Welcome to Poetics! This is “Mish” from mishunderstood hoping to add a little inspiration to your day.

It’s 3 p.m. EST. We have 4 snacks on the menu, 2 very popular beverages, 7 ways to approach the theme and 1 Mr. Linky. Numbers! Where would we be without them? From our birth dates to the size of our shoes, numbers are such an integral part of our everyday life. I thought they deserved to be our muse today.

Mary Cornish highlights some of their qualities in her poem…

NUMBERS

by Mary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition–
add two cups of milk and stir–
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication’s school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else’s
garden now.

There’s an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers’ call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn’t anywhere you look.

In this one, Carl Sandburg adds some lightheartedness to the subject.

ARITHMETIC

by Carl Sandburg

Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your
   head.
Arithmetic tells you how many you lose or win if you know how
   many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven — or five
   six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand
   to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and
   you can look out of the window and see the blue sky — or the
   answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again
   and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then
   double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger
   and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you
   what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply — and you carry the
   multiplication table in your head and hope you won’t lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you
   eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the
   other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody
   offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say
   Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she
   gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is
   better in arithmetic, you or your mother?

Slam Poetry champion, Harry Baker, blends poetry and mathematics with “59”, a “love poem about prime numbers”. Yes, you read that right.

There are numerous ways to respond to the prompt. Here are some ideas to work with.

1. Pen a poem about your favourite number or lucky number.
2. Honour or highlight a number that holds meaning for you like a birthday, anniversary, meaningful event, personal milestone, the number of times you have done something or something has happened.
3. Write of numbers in general (mathematical concepts such as counting, measurement, geometry).
4. Use many numbers within your poem to emphasize another theme or message.
5. How does a particular number makes you feel and why?
6. Personify a number, taking inspiration from Harry Baker.
7. Play with a nursery rhyme such as “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” and make it your own.

Here’s how to join in:

• Write a poem of any style in response to the prompt. Post it to your blog.
• Click on Mr. Linky and add the direct URL and your name.
• Add a link to dVerse so that others can find us.
• Read and comment on the work of others.
• Pop into the pub to comment or say hello! We are friendly folk.