Poetic Forms: The Fibonacci (aka Fib Poetry)

The Fib, or Fibonacci poetry, is based upon a numerical sequence named for a twelfth century mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci. Though Fibonacci did not invent the sequence, he made it popular in his book, "Liber Abaci" ("Book of Abacus" or "Book of Calculation"), published in 1202. The sequence begins with 0 and 1, and each subsequent number in the sequence is the sum of the previous two. Thus, the first few members of the list are 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89 and so on. For example, to figure the next number in the sequence after 5, you would add 5 and the previous number, 3, to get 8. Then, 8 and 5 is the next number, 13.

Poets throughout history have utilized interesting sequences in their poetic forms, and for centuries they have used the Fibonacci sequence as a guide for haiku-like poems. The numeric values typically represent either the number of syllables or words and usually is limited to just the first six members of the sequence beginning with 1.

Like the mathematician Fibonacci, who made the sequence well-known but was not its inventor, poet and screenwriter Gregory K. Pincus made the "Fib" popular in 2006 by posting in his blog an explanation and an invitation to his blog fans to write and post them online. The Fib was briefly a web phenomenon and even today there are several websites dedicated to it.

As mentioned, the each line in a Fibonacci poem corresponds to its place in the Fibonacci sequence (without counting the initial 0), the quantity of which determines the number of syllables or words in that line. Most Fibs, however, are just six lines and utilize syllable counts, in the succession 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. Like most syllable-based formats, there are no rhyme or meter requirements

Examples:

Spring Orchid

Wild,
spring
orchid,
eccentric
in its choice of bed,
seems content in its arrangement.

Before the Mast

Sail,
wind,
first dogwatch,
then, before the mast,
we let ourselves be cast away.