Stratigraphy and Significance in the Fibonacci Sequence

Wendy Collin Sorin and Derek White’s new book of visual poetry works, as we say, on many levels.⁰ I’ve read the book a few times so far, and I’m still trying to extract all the meaning out of this dense, yet stunningly beautiful,¹ visual text, which carries with some grace the ungainly title of P.S. At Least We Died Trying to Make You in the Backseat of a Taxidermist.

The text begins by making multiple references to the soft center (or off-center) of biological items: xylem, pith, phloem, and the roots of teeth. These references encourage us to consider the Fibonacci sequence,¹ that magical sequence found frequently enough in the constructions of nature. In case we missed the opening hint, the second page of the book presents the sequence itself, from 1 through 610, leading directly to the center of the opening palm xylem.

At this point, you might start scratching your head, wondering what botanical terms of art and arcane mathematics have to do with poetry. Apparently, everything, but first take a look at a sample page:

Wendy Collins Sorin and Derek White,
“0 + 1 = P(s)alm S(crypt)ic (x-ray)” (2005)
This page exhibits the general structure of each poem in this book. Each begins with a title filled with mathematical formulae and punning. Each includes a colorful visual text that also serves as the illustration for the book’s narrative, which itself is always relegated to the footnote, numbered in a Fibonacci-sequential manner. And each text is visually haunted by an undertext, the text from the next page over. This undertext is important because it underscores the idea behind the Fibonacci sequence: that each number in the sequence is the sum of the two preceding numbers, that each number in the sequence is mathematically bound to the numbers surrounding it.

I’m a bit sick now, and my gummy eyes, runny nose, and throbbing head only cloud my thinking, yet when I read over this book again tonight my head was clear. The text is so rich that it woke me from my semi-conscious state. The title on every page is a small mathematical poem, whose significance I needed to uncover. Each footnote told part of a strange story about the travels of an unnamed girl and her progeny, and the twisted telling of the tale forced me into clarity. The visual texts that dominate each page encouraged me to find the connections between its text and image and the unfolding story. Also, I had to find the references to the Fibonacci sequence hidden within the text of a couple of pages, the shapes of illustrations, and the dots ending a couple of footnotes. The book is a feast for the mind and the eye.

The narrative of the girl, her mate Mud-clot Boy, and their child BeBe (who also transforms into Mud-clot Bebe and Iceberg Bebe) seems to contain two obvious references to Fibonacci. First, the focus on biology and reproduction appears to refer to the schematic rabbit-breeding story that illustrated the first appearance of and helped to explain Fibonacci’s sequence. Second, the girl and her family travel widely, just as Fibonacci did.

This work of digital and manual collage writing asks much of the reader. We are charged with understanding complexity, with pulling on multiple threads to find multiple connections.² This book is a wonderful game of reading, and I just hope that people see it this way and understand the life-giving joy of the book. I hope that people are not intimidated by the maverick scholarship of this gene-spliced masterpiece. I just wish I could make it clear what an achievement this rough beast actually is.

I stumble, woozy, ³ to my knees, humbled and shattered by the beauty before me.

_____

⁰ Zeroth, each page is visually stunning, covered with subtle color that seems to moult off the page. First, the book is designed around a simple sequence of numbers: the famed Fibonacci sequence, where every number in the sequence is the sum of the two preceding numbers. First, this book tells a biological story in its footnotes. Second, the central visual text on each page supports the ongoing story. Third, each page is literally created out of different levels, separate strata; each image of a page shows the subtle shadow and color of the other page beneath it. Apparently, the authors printed these pages on paper vellum, which they placed in a stack and scanned so as to capture the underimage of the page on the facing side of each sheet.

¹ To see the beauty of a few of these pieces, follow the links off this page. Even my wife, who has been forced into knowing about visual poetry by living in close quarters with me, remarked yesterday that the poems in this book were beautiful. She sees much visual poetry, but she rarely sees a need to note the beauty of any of it.

¹ For a brief, entertaining, and kinetic explanation of the Fibonacci sequence, go here.

² Poetry, of all the different types of texts, should demand something of us, should force us to think and force us to feel with our eyes and our ears. We shouldn’t be afraid of this.

³ In more ways than 1.<sup>5

5</sup> Or in more ways than 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987...

ecr. l’inf.