by NONA BLYTH CLOUD
When the Germans invaded Denmark in April, 1940, Piet Hein (1905-1996) was a 34-year-old scientist and inventor, who had to decide between three responses: do nothing, flee to “neutral” Sweden — or join the Danish resistance movement. As he explained in 1968, “Sweden was out because I am not Swedish, but Danish. I could not remain at home because, if I had, every knock at the door would have sent shivers up my spine.
So, I joined the Resistance.”
His method of resisting was unique. He invented a new kind of poetry.
Hein called his poems Grooks (pronounced “gruk” in Danish), and wrote under the nom de plume Kumbel, “tombstone” in Old Norse. He outwitted the strict censorship set up by the Nazis by writing seemingly innocuous little poems with subtle double meanings, which were published in the Danish daily newspaper Politiken.
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CONSOLATION GROOK
Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again.
______________________________________________________________
The Danes, looking for hope and encouragement during the occupation, saw what the censors missed. The gloves were metaphors: even if you’ve lost your freedom, don’t lose your self-respect by collaborating with the enemy, or you will never forgive yourself when your country is free again. The poem soon appeared as graffiti on walls all over Denmark.
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DEFENCE WANTED
In International
Consequences
the players must reckon
to reap what they’ve sown.
We have a defence
against other defences,
but what’s to defend us
against our own?
A PSYCHOLOGICAL TIP
Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,
and you’re hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No – not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you’re passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you’re hoping
A WORD TO THE WISE
Let the world pass in its time-ridden race;
never get caught in its snare.
Remember, the only acceptable case
for being in any particular place
is having no business there.
LIVING IS —
Living is
a thing you do
now or never —
which do you?
AN ETHICAL GROOK
I see
and I hear
and I speak no evil;
I carry
no malice
within my breast;
yet quite without
wishing
a man to the Devil
one may be
permitted
to hope for the best.
THE TRUE DEFENCE
The only defence
that is more than pretence
is to act on the fact
that there is no defence.
PAST PLUPERFECT
The past, — well, it’s just like
our Great-Aunt Laura,
who cannot or will not perceive
that though she is welcome,
and though we adore her,
yet now it is time to leave.
THAT IS THE QUESTION
Hamlet Anno Domini.
Co-existence
or no existence.
MEETING THE EYE
You’ll probably find
that it suits your book
to be a bit cleverer
than you look.
Observe that the easiest
method by far
is to look a bit stupider
than you are.
IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN
A poet should be of the
old-fashioned meaningless brand:
obscure, esoteric, symbolic, —
the critics demand it;
so if there’s a poem of mine
that you do understand
I’ll gladly explain what it means
till you don’t understand it.
______________________________________________________________
As you can see, there’s no particular form for a Grook. The poems do share a wry sense of humor, brevity and an aphoristic style of language, which combine to make them memorable.
ON PROBLEMS
Our choicest plans
have fallen through,
our airiest castles
tumbled over,
because of lines
we neatly drew
and later neatly
stumbled over.
THE CASE FOR OBSCURITY
On Thoughts and Words I.
If no thought
your mind does visit,
make your speech
not too explicit.
GROOK ON LONG-WINDED AUTHORS
Long-winded writers I abhor,
and glib, prolific chatters;
give me the ones who tear and gnaw
their hair and pens to tatters:
who find heir writing such a chore
they only write what matters.
______________________________________________________________
In May, 1945, Denmark was liberated from the Nazis. Scandinavian architects started looking for a new form for buildings in the post-war era, something to signal the country’s renewal. Piet Hein proposed using the superellipse. It became the hallmark of modern Scandinavian architecture.
Hein continued to write Grooks, over 7000 of them (a number of them in English since he did undergraduate work at Yale University) which were published in a series that grew to 20 volumes. He was an advocate for the use of the superellipse curve in city planning, furniture making and he also designed housewares based on the shape. He used his math skills in creating several numbers games.
The road to wisdom? – Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
There is 
one art,
no more,
no less:
to do
all things
with art-
lessness.
______________________________________________________________
Pier Hein shone a small light for his country in its darkest hour, and helped design its reconstruction when peace and independence were restored.
There are many in our current troubled times who think that Art in all its forms serves no useful purpose.
I am of the belief that Art can keep us from despair, uncover our common ground, and just might be what saves us in the end.
In this Dark Season, may Light find you.
______________________________________________________________
Grooks collections published in English
- Grooks I (samling af engelske gruk, 1966)
- Grooks II (samling af engelske gruk, 1969)
- Grooks III (samling af engelske gruk, 1970)
- Grooks IV (samling af engelske gruk, 1972)
- Grooks V (samling af engelske gruk, 1973)
- Grooks VI (samling af engelske gruk, 1978)
- Grooks VII (samling af engelske gruk, 1984)
- Grooks I-VI udg. i Skandinavien, Canada, England, USA
- Collected Grooks I (2002)
- Collected Grooks II (2002)
Biography
- Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Hein_(scientist)
- Danishnet — http://www.danishnet.com/culture/piet-hein-1905-1996/
- Britannica — https://www.britannica.com/biography/Piet-Hein
Visuals
- All pen-and-ink drawings are by Piet Hein, used to illustrate his Grook collections
- Diagram of a superellipse
- Superellipse table based on a Piet Hein design
- Photo of Piet Hein
Word Cloud photo by Larry Cloud
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 
Encryption is a part of the new vocabulary not given enough attention.
Given recent hacking events, allegedly by the Russians, it is time to take encryption even more seriously. I have gone to passwords classified as “very strong.” No less than fifteen randomly generated characters, a mix of alphabetic, numeric and symbols, with mixed case. Nothing says I have to use the English alphabet either, which expands my options exponentially. Then re-encrypt those passwords and other essential documents by hashing them. No reason to make it easy. Did I mention that I also use a high security VPN, which in my case is a free service provided by my bank? I only use a small town bank and credit union. I don’t trust any of the big banks. It is kind of cool to go down and meet with the bank president and CEO face to face if I am not happy. i even know where he lives so guess I could throw rocks at his house if I am unhappy enough. Try that with the Wells-Fargo or Goldman Ransacks high command.
We were for a number of years happy customers of a small bank here, which had only a dozen branches. We knew and were known by everyone who worked in our neighborhood branch, and only had a couple of minor problems, which were taken care of in each case with just one phone call to the branch manager.
Then all the mergers started happening – our little bank got swallowed up by a medium-sized regional bank, which in turn was consumed by a bigger bank six months later, and then that bank vanished into the giant maw of Citibank, and there were no small or even medium-sized banks left to do business with anywhere in Southern California – except the private concierge banks which cater only to the super-rich.
After several serious problems with Citibank that took repeated phone calls and letters to get resolved, we left, then had similar problems with the next bank, and moved again, knowing it’s only a matter of time before our current bank will follow the same pattern.
“Too big to fail” is also “too big to take care of business” – Whatever happened to enforcement of our anti-trust laws?
The biggest enemy Democracy faces today doesn’t have armies or navies. It’s Capitalism run amok – huge multinational banks and corporations with more power than most nations, and no legislature or judiciary which can truly hold them accountable. Donald Trump is merely their ugly poster child, just a symptom of the plague that’s been loosed upon the planet.
big fan of the superellipse
“Hermann Zapf’s typeface Melior, published in 1952, uses superellipses for letters such as o. Thirty years later Donald Knuth would build the ability to choose between true ellipses and superellipses (both approximated by cubic splines) into his Computer Modern type family.
The superellipse was named by the Danish poet and scientist Piet Hein (1905–1996) though he did not discover it as it is sometimes claimed.”