...in which noted haiku analyst, Leslie Mösknvorr, and renowned surgeon, Dr. Lori Kördann, discuss the state of poetry in Grüundard.

Mösknvorr: Well, you know what Neruda said...

Kördann: Dr. Nerüda? You mean in her paper advocating eleven-gauge suture wire for closing sub-ligeastratory gestrationals?

M: No, Pablo Neruda, about there being only eleven topics in poetry.

K: Oh, yes. Well, that proposition is intrinsically true, of course. But if those eleven topics were ever formally delineated, then poetry would cease to exist.

M: That's the conventional wisdom. But in your treatise, Unified Abstractions in Non-Conjunctive Verse, you argued the following: "Just as all mathematic functions can be reduced to the perplexingly arcane concept of addition, all topics in [legitimate] poetry can be reduced -- or perhaps elevated -- to the sheer irrefutability of..."

K: I wrote that?

M: Well, no. Actually, I was quoting myself. Your version used the word "arithmetic" in place of "mathematic," but otherwise our treatises are the same.

K: I see. Well, it's hardly coincidence that Dante's Inferno was comprised of eleven rings.

M: Nine, actually.

K: No, eleven. I'm referring to the unabridged version (yet to be discovered).

M: Either way, the odd quantity is difficult to reconcile under the dichotometric model: Love/hate, war/peace, grace/vengeance, passion/apathy...

K: Yes, all paired. With the exception of the final topic, 2x + 1. If this were ever definitively identified, then art itself (including several forms of literature) would become inane studies in pretense.

M: Superfluous reflections on the human condition.

K: No. Just inane studies.

M: And this very discussion -- the one you and I are having now -- might cease to be poetic.

K: I suppose that's possible. Although the irony would be difficult to ignore.