Rubbing Graphite

As graphite flakes rub against paper and

whisper softly to the blank white,

letters and lines unravel chaotically and

whisper softly to the blank white,

conveying nascent ideas and images that

get crossed and erased fanatically.

Conveying nascent ideas and images that

turn into a final string legible to only one mind,

letters and lines unravel chaotically and

turn into a final string legible to only one mind

as graphite flakes rub against paper and

get crossed and erased fanatically.

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What the Poet Says

Back in university, as a student double majoring in Mathematics and Linguistics, I got interested in mathematical poetry, and I have started experimenting with mathematical poetry forms since senior year in university. The poems in this submission are tetrahedral pantoums. Invented by Dr. Enriqueta Carrington around 2010, a tetrahedral pantoum is a sequence of four tercets made up of six distinct lines with a repetition pattern based on the structure of a tetrahedron and inspired by the pantoum.

Duc Van Khanh Tran is currently a Computer Science Ph.D. student at National University of Singapore. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with bachelor’s degrees in Mathematics and Linguistics and has been using mathematical poetry forms to write poems. His English and Mandarin Chinese poems are published in The Fib Review, The Orange Rose, 《雨林诗刊》, etc. Updates on publication of his poems can be found on duc-van-khanh-tran-poetry.carrd.co.