Marjorie Rappaport Award

Over the summer my poem "Proof by Design: the calculations involved in the dynamic of a natural wind" won the 2007 Marjorie Rappaport Award for poetry (out of the University of Michigan). Sorry if the formatting is a little off, but please enjoy the poem below:

Proof by Design:
The calculations involved in the dynamic of a natural wind

1. From where does wind originate?
> why, the second law of thermodynamics
satiation will forever seek to fill his brother, hunger.

2. Fundamental Theorem of Wind: every part of an idea
can be broken down into separate compartments

Instance “A”
The medium of verse is pure stone.

THEREFORE the following must be true:

> fragments of similes, metaphors and images,
when compacted through the passage of time,
utilize the property of pressure to redistribute meaning.
-verse read in reverse
- transpositions of words
-works read over in an alternative language

> within the framework of wind, through the natural
instances of storm and cloud design, it is possible
for etchings to be made on the surface of rock,
such that if the rivulets of the characters were played
upon by a phonograph, there would be a particular
sound produced.


3. Theorem: The wind is an intangible system of poetics.


4. Proof: If the wind is an intangible system of poetics

THEN:
the large quantities of chance operations
performed upon windswept rock faces
can yield symbolic formations which,
when arranged into lines and read from left
to right, have sustainable meaning

THEN:
smells brought on the back of the wind
can be used as a means to evoke
memories or incite new ones

THEN:
the strategic position of wind-tossed
matter can be interpreted as a work
of art.


CONCLUSION:
to believe in wind is to believe in its effects