Think of a circle; think of all the things that are circles,
or made of circles.
-
The sun
-
The moon
-
A ball
-
An orange
-
A hula hoop
A circle is infinite, but the symbol for
infinity is not a circle, but a sideways 8, as shown here:
We often think of cycles as being infinite. What are some
kinds of cycles, or sets of events that repeat themselves?
-
Seasons
-
Time
-
Water cycle
-
Life cycle
-
Laundry
-
Growth Cycle
-
Metamorphic Cycle
-
Rock Cycle
If we were to write a poem about these
things, there would be no way to indicate on the paper that what was occurring
was infinite; a poem is linear, which means it has a beginning, a middle, and
an end. Perhaps we could write such a poem in a circle shape on the page, but
what if we used the infinity shape instead?
A Mobius strip is a type of infinity shape. It is the only
three-dimensional object that has only one side: you can run a pen or a pencil
along it and it will continue on without leaving the page. It was discovered in
1858 by German mathematicians, and is frequently used in machinery that need
rubber belts to wear evenly on both sides. MC Escher used the Mobius strip in
his art.
As you can see, the ants crawling on the Mobius strip will
always crawl on it, all going in the same direction. The ants are in fact meant
to show how the shape is infinite.
Today, we are going to use the Mobius strip in our poetry.
1)
We will first write a poem that is cyclical, or
contains an idea that is infinite (or seems infinite, like laundry!).
2)
Once you have written your infinite poem, you
will transfer it on to a piece of paper.
3)
This is what your piece of paper will look like:
4) Make sure that you leave at least
an inch on each outside edge of the rectangle:
5) Write the first half of your poem
on one side of the piece of paper, like this:
6) When you flip your piece of paper, it is very
important that you flip the page correctly:
a.
Flip it towards you or away from you, but DO NOT
flip it like you would flip a page (that is, do not pick up the righthand edge
and move your hand across yourself. The lefthand edge will stay on the left and
the righthand edge will stay on the right.)
b.
Or, you may think of it as flipping on the long
edge
7)
Write your other half of the poem on the other
side:
8)
You can see how the poem uses transition words
to lead from one end to the next.
9)
Next, you need to attach the two ends together.
You should have left a space at each of the ends on both sides to make sure
that you don’t accidentally overlap the text.
a.
Pull the ends together as if you were making a
circle.
b.
Before you put the ends together, however, give
ONE of the ends a half-twist (not both, and not a full twist! Just 180 degrees)
c.
Then tape or staple the two edges together.
d.
Read the poem to make sure you can follow it all
the way through until it starts over again. (If the line is suddenly upside
down and goes in the wrong order, that means that strip of paper was flipped on
the short edge, ie it was flipped incorrectly)
e.
Here is a diagram to show you how to attach the
ends of the paper strip:
10)
Once you get the hang of it, see how many Mobius
strip poems you can make!
Summary:
A Mobius strip poem shows us that a poem does not have to
have a beginning, a middle, and an end.
It allows us to write in a new way.
It should also show us that we should be able to experiment
with our poetry, either with what we write OR what we write on OR both!
No comments:
Post a Comment