, except that I now want to send Geof Huth a copy of my intro—and get your opinion of the new version. I'm uneasy about it—it doesn't seem smooth, nor do I like its tone. So I expect to revise it again. I guess that's it.
Mar 2, 2008, 6:40 AM
You have me working. Enclosed is my latest version of the intro. I think it's much better. Also attached is a graphic I've added to the intro.
Mar 2, 2008, 11:13 PM
One more detail: I realized that to be mathematically precise, my title, on the title-page, should be April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagorus Times Now.
Mon, Mar 3, 2008, 12:02 AM
New title Page attached.
Mar 7, 2008, 9:09 PM
Just checking in with you. Are you waiting for anything for me? As far as I know you have everything. There are a few small changes I will probably want to make, but would prefer to wait till you have a complete dummy done, since some of the ten pieces missing from the previous one may need similar changes. I'd like to make all the changes at one time--to avoid confusion, among other things.
M.Y. to B.G., Mar 10, 2008, 2:38 PM
The only thing I'm waiting for is for me to get out of the mixture of procrastination, apathy & catatonia that seems to have beset me of late. Am slowly shaking it off. Will be back in touch soon.
B.G. to M.Y., Mar 10, 2008, 8:19 PM
Alas, I know the feeling all too well. Good luck!
M.Y. to B.G., Mar 15, 2008, 11:13 PM
2nd run pdf attached. The introduction reads better though there's a section — page 7, 3rd para, 3rd sentence — that doesn't flow at all well. I've made a couple of small changes in tenses, removed the reference to me & have made the language non-sexist (got rid of he & his). Haven't put page references in yet; waiting until I hear back from you.
Let's know your thoughts on this version.
B.G. to M.Y., Mar 16, 2008, 5:12 AM
Thanks. Will try to get at least preliminary thoughts to you before Monday. I've saved your attachment and have it on my screen now.
Mar 16, 2008, 5:31 AM
I've forgotten twice now to send you a correction of the Zukofsky in my introduction, so am sending it to you now. The image we have now repeats itself in part, so needs to be replaced.
Mar 16, 2008, 11:43 AM
A while ago, I realized I had "April" in unnecessary parentheses on the front cover, so fixed it in the version attached. (My logic: that "sin" and other words in math are not put in parentheses when used as I use "April.")
I've gone through my introduction, by the way, and made some changes--small ones. Will make a list of them for you tomorrow. Your changes seemed fine with me EXCEPT: it's "E. E. Cummings!" Cummings scholars here agree that the lower-case was not from Cummings but from his publishers. He went with caps. There's a letter of his that verifies it, and Marion Morehouse, his last wife (or wife-equivalent, for they never formally married) verified it, too. Trivial detail, but . . . Also, I changed your he and she change to they, fixing the verb so that works. "He and she" has always seemed awkward to me.
all best, Bob
Attachments area
Mar 17, 2008, 12:59 AM
Okay, here are the changes to the Introduction. Most are pretty minor.
Mar 17, 2008, 1:12 AM
One missing graphic. This one belongs ahead of all the others in the "Long Division of Poetry" section. I'd prefer title on page 13 with subtitle, "Prelude and 11 Frames" on page 14, and the prelude, the graphic attached, on page 15, but don't care that much.
The poems look good--did you re-position them? They now looked lined up, but some didn't before, or was I hallucinating? Just one request, if there are enough pages: that the following mathemaku each have a page to itself: No. 17, No 18, Macbeth and in Memory of my Mother—all but the Macbeth one have small details that are hard to read in their reduced size. Also, I especially with the one to my mother on its own page at the end.
When you have the third run copy to me, I plan to let Geof Huth look it over, and will probably have a few things I want to change as a result, but that should do it from here.
M.Y. to B.G., Mar 17, 2008, 9:50 AM
Have made the changes to the intro as requested. I still am uncomfortable with the flow of the 3rd sentence in para 2 on page 7.
Have added the prelude graphic, put the subtitle subsequent but have broken it into prelude, then graphic, & 11 frames, then graphics.
I fiddled slightly with the long divisions. They were slightly different sizes & difficult to line up, but they look reasonably constant now.
The mathemaku. I'm constrained to multiples of four in page count + the jmb mathemaku is already as large as I can get it. So, because I've added the extra pages for the prelude...., I've put those final four mathemaku two to a page & they are as large as they can go whether one or two to a page. Let me know how you feel about the end product.
Do you want me to send Geof a copy?
B.G. to M.Y., Mar 17, 2008, 8:57 PM
I'm about to leave for a subbing job, but when I get home, I'll try to fix that sentence. And look over the rest of book.
And sending Geof a copy would be good, thanks. I've already told him to expect a copy.
M.Y. to Geof Huth, Mar 17, 2008, 10:12 PM
I believe Tom B. has asked for a blurb from you for his new book. Would prefer if you would do something for Bob's — pdf attached. He was going to send it to you to have his introduction checked so I offered to do it for him. He hasn't looked at this, latest, version but it's taken up all the changes he's so far asked for. There's one sentence in the intro that especially doesn't flow for me, page 7, para 3, 3rd sentence.
G.H. to M.Y., Mar 18, 2008, 12:01 AM
Either way with the blurbing is fine with me. I do owe you one for Marton as well, which I should be able to to later today. (I'm slowed a bit because I'm in the office right now. Just couldn't stay away. It's been 10 days.)
Tue, Mar 18, 2008, 9:30 AM
I was cleaning a few things up at work. Just there for 5 1/2 hours, probably more than I should have been, but I caught up on a lot and feel better. I'll look at Bob's book sometime tonight, but I just tripped on a wire and caught myself, which put unfortunate pressure on my chest, so I'm not Mr 100%.
B.G. to M.Y., Mar 18, 2008, 11:20 AM
Hello, again. I was so out of it when I got home from another day with middle-school kids, I forgot all about my mathemaku book till now. But I managed to change the long sentence you were having trouble with. Dunno if what I did has anything to do with your problem with it but it now is three sentences:
I contend that a poem must in some way be mathematics to count as a mathematical poem. Ergo, most computer-generated poems don't count since they only result from mathematical operations, they aren't mathematical operations themselves. Nor do poems which discuss but do not perform mathematics.
It looks quite a bit better. I'd still like the one to my mother by itself on the last page of the section, though--and I see that page 44, which is one after the page the poem is on, is blank. Can we have the poem to my mother on that, and the Macbeth by itself on the preceding page? I like the Macbeth one by itself, too--because it is about nothingness, a near-nothingness about nothingness.
G.H to M.Y., B.G., Mar 19, 2008, 11:38 AM
I've inserted a number of comments into this PDF, starting with the cover and continuing beyond the introduction, but almost all my comments are in the introduction. All of my edits are just suggestions for you two to chew on. I don't bother making that clear with every edit because it would extend my work unnecessarily. But I clearly have a point of view. I usually explain the reason for an edit if I think it won't be clear.
Some sentences in the introduction were unclear to me, and I sometimes provided a possible rewrite, but not always. If you'd like me to try to rewrite other sentences, I can, but I just tried to rough something out, nothing more.
M.Y. to G.H., Mar 19, 2008, 3:02 PM
Many thanks. If I'd known you were going to go this way I would have sent you a doc of the intro as well. I'll wait to hear what Bob has to say. & if you've a clearer jpeg of the Zukofsky, would like to have it. Many of Bob's jpegs come through pinhead-size, & lose resolution when I enlarge them.
& I did ask you for a bit of a blurb, didn't I?
G.H. to M.Y., Mar 19, 2008, 10:45 PM
I'll see if I can get that clearer jpeg. Not positive I have that section of "A" around here, but I should be able to find one.
Yes, I can do a blurb. I was waiting to be sure this is the blurb you wanted me to write, but I'm ready now. I really reasonable and strong selection, by the way. My only quibble was with the two details of poems in the absence of the full poems themselves.
Will endeavor to get the blurb out to you right away this time. But I have a doctor's appointment first this morning.
Mar 20, 2008, 2:08 AM
Geez, I have all of Zukofsky's "A," but had forgotten, so I can make a copy of it. It's quite small in the text, so I'll blow it up as I scan it, but is there a certain resolution you're looking for?
Also, I'd really like to switch the poor degraded copy of "Mathemaku for Ron Johnson" on page 38 with a clean version. Is that okay with you? I'll have to have someone scan that from my papers, so it might take a couple of days, but it'll be worth it. The image quality isn't what I want it to be for many of these pieces. For the new ones, though, it appears to be related to Bob's method of creation, so I see no way around it at this point.
Send word on resolution, and I'll get this done.
M.Y. to G.H., Mar 20, 2008, 9:44 AM
For the Zukofsky, just a clean image of approximately the same size. & I'm happy to wait for a clean version of "Ron Johnson". I've checked the scams that Bob sent & they're fairly rough. Plus, many were small - thumbnail would be an exaggeration - & in enlarging them, I may have lost some resolution. I've also just discovered, going back through my bits & pieces, that I'd left out three mathemaku from what Bob had sent. I'm confonted by different size titles, but, to echo your words, I can see no way around it. I've tried to present them as best I can. If there are any that particularly grate & that you have copies of......Or, is it possible that Bob may be able to do better ones?
I got your envelope of lovely little things for which many, many thanks. It arrived the day of your post about going into hospital, which is why I didn't respond earlier. You really have a remarkable output of stuff in its infinite varieties.
Hope you're continuing to improve.
G.H. to M.Y., Mar 20, 2008, 10:51 AM
Found a reasonable copy of the piece of Zukofsky. I scanned it at 600 dots per inch, considering that the bare minimum for image quality. I also increased the size of the image 400% (since it is quite tiny in the original book). Tell me if this works for you or not.
I'll ask someone to scan the Ron Johnson poem for you, but Bob says he's changed the poem since I created (not positive he's right) and that he doesn't want one poem looking too much better than the rest (but now it looks pretty bad compared to most of the b&w ones).
I wrote to Bob about the image quality issues here, and he thinks it all has to do with the quality of his equipment (which he cannot afford to upgrade). I explained that many of my issues had to do with simply not keeping track of master copies. With Bob's color work, though, I think he process of creation does two things: degrades the visual quality in cases where he fiddles with the stuff too much and provides low-res images simply because of the settings he uses. I'm not positive of any of this, but these are my assumptions, based on looking at his work. I don't want to push him on this too much, though, since I'm hurting his feelings too much.
That being said, there may be some mathemaku that he can provide you with better copies of, but you'd have to ask to be sure. I've no idea, and I'm not as sanguine about our chances as I'd want to be.
Glad you received the package. With everything that is going on, I forgot all about it! But wanted to send you something. Thanks.
harry k stammer to M.Y., Apr 16, 2008, 9:57 AM
working on Bob's.
Apr 16, 2008, 10:59 AM
This one was weird.... I had to play with the spine quite a bit to get the colors to match.... Also, the spine might look weird because of where the art on the back falls to spine in relation to the art on the front, if you know what I mean. Please check this one carefully, especially for typos. I think I got them all but...
M.Y. to hks, Apr 16, 2008, 11:40 AM
Bob Grumman is a bit weird — Geof Huth has done a couple of long posts at dbqp on visits he's made to Bob, one in the last few days, which are worth reading - so nothing surprises me.
Generally I like the cover, but there are a couple of things.
I thought maybe the full title of the book wouldn't fit the spine, but looking at it made up, I think it will. So could you please change the spine title to read
April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagoras Times Now
There's one typo that I picked up — should be Pythagoras in the back blurb. & I don't like the raggedness of the blurb (didn't like it in the jpeg Bob sent, like it even less in situ but it may be that Bob wants it that way). Can you get in at it to change the text box? If you can, I've attached my original mock up so you can see how I think it should be, justified, em dash, Geof's name at the end of the blurb rather than the line below. If you can't I'll go back to Bob. (What are your thoughts about the formatting of the blurb?)
& if you can get in to the text box can you do the changes above (which I've just highlighted for convenience) & give me two variants to run past Bob - one justified, one ragged as is.
hks to M.Y., Apr 16, 2008, 11:21 PM
I only received jpegs for the front and back covers so I can't get to the text... If I can get a jpeg of the back cover without the blurb it shouldn't be a problem.
The spine should be no problem.
M.Y. to B.G., Apr 16, 2008, 11:46 PM
A couple of things. harry's just got around to putting the final wraparound cover together, & I've read the small print & you've spelt Pythagoras wrong. The other things is that in situ, I don't think that the ragged right edge of the blurb looks that great, think that having it justified would be an improvement. Can you give me the back cover jpeg without text, & I'll get harry to mockup a couple of covers, one justified, one not, & I'll run them both by you & you can choose.
Sorry to do this at such a late date, but harry's been sick & is only just getting back on top of things.
Did you enjoy the visit from young Geof?
M.Y. to hks, Apr 16, 2008, 11:48 PM
Have just written to Bob asking for a jpeg of the back cover without text. He'll probably be so embarrassed by spelling Pythag wrong that he'll oblige without too much trouble. I've told him you'll mockup a cover with & without justification & he can choose.
hks to M.Y., Apr 17, 2008, 12:00 AM
Sounds good.
B.G. to M.Y., Thu, Apr 17, 2008, 7:46 AM
I had a great visit with Geof. I wish I didn't have to work, so could have visited with him more than once.
Thanks for catching my misspelling. As for the blurb, I remember thinking the ragged edge didn't look that great but wanting to get the image to you. I think right-justified should look much better. The jpg is attached without the blurb, but with "Mathemaku No. 10," although, technically, that's text.
Also enclosed is a repaired title-page--turns out I misspelled "Pythagoras" there, too. I don't know how I got it right on the front cover--or did you correct it there?
Sorry to hear Harry was down, but happy he's back. I just got the copy of Márton's book you sent me. Thanks extremefully! Terrific book!
M.Y. to hks, Apr 17, 2008, 8:56 AM
blurbless cover attached
hks to M.Y.. Fri, Apr 25, 2008, 5:47 AM
Check these out and let me know if they are ok...
M.Y. to B.G., Apr 26, 2008, 9:16 PM
Two covers for you to have a look at. Let me know which you'd prefer, plus any changes - if there are any - you'd like made.
B.G. to M.Y., Apr 27, 2008, 3:09 AM
Tough call—I really do like both equally. So you go with the one you prefer. On problem, though: the title on the spine would best be "April to the Power of (Pythagoras)(Now)."
M.Y. to hks, Apr 27, 2008, 8:52 AM
Go with the unjustified one. & Bob's title is below (drop the quotation marks).
hks to M.Y., Apr 27, 2008, 4:02 PM
ok!
M.Y. to B.G., May 7, 2008, 8:37 PM
Good show—am looking forward!
M.Y. to B.G., G.H., May 7, 2008, 12:31 PM
Have just ordered you a proof copy of Pythag for you to check. You should see it next week. Have also ordered a copy for Geof to check if there's any variation visible.
Hope it comes up to your expectations.
G.H. to M.Y., May 7, 2008, 12:36 PM
I'll look for it. And get back to you about its state. Thanks.
B.G. to M.Y., May 13, 2008, 7:31 AM
Mark, it arrived today. It came up to my expectations! Thanks to the
power of Pythagorus plus Erato plus your ten favorite poets!
M.Y. to Otoliths Mailing List
New Books from Otoliths
April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagoras Times Now
Bob Grumman
72 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9804541-6-1
Otoliths 2008
$27.95 + p&h
URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/bob-grumman/april-to-the-power-of-the-quantity-pythagoras-times-now/paperback/product-1jm84kv.html?page=1&pageSize=4
"Collected in Bob Grumman's book April to the Power of the Quantity Pythagoras Times Now are almost two decades' worth of mathemaku, a personal genre of his that combines elements of visual poetry, mathematics, and haiku. Always the poet of the topical constraint, Grumman writes mathemaku that restrict themselves to a narrow range of subjects (spring, poetry, language, light) so he can divert all his effort into creating remarkable engines of poetic imagination where language, color, images, and mathematics conjoin to form stunning ineluctable gestalts. Drawing from his early pre-long-division mathemaku and his more recent forays into color and ever-increasing formal complexity, this book brings together a hearty sampling of the best of Grumman's mathemaku, including such masterworks as "Mathemaku for Ezra Pound" and "Seaside Mathemaku." A lifetime in the making, this book is not to be missed." —Geof Huth
Comments
Post a Comment