I was fortunate, when studying English Literature at A-Level, to have an inspirational teacher. Lynne Ruscoe was only a few years older than we were, full of energy and enthusiasm, with an engaging smile and a lively sense of humour. We read Chaucer and John Donne, John Keats and Gerald Manley Hopkins, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, and – of course – Shakespeare. Hamlet was one of our set texts and I vividly remember the emotional impact the play had on me, especially these lines from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy:

 ‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams’ (Hamlet Act 2, Scene 2).

It’s a quote that has stayed with me and taken on its own meaning in various contexts and at different stages of my life.

Hamlet’s words were frequently in my mind when I was working on my new poetry collection, Sky, Earth, Other, for Penteract Press – not, I hasten to add, because I was having bad dreams, but because of the joys and challenges of exploring the endless creative possibilities within a confined space. The ‘nutshell’ in which I was bounded was the constraint I had set myself: to write poems that are informed in some way by the Fibonacci sequence or Fibonacci numbers.

The connection between poetry and the sequence goes back to ancient times; Fibonacci numbers featured in the work of Indian mathematician and poet Pingala (c. 450 BC – 200 BC). If you’re familiar with my poetry, you will know I have long been drawn to numerical constraints. In a previous blog post I’ve written about the Fib poem, which has a structure based on the Fibonacci sequence. A number of my poems have appeared in The Fib Review, an online poetry journal devoted to the Fibonacci form.

One reason the form appeals to me is its flexibility. Unlike, say, a sonnet or a sestina, a Fibonacci poem is not determined by the number of lines. It can be as elegantly succinct as a haiku, or as long as a book: Inger Christensen’s remarkable alphabet extends, in Susanna Nied’s fine translation, to almost 70 pages. Depending on the message the poet wishes to convey, a Fibonacci poem can open out, or close down, or both. It’s a dynamic form, with a strong sense of movement and direction. The sequential variation in line length provides an inherent visual component. One of the joys of writing Fibonacci poems is the freedom to play with their appearance on the page.

The form can also be combined with other constraints. Sky, Earth, Other includes a lipogram; an abecedarian; variations on the trimeric; Möbius poems; a fractal poem; and poems that can be read in more than one direction.

The Fibonacci sequence has many associations: organic growth or decay, population dynamics, combinations, spiral forms, the golden ratio, unendingness. Mathematically, there are still unanswered questions relating to the properties of Fibonacci numbers. For example, it is not known whether there are infinitely many Fibonacci primes (Fibonacci numbers that are also prime numbers).

In Sky, Earth, Other I have sought to integrate content and form in both a structural and a visual sense. The book is divided into three sections, with 8 + 13 + 21 = 42 poems altogether. Although the poems do not cover everything, life and the universe definitely feature.

Here’s Moonset, an ekphrastic poem from the collection:

No book is created in a vacuum. I am grateful to members of the Kent and Sussex Poetry Society for their insightful comments on some of the poems; to Mary-Jane Grandinetti, editor of The Fib Review; and to the Review’s many contributors, for expanding my awareness of the form’s possibilities. 

Anthony and Clara Etherin of Penteract Press have been unfailingly supportive of my poetry. My thanks to them, and to all Penteract Press authors. Their books are innovative, enriching, rewarding, and above all a joy to read.

Sky, Earth, Other will be published on 6^th July 2024. You can pre-order it now via the Penteract Press website: 

https://penteractpress.com/store/sky-earth-other