{"id":2531,"date":"2026-05-05T08:54:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T15:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/?p=2531"},"modified":"2026-05-09T12:28:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T19:28:42","slug":"the-permie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/2026\/05\/05\/the-permie\/","title":{"rendered":"What is a Permie?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although its name suggests an off-brand\u00a0<\/span>of adult sanitary napkin, a permie<\/i> is a poem whose semantics are driven by the mechanics of permutation. I wrote my first one in 1977<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0A simple matter of constructing <\/span>meanings from alternative phrases provided by the poem itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>Those who love change fear \u00a0—>\u00a0<\/span><\/i> Those who fear love change.<\/i><\/p>\n

The addition of an implied comma could make the readings more varied. Take \u00a0the fourth line:
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Those who love, fear change<\/i> —> <\/span>Those who love fear, change<\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

A world of possibilities open up.<\/p>\n

I was alerted to permies by a recent experience with a quatrain I composed early one morning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I dreamed I wrote a perfect line.<\/em>
\nMorning come, it was erased.<\/span><\/em>
\nWas it hap or by design
\n<\/em>All \u00a0that sleep time gone to waste?<\/em><\/p>\n

Just as light began to suffuse the room it dawned on me that the order of the sentences could change into:<\/p>\n

Was it hap or by design,<\/em>
\nAll that sleep time gone to waste?<\/em>
\n<\/span>I dreamed a wrote a perfect line.
\n<\/em>Morning come, it was erased. \u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

And that simple inversion of a couple of couplets was just one possible arrangement. According to the laws of possibilities, though not probabilities, 24 sets can be derived from any four discreet items. The opacity of language and the constraints of syntax keep the number of plausible permutations down from the total of possible combinations.<\/p>\n

No doubt my discovery was due to my love for palindromes, in particular the works of Anthony Etherin (https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/anthonyetherin.bsky.social<\/a><\/span>), <\/span>as <\/span>well as the Brazilian and other palindromistas<\/i> around Liga \u00a0\u00c1gil \u00a0(https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/ligaagil.bsky.social<\/a><\/span>).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Although its name suggests an off-brand\u00a0of adult sanitary napkin, a permie is a poem whose semantics are driven by the mechanics of permutation. I wrote my first one in 1977. \u00a0A simple matter of constructing meanings from alternative phrases provided by the poem itself. \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Those who love change fear \u00a0—>\u00a0 Those who fear … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “What is a Permie?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2531"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2618,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2531\/revisions\/2618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alteritas.net\/alteritas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}