Fibonacci has shown us that nature can follow mathematical sequences. The strawberry, for instance, contains seeds in two spirals: 8 + 13 = 21 and 13 + 21 = 34. What makes the strawberry particularly interesting is that, whilst following this rigid structure in terms of its seed formation, it develops from a larger 'rhizomatic' arrangement: its supporting runners cross over and swerve in indeterminate directions. The growth and structure of the strawberry (formal patterns ensconced within a more unpredictable and arbitrary network) can be seen as emblematic of the ways in which art and language perform in postmodernity, and may be explored in terms of a 'pataphysical reality of 'as if' rather than one of 'as it is'. This paper is interested in the use of 'mathematical' patterns and constraints in poetry, and what these imply for our understanding of language and 'reality' in relation to nature and 'natural patterns'. With help from Stephane Mallarme's 'performed constellation' in Un Coup de Des, and the mathetic, Oulipian writings of Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec, I will contemplate the (in)stabilities produced by excepted poetics, questioning whether or not 'order' in the universe is a dynamic, postmodern field of 'particulars', as opposed to a fixed, pre-established fact
