I am thrilled to be the new Featured Poet International for American poetry publisher, Muse-Pie Press, producers of the three highly-respected poetry journals: Fibonacci poetry specialist, The Fib Review; short-form poetry publishers, Shot Glass Journal; and the spoken-word magazine, Bent Ear Journal.

I have had a few short poems published in Shot Glass Journal, but in the last ten years I have had 99 Fibonacci poems published in 30 consecutive issues The Fib Review, the leading publishers of this very specific poetry form. Writing these short poems to submit to the triannual editions of The Fib Review has now become a a regular calendar event and I’m grateful to have had such support from the journal’s energetic editor, Mary-Jane Grandinetti.

There must be something about writing poetry to a precise syllable count that draws me again and again to what are known as Fibs. The style is named after the medieval Italian mathematician, Fibonacci, who saw a pattern, a code, some have said, in the sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 etc. where the next number is the sum of the previous two. In the last ten years, I have written many Fibs using the Fibonacci sequence for the syllable count per line. So far I haven’t dared to write a line with any more than 233 syllables, but, maybe, one day, I will venture to 377 syllables and beyond.

Muse-Pie Press asked me to be their Featured Poet International a few months ago, and I was really excited to be honoured like this, but I hadn’t realised that they would publish 25 of my Fibonacci poems on my own featured page where they look, I like to think, true to their Fibonacci inheritance. Seeing them all together, I was delighted to see that they also form a poetic sequence – a digital chapbook – I hope you agree.

If you want to see the whole page, here’s the link – I hope you enjoy the Fibs and that you might even have a go yourself at writing one yourself. http://www.musepiepress.com/index.html

The post MUSEPIE-PRESS MAKE COLIN BELL THEIR FEATURED POET INTERNATIONAL appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

In a collaboration with the multi talented American film-maker Joseph Nussbaum, another of my Fibonacci poems has been turned into a miniature movie using the virtual world of Second Life as its starting point. The result, I think, is really original. The poem, Brief Encounter (published in The Fib Review – Musepie Press) makes a romantic and powerful film . The poem was written in strict syllabic count according to the Fibonacci Sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8,13 etc.) and is one of many of my ‘Fibs’ to be published in that excellent poetry journal The Fib Review. Here’s a link to the poem as it appeared there in 2011:

http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/issue9/wolfiewolfgang4.html

The very concise form of the poetic style translates well into the equally concise filming style of Joseph Nussbaum – it was a happy coming together of different art forms making, I think, what looks like a Contemporary Dance piece. Poetry and Dance as Film – a great combination. Take a look:

The post My Fibonacci Poem, Brief Encounter, is transformed into a miniature movie. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

The post With another new poem published by New Jersey’s Muse-Pie Press, I feel almost like a New Jersey poet. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

With so much bad news  coming out of New Jersey this week, I was worried when I received a message from a publisher in New Jersey today which had the word “unfortunately” in the first paragraph. Now any writer who has ever submitted work to publishers will know to look for that word immediately as an instant sign of rejection.

I had submitted some Fibonacci poems to the excellent journal The Fib Review which specialises in this style of poetry, based on the Fibonacci Mathematical Sequence, one that particularly attracts me. The Fib Review is published by Muse-Pie Press in Passaic, New Jersey (see Links)  and they have been kind enough to publish a number of my poems over the last three years – in every issue in fact since Issue Three.

We all have to live with rejection so I skimmed the rest of the note with a bit more attention: “Unfortunately I’ve been affected by Hurricane Sandy and I’ve been without power for several days.”

Further on I read that The Fib Review wants to publish three of my new Fib poems in the next edition, Issue Thirteen. I am doubly delighted after that moment of disappointment.

I have been writing Fibonacci poetry now for about three and a half years after first learning about it from the pioneering editor of The Fib Review, Mary-Jane Grandinetti who is a specialist in short-form poetry. I am doubly grateful to her for the inspiration and for the encouragement.

The Fibonacci Sequence was brought to Europe by one Leonardo Pisano Bigollo (c.1170 – c.1250) who is also known as Leonardo of Pisa or, more simply, as Fibonacci. He discovered what was originally a Hindu-Arab form of mathematics when travelling in North Africa and published his findings in a highly influencial book Liber Abaci (1202) or The Book Of Calculations which also introduced into Europe the now familiar Arabic numeral system that replaced the more complicated Roman numerals.

The Fibonacci Sequence is a mathematical formula that identifies the relationship between certain numerical combinations when added together in a specific sequence.

In his book, Fibonacci explains his system using the example of rabbits breeding in a field. He begins with one male and one female and makes the assumption that neither they or their offspring will die. After one year, he asks, how many rabbits will there be in that field. Don’t try this at home, believe me, it could get messy, but Fibonacci calculated that the number of rabbits could be predicted by his system: 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 35, 55, 89, 144 etc. You will notice, pay attention at the back, that each number is the sum of the previous two. It was the use of these numbers as syllable counts that attracted me to writing Fibonacci poems. Here is an example of a Fibonacci poem by Jim Wilson:

This is its nature and
ever-expanding essential meaning and centrifugal motion of the exhilarating
Fibonacci!

Jim Wilson.

To borrow your patience a moment longer, you can also use these Fibonacci numbers to make something known as the Fibonacci Spiral where curved lines are fitted into a series of squares with Fibonacci numerical dimensions:

This is one of the basic patterns of Nature and it has its own beauty which we can recognise even if we don’t understand it.

It is used, either consciously or subliminally in the proportions in a work of art too. Like this photo of a rose…..

or this advert for Cognac:

It was also the shape of Hurricane Sandy when it arrived on the shores of New Jersey and took out the electricity of The Fib Review. Now that’s another neat, if inconvenient, Fibbonaci pattern.

For other examples of Fibonacci poetry go to The Fib Review at www.musepiepress.com – you can hear me read some of mine in the video column to the right of this blog. Issue 13 of the Fib Review will be out soon.

The post Hurricane Sandy and the Fibonacci Sequence appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I love this photograph by the brilliant Florida photographer known as PicSniper –  but I’m a bit frightened of it too. It is the expression on the two creatures faces that makes it so powerful and moving – especially the rat’s – two such different destinies.

The photograph was shot in November last year and the photographer explains how he got it:

“I shot this yesterday just South of the entrance of Chekika State Recreational Park in the Everglades National Park. I was driving and noticed this hawk intensely eyeballing its next meal. It took roughly 10-12 minutes for it to make up its mind as to when to strike. During the wait, though, you can see it twitching occasionally, as if unsure of its decision. Finally, it swooped down into some tall grass by a tree and waited there for about 30 seconds, while positioning itself onto its meal. When it had a firm grasp on its prey, it flew up with it, which is when I was able to capture this image. The first thing I noticed about this hawk is how intelligent it is. Take a look at its feet and see how it has positioned the rat. It is parallel to the hawk’s body, so that when it flies, there is less wind resistance”.
At a difficult time, soon after,  I came across it on-line and it has stayed with me.

Just before Christmas I thought of that Red-shouldered hawk’s “next meal” again when I was writing a poem and soon it became that poem, High-flyer. It is the first time I have used a photograph as the basis for a poem – I think I shall do it again.

It is published today, along with one of my sonnets, in Shot Glass Journal:

www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/editors_note.html

So thanks to PicSniper  www.flickr.com/people/picsniper/  for the inspiration and to Muse-Pie Press www.musepiepress.com in New Jersey for publishing it and so many other of my poems. Much appreciated.

The post Flying High appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I must like playing with words, I suppose I have always done it, but it is only in the last few years have a found an outlet for my neurosis by writing poetry, especially Fibonacci poetry based on precise syllabic patterns taken from the Italian mathematician Fibonacci’s sequence of numbers made famous in the book and then the movie, The Da Vinci Code.

I have two new Fibonacci poems published in the latest issue of The Fib Review, a specialist journal for Fibonacci poetry, which was published this week  –  you can find it on the right of this page, see Muse Pie Press under LINKS. I have been writing Fibonacci poems now for two years and, as yet, I haven’t tired of the possibilities – I am, I admit it, a bit of a geek –  I have also been lucky that the Fib Review has now published many of them in consecutive issues.

It must, as I said, be something to do with word play but I am often finding myself scribbling down a Fib poem even in the unlikeliest of places. It is just one of my many word-related neuroses – another one is the obsessive habit of counting the number of letters in a word on my fingers during conversations. I wrote a poem about that too.

One of the new poems, Reflections,  is another piece of word play, a Fibonacci palindrome using words or phrases that can be read either backwards or forwards.  In this case, the poem can be read from the top or from the bottom. It is a game but it will only work as a poem if it has something to say – you, my dear readers, are the sole judges of that so I hope you will take a look.

Palindromes were first written thousands of years ago and there are examples from ancient Greece and Rome. Here is a rather sinister Latin one:

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

We enter the circle after dark and are consumed by fire.

Another palindrome game that has kept geeks amused since Roman times is the palindrome square, the earliest was this one found on a tablet of stone just outside the ancient city.

As I am sure you can see this can be read in all directions and still say the same not very exciting sentence: Sator Arepo tenet opera rotas  – the sower Arepo works with the help of a wheel. If you have nothing better to do today, you could always try making your own palindrome square – sadly it is the kind of thing that entertains me but then I’m a wolf.

One of the cleverest palindromes in English is the famous Panama palindrome – again it might not be funny but it is historically accurate and, in its own way, witty:

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama

Here are some more – enjoy, if you can, but if you can’t, just humour me, I’m just a sad poet.

Dogma: I am God
Ned, I am a maiden
Don’t nod
Kay, a red nude, peeped under a yak
May a moody baby doom a yam?

The post Palindromes – a great game for neurotics and a good idea for a Fibonacci poem. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

I have been recently, on one of my publisher’s advice, been changing the name on my poetry from wolfiewolfgang to my “real” name of Colin Bell – the first of these was published on Every Day Poets just over a week ago (See Links in right hand column) and now two more are available. I feel like I am daring to come out of the shadows.

The two new poems are published in the Shot Glass Journal which specialises in short poetry that is no longer than sixteen lines. This is a tough medium to write in if you want to try to say anything even vaguely worthwhile. I love writing short verse but I have no illusions about my abilities here so I am really pleased to have these poems published in Shot Glass Journal and proud that they join another two of my poems in previous issues. Take a look but not just at mine, there are a lot of very varied pieces here showing just what can be done with a very few words.

I wish I could remember that at parties and after a few drinks!

Here is my short poem Lazy published in the first issue of Shot Glass Journal and recorded when my brain haemorrhage prolongation stammer was still difficult to control. When you have a stammer sometimes short poems are a blessing! I thought of re-recording it now that I am so much better but, no, this is how it was when I wrote this piece – actually I think recording poetry was part of my cure:

The post Short poetry can be best – look at the Shot Glass Journal appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.