Logic leads us astray. There are those who will browbeat you with logic, the most patronizing bullying types, who believe that they, unlike you, are playing by the rules. Their authority lies in mathematics, but the mathematical formula always applies narrowly and not universally. Take the most famous piece of logic. A tree cannot be both a tree, and not a tree, at the same time. The proof of this formula cannot be proven except by evidence of the senses. The “logic” of something never proves anything—not even its own “logic.”
As we come to the end of Scarriet’s ’19 Poetry March Madness, we are sadly confronted with the axiom that one cannot both lose and not lose a sports contest. The Muse of Mathematics, as she often does in poetry, specifies a window of time, (a partial clock) in which to compare two sums, measurable ticks (points) on an otherwise unmoving clock.
Two partial and variable clocks plus one partial and constant clock. This defines the harmonic pleasure of sports, and might be said to resemble the Surprise Symphony of Hayden. It is a never-ending source of delight. Time is surprised while there is still time.
The Final Four this year consists of small windows into poems—this was the format of the competition—poems which are not poems, imploding the very logic which some hold dear.
There is no set limit on these poems which are not poems—they are the “size” of the universe which hides from our senses in the vastness of the word, “infinite,” a mathematical term no better equipped to describe the universe as a poem, or a poem which is not a poem—for we know the Big Bang ran its course when the universe first sprang into existence—but how was it decided how large the universe would be? There was no “large” before it existed—no “size” for it to exist in as it made its “size” felt.
Two contestants who reached the Final Four, Daipayan Nair and Sushmita Gupta, describe the totality of life from a subjective perspective; we believe there is nothing else to describe the drama of human existence after reading these two capsules:
I RUN,RUN, RUN AND RUN/STILL I DON’T REACH MY BIRTH/DON’T CROSS MY DEATH —Daipayan Nair
EVERYTHING HURTS/EVEN THAT/WHICH SEEMS LIKE LOVE. —Sushmita Gupta
Only a majestic rhythm can make the majestic invoking of life, in a sweeping manner, successful.
Not a wasted word or syllable is allowed.
The other two Final Four contestants came here in a different manner from the other two—they both haunt us below the moon, below, below, in the quotidian, where dreams are intimate and almost infinitely small:
SURE, IT WAS A DREAM, BUT EVEN SO/YOU PUT DOWN THE PHONE SO SOUNDLESSLY —Jennifer Barber
THE SHAVER MISSING, YOUR GREEDY LAPTOP: GONE TOO, HIDING YOU —Divya Guha
These euphonious masterpieces have eccentric rhythms—I could dreamily listen to them all day, as if they were 1960s psychedelic rock—Sgt Peppers or Dark Side of the Moon, or pieces by Satie or Debussy.
In the profound atmosphere of reaching the end of a long and arduous tournament, one which began with 64 contestants, the advantage will go to the universal and the majestic.
Therefore, Daipayan Nair and Sushmita Gupta win their Final Four contests, and advance to the Championship Game!
THE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME
DAIPAYAN NAIR V. SUSHMITA GUPTA
THE WINNER OF THE ’19 SCARRIET POETRY MARCH MADNESS TOURNAMENT IS:
EVERYTHING HURTS/EVEN THAT/WHICH SEEMS LIKE LOVE
Sixty-four flowers, symbolizing the 64 contestants, are laid before the feet of the winner at center stage.
Thank you to all.