I like order. Not excessively or all the time, but on balance, I like to
see orderliness whenever it shows itself. I admire form. I am
pleased by the firmness of structure.
Now, having said that, I must also say that there isn't as much of that firm structure in my life to suit me. I tend to be excessive about most things, never moderate or balanced. I notice order in my life more by its absence than its presence.
And then, to annoy me further, there is Werner Heisenberg's 1927 "uncertainty principle," which has taught us that order is an illusion, both in quantum mechanics and cosmology, the largest and smallest of scientific investigations. Whatever order we once thought we observed in nature and hoped to duplicate in our lives is, in cold brutal fact, little more than wishful thinking.
Which is one reason we like art and music and poetry so much. Poetry, Robert Frost once remarked, is a "momentary stay against confusion." That's what we like about it. It imposes order on chaos. For the time you spend in a Robert Frost poem (though clearly not in all poems) you can look forward to the blessed relief of a sturdy substructure holding the whole thing up. No wonder he and all the formalists will never go out of style; they're like classic tweeds or pearls with a black dress. Elegant.
All this old-fashioned, formalist thinking came to mind on page 49 of the September 2012 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, where there is a poem by Amit Majmudar called, "Pattern and Snarl." It's an Italian sonnet (invented by Petrarch 800 years ago), one of the most rock-ribbed (not to say rigid) of poetic forms, and one that the New Formalists love to spin out just to prove that old forms can fit nicely with new realities, if you want them to, and if you're poet enough to pull it off.
Majmudar's sonnet is not about a person or about love or about death, but it's about the idea of orderliness itself. The opening eight lines set up the problem: "Life likes a little mess. All patterns need a snarl." He thinks about that idea for the opening eight lines that set things up, and then he resolves the problem in the six-line conclusion:
What is it about order that we love? This sense,
Maybe, that a secret informs the pattern?
Is it a toddler's joy in doing things again?
Is it the entropy in us that warms to pattern?
I never intended this line to rhyme on again again.
Then again sometimes it's the snarl that adorns the pattern.
The joy of this poem is in its reminder that life likes a "little mess," a "snarl that adorns the pattern," which all by itself is an insight worth having, but Majmudar delivers it in a tight pattern that is itself slightly snarled, thus duplicating the message in the form, which raises the achievement tenfold. The poem explodes into a gorgeous but miniature fireworks display.
In the end, we get an irresistible poem about the dual realities of loving patterns and living with snarls. My problem exactly.
Now, having said that, I must also say that there isn't as much of that firm structure in my life to suit me. I tend to be excessive about most things, never moderate or balanced. I notice order in my life more by its absence than its presence.
And then, to annoy me further, there is Werner Heisenberg's 1927 "uncertainty principle," which has taught us that order is an illusion, both in quantum mechanics and cosmology, the largest and smallest of scientific investigations. Whatever order we once thought we observed in nature and hoped to duplicate in our lives is, in cold brutal fact, little more than wishful thinking.
Which is one reason we like art and music and poetry so much. Poetry, Robert Frost once remarked, is a "momentary stay against confusion." That's what we like about it. It imposes order on chaos. For the time you spend in a Robert Frost poem (though clearly not in all poems) you can look forward to the blessed relief of a sturdy substructure holding the whole thing up. No wonder he and all the formalists will never go out of style; they're like classic tweeds or pearls with a black dress. Elegant.
All this old-fashioned, formalist thinking came to mind on page 49 of the September 2012 issue of the Smithsonian Magazine, where there is a poem by Amit Majmudar called, "Pattern and Snarl." It's an Italian sonnet (invented by Petrarch 800 years ago), one of the most rock-ribbed (not to say rigid) of poetic forms, and one that the New Formalists love to spin out just to prove that old forms can fit nicely with new realities, if you want them to, and if you're poet enough to pull it off.
Majmudar's sonnet is not about a person or about love or about death, but it's about the idea of orderliness itself. The opening eight lines set up the problem: "Life likes a little mess. All patterns need a snarl." He thinks about that idea for the opening eight lines that set things up, and then he resolves the problem in the six-line conclusion:
What is it about order that we love? This sense,
Maybe, that a secret informs the pattern?
Is it a toddler's joy in doing things again?
Is it the entropy in us that warms to pattern?
I never intended this line to rhyme on again again.
Then again sometimes it's the snarl that adorns the pattern.
The joy of this poem is in its reminder that life likes a "little mess," a "snarl that adorns the pattern," which all by itself is an insight worth having, but Majmudar delivers it in a tight pattern that is itself slightly snarled, thus duplicating the message in the form, which raises the achievement tenfold. The poem explodes into a gorgeous but miniature fireworks display.
In the end, we get an irresistible poem about the dual realities of loving patterns and living with snarls. My problem exactly.
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