Bob Grumman

Bob Grumman

Bob Grumman, Florida, September 2010
Born 2 February 1941
Norwalk, Connecticut
Died 2 April 2015 (aged 74)
Port Charlotte, Florida
Nationality USA
Genre mathematical poetry

Bob Grumman (2 February 1941 – 2 April 2015) was a mathematical poet and critic of what he called "otherstream" poetry. He was a columnist for Factsheet Five from 1987 to 1992, and wrote a regular column for Small Press Review beginning in 1993. He was a participant in international mail art since 1985. His work was represented in a number of museums and archives devoted to concrete and visual poetry. Considerations of his work have appeared in Meat Epoch, Factsheet Five, Taproot Reviews and elsewhere.

Life

Born in Norwalk, Connecticut, he lived for around 15 years in North Hollywood, California, before moving to his present home in Port Charlotte, Florida.[1] He earned an Associate of Arts degree at San Fernando Valley Junior College (1979), and a Bachelor of Arts in English at California State University, Northridge (1982). He served in the U.S. Air Force as a Medic during the Vietnam War from 1960 to 1964, and was a member of the USAF Tennis Team. From 1971 to 1976 he worked at Datagraphic Computer Services in North Hollywood, beginning as a delivery boy and later as a computer operator.[2] He worked as a substitute teacher for 14 years starting in late 1994, mainly at Charlotte High School. He retired in 2008.

Work

Grumman's first book, Poemns was published in 1966. He went on to publish several books of visual poetry before moving on to mathematical poetry. Grumman describes mathematical poetry as "poetry that does mathematics, rather than merely discusses mathematics (or uses mathematical algorithms to choose its content, as in the Oulipo movement)."[3] Grumman's own "mathemaku" are influenced by the haiku form. Many of them "investigate the results of the long division of such quantities as the actual color blue by such quantities as the dictionary definition of 'blue'" but a few employ other mathematical operations.[3]

In his essays Grumman seeks to foster and promote avant-garde and especially minimalist practices in poetry. His essay "MNMLST poetry: Unacclaimed but flourishing" explored the subtleties in very compressed poems such as Aram Saroyan's single word works.[4] He divides minimalist poetry into two main categories, "infra-verbal" minimalism and "pluraesthetic" minimalism. The former involves fissional, fusional and mutational verbal techniques. The latter includes visual, mathematical and sound poems.[4]

Professional Positions

Representative Shows

Publication Credits

Publications

Anthologies

References

  1. ↑ Grumman, Bob. "M@h*(pOet)?ica-Circles, Part 3", "Story Saturday" at Scientific American Guest Blogs, 12 January 2013.
  2. ↑ "Bob Grumman." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center. Web. Accessed 26 January 2013.
  3. 1 2 Richard Kostelanetz, H. R. Brittain (eds), A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes, Routledge, 2000, p.397.
  4. 1 2 Kanwar Dinesh Singh, New Explorations In Indian English Poetry, Sarup & Sons, 2004, pp.92-4

External links

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