Rhyme, with or without reason

This may not make sense to anybody but me, but the three activities I most enjoy, developing software, constructing formal proofs, and writing poetry, all feel similar. With each one, I start out with an idea of what I am trying to achieve, then assemble pieces I have at my disposal. The difference between the three activities lies in the nature of the pieces: programming language constructs and library functions, rules of logic and axioms of whatever system I am working in, or words. The act of assembling them, which is the part I enjoy, feels very similar to me.

The upshot of this is that you are about to encounter engineered poetry. I use the word “poetry” loosely in these pages. What I write is not considered poetry by modern poets; rather, it is verse. However, modern poets and other artists face a problem, which I will someday address in an essay for which I already have a title: “The Problem of Structure”.

Many of these pieces were written with a tune running through my head, so I suppose that makes them song lyrics. However, since the music has never been written down or recorded, you’ll have to make do with just the words for now.

Choose from the following collections:

Now available from Amazon, my book of New Testament-themed rhymes: Eyewitness: New Testament Rhymes