A Cognitive View of "Pandemic Meditation" (A Mathematical Visual Poem)

Abstract

Mathematical visual poetry is a poetic genre whereby metaphorical expressions are created using mathematical structures. Within the structure, the poetics are understood by the cross-mapping of numerous conceptual domains including visual, lexical, and mathematical. Here I focus on one particular mathematical visual poetic structure: what I call a Similar Triangles Poem or Proportional Poem. To illustrate the ideas discussed, I present "Pandemic Meditations," a mathematical visual poem; in particular I discuss how this mathematical poem uses the mechanisms of poetic metaphor in the context of the embodied mind. The intent of this paper is not to explain "Pandemic Meditation," for explanations of poetry serve only to kill it. Instead, the intent here is to give the reader the tools to access similar triangles poems in general, and this expression in particular, and to show how it functions within the definitions of poetic metaphor. This paper can be used as a template to study all similar triangles visual poems, and more generally, as a source to study visual poetry.