Forms

Number Poetry / Quantitative Poetics

If it suits you, you may refer to Number Poetry as "Quantitative Poetics". We will stick with the pedestrian "Number Poetry" to include many things. 

Number Poetry is recommended as a Metaform.

A number poem is any text in the which the numbers of letters, words, lines, stanzas, and/or paragraphs are determined before writing begins.

This includes the Oulipo's Snowball. in which each line is longer than the previous line, and the Melting Snowball, in which each line is smaller than the preceding line. You can combine these two shapes to make diamond poems or hourglass poems. 

EXAMPLES TO LINK: A Kite; Before; C Can Cause Cancer: Newspoem 2 June 2001; Czech TV: Newspoem 18 January 2001; Mayor Giuliani Outlaws Painting, Arrests Artists: Newspoem 23 March 1998; Missed the Bus to Work Again; Oh! John Don’t Go to Kosovo: Newspoem 17 March 1999; Patrick Dorismond RIP, NYPD: Newspoem 5 April 2000; Poetry Class; Separation of Degrees. Victory Speech

Works that use this form

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