Second Place Winner, November 2001 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Second Place Winner, November 2001

GUA-PA-CHA FRACTALS
Barbara Lee
(Melic Review Roundtable)

The Julia Set: the interface between
escaping and cycling points.

Hold the down beat, one;
if she unpins her hair, play poker

with the axis, two-three;
rotate your left heel
on Mandelbrot's theory, plot
ornaments on a strand, mark

how it coils, syncopates
four and one
in incalculable iterations. Break

contrapasso,
mirror desire's punishment
cycling in infinite variety between two and three.

Julia is what every woman is,
an imaginary number
coming into being somewhere off stage.

Judge Joan Houlihan's comment: “Terrific interplay between dance and mathematical concepts; full of life, breezy, sophisticated and clever; fully realized in the ending correlation with an actual 'Julia.' Bravo.”