What America Looks Like -- a poetry-photo

     Recent Presidential misstatements and distortions of American politics and policies are disturbing -- and I have pulled from my shelf a literary anthology This Is What America Looks Like. published in 2021 by the Washington Writers Publishing House and containing fiction and poetry from writers in DC, Maryland, and Virginia.  (Purchase is available at amazon.com.)  In this collection I found, in the poem "D.C." by Donald Illich, the phrase "here, where presidents lied" -- and since the poem contains a couple of quantitative words, I offer it below:

     D.C.     by Donald Illich  

             I'd never seen rats
             crawl down city streets
             until I came here,
             where presidents lied,  

Earth Day -- Conserve!

      Today I look back to this "Fib" posted last year and to other previous Earth Day postings.  -- as I HOPE that we can learn to save our planet!

Steam Poetry Video Contest -- deadline 4/30

      A brief reminder that the STEAM POWERED POETRY VIDEO CONTEST -- announced in this this posting from last November -- has its entry deadline approaching very soon -- on Wednesday, April 30.  And here is a direct link to contest information.

Write a poem . . .Create a video of you reading it . . . SUBMIT! 

AMS Contest-winning Student Mathy Poems

      It delights me that the American Mathematical society links math and poetry by sponsoring a student poetry contest each year.   AMS recently announced this year's winners (along with videos of the winning poems) -- and I offer samples of the winning poems (from college, high school, and middle school students) below:

     from "Proof"  by Emilynne Newsom, Harvey Mudd College

          There's a practice you will see in math.
          It is a way of showing what is true.
          In steady step-by-step it lays a path
          from what you know to what you seek to prove.    (Find the rest here.)

     from "Homeric Simile ... "  by Samanyu Ganesh, The Westminster Schools

          Just as the sea otters grasp each others' paws
          whilst sleeping, latently
          basking in the stillness of their moonlit sanctuary, drifting
          assuredly      . . .       (Find the rest of this poem here.)     

    from "forever"    by Nora McKinstry, Edmond Heights, K-12     

          a mobius strip is a never ending loop a
          forever-going cycle of one small strip
          but still it goes on and on
          impossible to stop but easily created . . .        (Find the rest here.)  

Math Women -- and one of them writes Poetry

     One of my recent delights was to be contacted by mathematician Lakshmi Chandrasekaran, a mathematician that is one of the team at Her Maths Story -- a website (found at https://hermathsstory.eu/ ) that publicizes and celebrates the stories of female mathematicians.  A bit of background about the website is shown in the screen-shot below:

Exploring Math-Attitudes with Verse

     Exploring the internet, looking for mathy poems, I came across the website Poemverse -- and I entered the search term math and was led to an exciting list of possibilities -- and plentiful outcomes also occurred when I searched using other mathy terms -- algebra, geometry, etc...   I  also found a collection of "Poetry for the Math Haters" -- at this link.  Below I offer two verses found there -- alas, without information about the contributing poets. 

     Finding Humor in Math Hating

          Mathematical Mischief       by Jessica Rose

               Oh, math, your tricks and riddles,
               Leave my brain tangled and in a fiddle,
               But in this battle of numbers and wit,
               I'll find humor, and never submit.

          Mathematical Laughter      by David Scott

               Math, my eternal nemesis, it seems,
               Yet I'll laugh at your complex schemes,
               For in this world of calculations and strife,
               A little humor is the elixir of life.

AND, here is a link to some YouTube math songs!

In April, Celebrate BOTH Mathematics and Poetry

           In the United States, April is both National Poetry Month and Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month.  Visits to the links in the preceding sentence will offer lots of information about these monthly celebrations (as will exploring this blog).  AND, below I offer a poetic celebration of mathematics.

     American poet Harry Mathews (1950-2017) was a member of OULIPO and divided his time between New York and Paris; much of his work moved outside the restrictions of traditional poetic forms.

     Here are the opening lines of his poem,  "Safety in Numbers":

from    Safety in Numbers     by Harry Mathews

     The enthusiasm with which I repeatedly declare you my one
     And only confirms the fact that we are indeed two,
     Not one; nor can anything we do ever let us feel three
     (And this is no lisp-like alteration: it's four
     That's a crowd, not a trinity), and our five
     Fingers and toes multiplied leave us at six-

Zero -- Celebrate this Powerful Tool

       As time passes I find -- to my delight -- more and more mathy poems available via internet.  Recently I was alerted to a fascinating poem appearing recently in The Mathematical Intelligencer  (Vol 47, p. 39, 2025).--  "I am the Zero" by Md Sadikur Rahman.  Here is one of its stanzas (and the complete poem is available at this link):

from    I Am the Zero     by Md Sadikur Rahman

          I am the mirror in the middle of the number line,

          Where numbers see their reflections with the proper sign.

          Add me to a number, and there is no change.

          But multiply by me, I kill that one, leafing nothing in exchange.

          Dividing by me?  That's a troublesome thing,

          Even the brightest minds must pause and think.

     Rahman's complete poem is available at this link.

Women's History Month -- Celebrate MATH-WOMEN

      A book that I return to again and again for mathy poems is Manifold:  Poetry of Mathematics by E. R. Lutken (Taos Press, 2021).  Lutken therein celebrates a mathematician that I greatly admire, Amalie Emmy Noether (1882-1935).  

     Here are several powerful lines from Lutken's poem "Emmy Noether and the Conservation of Hope":

. . . .                    Her awe of abstract algebra endured.

     Against winds feeling hatred,
     purge of Jews from academics.
     she wrote, thought, taught from home.
     Flames reaching the streets
     forced a journey of tears,
     exile to America/

                         She searched the heart of mathematics
                                    and physics from wherever.

Lutken's complete poem is available at this link;  for and previous postings in this blog of work by E. R. (Emily) Lutken, follow this link.  A varied collection of postings featuring Emmy Noether may be found at this link.

AND, to further celebrate women in math and poetry, explore the labels in the right-hand column of this blog AND use the SEARCH box.

A Child's Garden of Verses -- Geometry of a City

Celebrating WORLD POETRY DAY -- with a memory!

     As a child I became acquainted with poetry -- poetry that I came to love -- through a copy of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), an undated edition by Avenel Books that was on our farmhouse bookshelf when I was growing up.

       Block City    by Robert Louis Stevenson  (1850–1894)

            What are you able to build with your blocks?
            Castles and palaces, temples and docks.
            Rain may keep raining, and others go roam,
            But I can be happy and building at home.   

A Triangular Poem

     Non-poets often wonder about the use of patterns in poems -- does following a set of constraints help of hinder the process?  For me, often -- though not always -- constraints push me to discovery.  Below I offer a triangular poem by Washington, DC poet E. Laura Golberg which I re-found recently in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM);   Golberg's poem remembers the costs of war.

    Pension Building, Washington, DC     by E. Laura Golberg 

          A
          dis-
          play
          of the
          normal
          curve can
          be found in
          old buildings
          where feet have
          rubbed away the
          middle of stair steps.
          Here, wounded Union
          veterans pulling one foot
          over the new marble, wore
          off atoms.  Men with crutches
          placed them firmly at an angle.
          Their boots scuffed the stairs.
          Those who had been refused
          pensions descended, while
          dragging feet.  Today, the
          building, with its pillars
          and open space is used
          as a museum.  Balls
          may be held here;
          hems of formal
          gowns weep
          down the
          stairs.

Golberg's mathy poems  "Menger Sponge"  and "Heuristic or Stochastic?" also are available online (also published by JHM).

Celebrate PI AND Remember its digits

     Friday, March 14 (3.14) will be π-day -- and I look back and remember how one of my high school math teachers challenged me and my classmates to come to class prepared to recite as many digits of π as we could remember,  I was not a particularly good memorizer and was delighted  to learn that the lengths of the words in this sentence:

How I wish I could calculate pi !

are the first seven digits of pi . . . . and the lengths of the words in the following rhyme give the first thirteen digits:

                      See, I have a rhyme assisting
                      my feeble brain,
                      its tasks sometime resisting.

More here (in a blog posting from way back in 2010)

AND

This link leads to a webpage offering a million digits of π.

Poetry Moment with a Bit of Math

       Recently on the weekly program Poetry Moment on WPSU -- a radio station in Central Pennsylvania -- poet Marjorie Maddox featured work by another Pennsylvania poet and Emeritus Professor at Penn State University, Emily Grosholz.

     Grosholz' featured poem, "Holding Patterns," is a villanelle:  Here are its opening lines:

          We can’t remember half of what we know.
          They hug each other and then turn away.
          One thinks in silence, never let me go.

          The sky above the airport glints with snow
          That melts beneath the laws it must obey.
          We can’t remember half of what we know.

Geometry of Kindness . . . Power of a Circle

      Found on Facebook recently -- this snapshot of my syllable-count triangle from an earlier blog posting  . . . I like the way that choosing words that conform to a pattern stimulates my thoughts.

From a blog posting back in 2018

Black History Month Celebrates Math Women

     Black mathematicians and female mathematicians often have not been given the credit they deserve -- and I have been delighted to find this website that features eleven famous African-American mathematicians --  six of which are women.   This website celebrates: 

2.) Fern Hunt (1948-   )     Fern Hunt is best known for her work in applied mathematics and mathematical biology. Throughout her great career, she has been involved with biomathematics, patterns in genetic variation, and chaos theory.   She currently works as an educator and presenter with the aim of encouraging women and minority students to pursue graduate degrees in mathematics and other STEM fields. 

5.) Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)  Katherine Johnson was the main character of the critically acclaimed film "Hidden Figures." Her contributions in the field of orbital mechanics, alongside fellow female African American mathematicians Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, were critical to the United States’ success in putting astronaut John Glenn into orbit in 1962.  She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.

Halfway Up . . . Halfway Down

     Recently I came across the following poem -- posted by the source English Literature on Facebook --  and it reminded me with delight of the good times I have had reading aloud to my children and grandchildren and, since the poem is a bit mathy, I share it below with you!

     Halfway Down     by A. A Milne

          Halfway down the stairs
          is a stair
          where i sit.
          there isn't any
          other stair
          quite like
          it.
          i'm not at the bottom,
          i'm not at the top; 
          so this is the stair
          where
          I always
          stop.

Counting and Rhyming

     Several days ago my email contained a surprise message -- containing a mathy poem --  from Ramandeep Johal, a theoretical physicist at IISER Mohali (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research) in northern India.  I offer Johal's poem below -- a poem from his 2016 collection, The Sea of Tranquility 

     From One to Ten     by Ramandeep Johal

          Some things you find in pairs
          some exist just alone.
          While a trinity needs
          some degree of unity,
          a group of four
          requires bit more.

Imaginary Numbers

     Current politics has made me take more notice of several politicians' imaginary numbers -- far from fact and human needs.  And, after a while -- to relax -- my mind moved on to the imaginary numbers of mathematics, and I found (at the PoetrySoup website) this poem which I'd like to share.

Imaginary Numbers       by Robert Pettit

Anybody can consider this statement as moot:
Negative real numbers cannot have a square root.
When working with real numbers with values less than zero,
the squared product will be positive; so where do you go?
In a parabola, all points except zero lie above the x-axis.
Many students get confused because of this.
This placed mathematicians in a bit of a quandary.
That was until numbers were invented that are imaginary.

I did not find online biographical information about poet Pettit but I did find this link to his many many poems available at PoetrySoup -- a list going back all the way to 2010.  AND here is a link to his 2010 limerick, "Seventeen."

This link leads to previous mentions of imaginary numbers in this blog.  

Math-Poetry Blog -- An Invitation to Explore

      Yesterday I made a blog posting with the same title as this one -- and this morning I discovered that my posting was full of links that were not working as I had expected.  And so, I have deleted the post.  I do, indeed, invite you to explore the blog -- lots of labels in the lower right-hand column can help you find specific posts.  And another posting with come soon . . .

Collections of Mathy Poetry

    My friend and colleague, Marian Christie, has let me know that the math-poetry collection (with commentary) that she published in 2021 -- From Fibs to Fractals: Exploring Mathematical Forms in Poetry -- is now available for free download on her website. Here is the link for downloading.   AND, this link leads to samples of Christie's own mathy poems. published earlier in her blog.

      Today I have been browsing From Fibs to Fractals.  In an entertaining and informative chat in Christie's opening chapter about the Fibonacci numbers, I encountered this sample, a six-line syllable-count Fib poem by contemporary American poet B. A. France:

       Looking     by B. A. France

               moon
               light
               rising
               above the
               skeletal treetops
               she wonders what tomorrow brings   

Poet and Math Teacher Passes On

     Poet Jonathan Holden (1941-2024) -- who, early in his career, was a math teacher -- died just a few weeks ago.  Seeing his death notice has reminded me to revisit and again enjoy and appreciate his work.  My first mention of Holden's work in this blog was in this posting in January, 2011 -- and here is a link to the list of postings in which his poetry is featured.  

     Two of Holden's mathy poems are included in the anthology that was gathered by mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz and me -- Strange Attractors,  Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters/ CRC Press, 2008).  One of these is "The Departure of an Alphabet,"  a poem that deals with age-related decline of memory and reasoning.  I offer its opening lines:

from   The Departure of an Alphabet     by Jonathan Holden  

A Tetrahedron leads to a Poem

     Minnesota teacher and writer Ben Orlin has done lots and lots to make mathematical ideas popular and accessible.   One of his prominent activities is his website Math with Bad Drawings.  In this posting from 2018, Poem on a Pyramid, Orlin uses the special pyramid called a tetrahedron to structure a poem.  Each of the edges of the tetrahedron is associated with a line of verse and each triangular face is thereby associated with a three-line stanza.  The poem below was constructed by associating a line with each of the six edges -- with a stanza for each of the four triangular faces.

A tetrahedron -- for designing a poem

Below, I offer Orlin's poem; for more details about its construction, visit and explore Orlin's wonderfully informative and stimulating website.

Seeking Student Math-Poems . . .

     A quick reminder that the American Mathematical Society Student Poetry Contest DEADLINE is coming soon -- on February 2, 2025.  Poems from three groups are solicited:  middle school, high school, and college students.

Here is a link to my December blog posting that gives details about the contest.

This link shows a poster with the winning poems from last year's contest.

Here are this year's contest rules from the AMS Website.

Lots and Lots of Math Blogs . . .

     Recently I was informed by Feedspot that this blog of mine, Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics,  was selected as one of the Top 90 Math Blogs on the web.  At Feedspot's request, I invite you to follow that link and explore their list.

Geometry in New York City

     As I grew up on a farm, mathematics -- with planting depth-and-distance measurements, with counting of animals and fenceposts, with angles of tree-branches, and many other basics -- was important background knowledge.  As I grew older and experienced more city-time, the mathematics I encountered was more complex.  When I visit Pittsburgh or San Francisco or New York City or . . . I feel the geometry that surrounds me.  And I was reminded of those geometric feelings when I recently encountered this poem:

Mayakovsky in New York:  A Found Poem     by Annie Dillard

     New York: You take a train that rips through versts.
     It feels as if the trains were running over your ears.

     For many hours the train flies along the banks
     of the Hudson about two feet from the water. At the stops,
     passengers run out, buy up bunches of celery,
     and run back in, chewing the stalks as they go.

     Bridges leap over the train with increasing frequency.

Enhanced Understanding of Math through Poetry

If you have TWO ways of saying something,
that enhances your understanding of it!

     For those of you going to the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Seattle (JMM 2025), an important session available to attend is this one, scheduled for the morning of January 9 and sponsored by AWM, the Association for Women in Mathematics:

AWM Special Session on Exploring Mathematics through the Arts and Pedagogy in Creative Settings

And a very special presentation within this session that explores connections between Mathematics and Poetry is "Enhanced Understanding of Mathematics Through Poetry" -- presented by scientist, teacher, and writer Emily R. Lutken.  Lutken's presentation is scheduled for the morning of Thursday, January 9 -- here is a link to the abstract and scheduling details for that event.  Here is one of the mathy poems that will be part of Lutken's presentation:

Mathy Poets -- Gone but Alive in our Memories

     In a recent NYTimes article I have learned of the passing of poet-mathematician Jacques Robaud (1932-2024) who was a key figure in the development of OULIPO (an organization that has explored writing using a variety of constraints).  Here is a link to Robaud's poem "Amsterdam Street."

     Today's Washington Post offers the obituary poet and scientist Myra Sklarew (1934-2024).  Sklarew  was a DC resident and activist -- and is featured in these past postings in this blog.

Looking back, reflecting on TIME

     As the year ends, I am conscious of how quickly time seems to pass for me -- and this morning I found this thoughtful quote on Facebook (posted by Dead Poet -- visit this site and find lots more,  often mathy, quotes)  . . .

A bit of Wisdom with a bit of Math

 Christmas is coming and my thoughts are focused on gifts for grandchildren and family celebrations but I want to take a few minutes to share a Tibetan proverb shared by my friend Lisa Martin on Facebook -- and a wonderful idea to consider.

Remembering Poet Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024)

      I much admire the work of Nikki Giovanni -- a poet who spoke both fearlessly and eloquently.  As she deserved, her life was big news in the Washington Post  -- I learned of her passing (on December 9) in a front-page article that celebrated her work and her person.  Another informative Post  tribute to Giovanni is available here -- and a rich sampling of her poetry is available here at PoetryFoundation.org.

     Giovanni has not included math ideas in many of her poems but I did find some counting in "The Way I Feel" -- sampled in this blog at this link -- and I offer below a few lines from "Balances";  Giovaanni's complete poem is available here. 

Math Doors are Open Now . . .

     One of the important and wonderful organizations to which I belong is the Association for Women in Mathematics  --  and each year AWM conducts an essay contest -- an opportunity for students to interview a math-woman and write about it.  Three categories of entries are open -- for middle school, high school, and college students,  Essays are being accepted now and until February 1, 2025.  More information is available here.   

     The Association for Women in Mathematics was established in 1971 -- after I had completed my school years as a lonely math-girl.  I celebrate the changes that bring women to equality in mathematics -- but sometimes also remember the past; the poem below is a comment on my high school and college days.

What Math Teachers Do

     They ignore me.  I
     raise my hand -- wave it
     to ask questions, to
     offer answers -- but
     they call on the boys.

A 5x5 syllable-square of protest, from JoAnne Growney

Student Math-Poetry Contest -- submit by 2/2/2025

This message is for middle-school, high school and college students --

write a MATHY POEM, enter it in this contest:

American Mathematical Society

Math-Poetry Contest Announcement

This link leads to contest information and rules for submission.

The AMS Poetry Contest was first held in 2019; here's the Middle School winner: 

Celebrate AMS Award Winner Katherine Stange

      For me, postings on X (Twitter) are a frequent source of math-poetry news.  Today I found this:

This link leads to information about Stange's award.

Mathematician Katherine Stange is the daughter of a poet (Ken Stange) and their math-poetry connection is perhaps what led Kate to collect an anthology of mathy poems, available online at this link.   Here are the opening stanzas of one of the poems in Stange's anthology.  

A 3-4-5 Triangle of Poetry

     A wonderful feature of the Internet is the opportunity it offers for rapid connection with ideas from people around the world -- and I have found delight in mathy poems from Africa, Australia, Canada, China, India . . . and many other places.  Today's poem comes from poet Marian Christie -- who grew up in Zimbabwe and now lives in Kent, England (and has been other places in-between).  (Here is a link to previous mentions of Christie's work in this blog.)

     Here, below, is a screenshot of a poem by Christie that she posted recently on X (Twitter) (@marian_v_o) --  her poetic interpretation of the Pythagorean Theorem: 

Student Contest -- STEAM Powered Poetry Videos

     For some of us, holidays -- Thanksgiving and Christmas and . . . -- offer time to explore new projects.  Here is a project for math/science students to try -- the Steam Powered Poetry Contest (entries September to April).   

Students in Jr. High, High School and College/University create 1-minute videos showcasing their STEAM poems. No entry fee. Contest is open from September to April every year.   More information here.

Below I offer is a sample poem (for which a video entry may be created) by contest organizer Heidi Bee Roemer.  Find lots of samples at this link -- and encourage students you know to consider entry.

PRECISION vs. IMAGINATION

     In the creation and development of both mathematics and poetry both PRECISION and IMAGINATION are important.  Recently I came across the announcement of a book entitled Poetic Logic and the Origins of the Mathematical Imagination -- written by Canadian professor if semiotics, Marcel Danesi, and part of the Springer-Nature series, Mathematics in Mind,  Here is a link to an overview of Danesi's book.  And, in the publisher's summary of the Danesi book, we find this:

The aim of this volume is to look broadly at what constitutes the mathematical mind through the Vichian lens of poetic logic. 

Reading Danesi's ideas and thinking about my own poetic musings has reminded me of a long-ago poem of mine, "Can A Mathematician See Red?"  I posted this poem in this blog long ago (in August 2011, at this link) -- and I offer it again, below.    

Exploring Angles Through Poetry

      As I have previously mentioned, recently I have discovered mathy poems at the website poemverse.org, and I enjoy exploring there.  One of my findings has been a collection of poems about geometry -- and I offer a sample below.

More Poems about Angles may be found here.

Another poemverse collection is Poems about math class -- at this link.

"Countless" -- a Scrabblegram poem

     At the website X (Twitter) one of my frequent enjoyments is a Scrabblegram posting by David Cohen, writer from Atlanta, Georgia.  Cohen writes stanzas -- often poetic --  that use each of the 100 tiles in a Scrabble game exactly once.  More than a year ago, alerted by blogger and poet Marian Christie, I found and shared a mathy Scrabblegram ZERO at this link.  And here is another, Countless, found at here Cohen's website.

Scrabblegram by David Cohen (lots more here)

This link leads to a long list of Scrabblegrams!  And some of them are mathy!

Haiku about Math

     Recently I have found a rich source of mathy poems to explore -- at the website poemverse.org.  For example, there are Poems about Math Class and The Beauty of Geometry: Exploring Angles through Poetry and The Beauty of Haiku   Poems about Math . . . . and . . . lots more  . . .

Here are two samples, with a link to more:   

More mathy Haiku may be found here at poemverse.org.

A Mathematician's Villanelle

     One of the most active and effective ambassadors for connections between mathematics and the arts is Gizem Karaali. Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at California's Pomona College.  Poet and writer as well as teacher and researcher, Karaali is a founding editor of Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, a peer-reviewed open-access journal that publishes articles, essays, fiction and poetry with a rich variety of connections to mathematics.

     Recently I rediscovered online one of Karaali's poems, a villanelle published almost ten years ago in the Mathematical Association of America's undergraduate magazine, Math Horizons (February, 2015, Volume 22, Issue 3).

A MATHEMATICIAN'S VILLANELLE       by Gizem Karaali

When first did I learn to cherish the bittersweet taste of mathematics?
Mental torture, subtle joy, doubt and wonder, me in meaning
Must have come later, after the games, the limericks, the lyrics.

Strange ceremonies awaited me, mystical hymns, magic tricks,
After the first gulp of water, the first bite, the first bloodletting.
When first did I learn to cherish the bittersweet taste of mathematics?

Geometry List Poem

      Mike Ferguson (America-born but long-time Brit) is a retired teacher of English and creative writing AND a poet.  I offer one of his poems below (a poem developed from a list and found here in Ferguson's blog, gravyfromthegazebo).    Not only is Ferguson's poem mathy and thought-provoking, but it also can be a useful example to use with students.  One of the effective strategies to use to discover and gather thoughts on a particular topic is to create a list.  The activity of writing the list often leads to additional creative thinking and -- if a poem is a goal -- the list can become poetic.  If you've never done so, try it!

"Celebration of the Mind" Day -- October 21

     Established in honor of math-popularizer Martin Gardner (1914-2010), Celebration of the Mind Day occurs on October 21 each year.  Lots of interesting information about Gardner and the celebration-day may be found at this link.      This link leads to previous postings in this blog that feature Gardner and his work.   Not a poet, Gardner called himself "an occasional versifier" and here is an example:

          π goes on and on
          And e is just as cursed
          I wonder, how does π begin
          When its digits are reversed?    

For an array of mathy connections that celebrate the mind and stretch it, explore the links offered above!  

Halloween -- Counting Pumpkins

     Recently I have found a website maintained by Jenna Laib, a K-8 math specialist in the Boston area -- and at her website there I have found a posting of a Halloween poem with accompanying prose that considers the value of using numbers to tell stories.  The poem is below -- and, along with it, the website offers many more.  

More about Raffi and Ken Whitely available at this  link.

A Poem Structured by a Finite Field

       Mathematician Ursula Whitcher is an Associate Editor for the American Mathematical Society's Mathematical Reviews and a poet -- someone whom I first met at a conference, "Creative Writing in Mathematics," at the Banff International Research Station in 2016.  conferences.  She is a versatile writer  -- with a long list of publications available here at her website.

     Here is Whitcher's mathematically-structured poem, "Tuesday," first published in 2019 in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, at this link.

     Tuesday     by Ursula Whitcher

          Sometimes it is not possible to mend
          what’s broken, either if you meant
          to prove something impossible, or else
          to save someone. Your best friend has
          not eaten for six days.  Your father loses things. 
          Your brother lies.
          It’s Tuesday, so the week’s no longer new, and yet
          nowhere near done.
          All you can do is move
          and keep on moving, trust
          time changes shattered things
          and lies once known are maps.

Author’s Note. This poem’s form is taken from the structure of the field with seven elements: the meter, in iambs, follows a pattern based on 5, 4, 6, 2, 3, the nontrivial values taken by powers of 5 (mod 7) as it generates the group of units of the field.

Previous mentions of Ursula Whitcher in this blog are listed at this link.

Ada Lovelace Day -- this year October 8

      The second Tuesday in October has been selected as Ada Lovelace Day -- a time for celebrating that pioneering woman and all women in STEM.

     Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, better known as Ada Lovelace  (December 10, 1815–November 27, 1852) -- and daughter of the poet Lord Byron -- is celebrated as the world’s first computer programmer, the first person to combine the mathematical capabilities of computational machines with the poetic possibilities of symbolic logic (applied with clever imagination).  (Many more biographical details  may be found at this link.)  And here is a link to an interesting article by Johns Hopkins voice Meghana Ravi entitled "Ada Lovelace found poetry in computer algorithms."

     I have posted poetry about Ada Lovelace several times in this blog; here is a link to those past postings.  The following poetic words -- by Ada Lovelace  -- concerning translation of mathematical principles into practical forms -- were first posted back in September of 2015. 

Classroom Difficulties with Mathematics

     Something to think about . . . do some of us still cling? . . . obediently and thoughtlessly . . . to beliefs such as

                I can't / poets can't     understand mathematics
                                or
                I can't / math people can't     understand poetry 

Current interactive teaching/learning processes are helping to revise those negative attitudes -- and my thoughts on the subject were brought to mind by a poem that showed up recently in my email.  It is Poem 15 in the Poetry 180 project, an activity initiated in 2002 by Poet Laureate Billy Collins in 2002 -- a project that provides a poem for students for each day of the traditional school year.  (Each Sunday subscribers get an email that provides a link to a poem for each day of the coming week.)

Complement and Compliment -- and Geometry

     Poetry's special effects often come from the multiple meanings of terms used -- and today I offer  a snip of a mathy item that I enjoyed and that  plays with meaning -- an item I found a few days ago (September 19) on X (Twitter), 

A posting by California math teacher Howie Hua

And, looking back for geometry in earlier postings, here is a link to a prose poem posted in February, 2017 -- "The Geometry of Poetry" by Janet R. Kirchenheimer.   Still another geometry reading opportunity is the baseball poem "Our Ballpark" by Le Hinton (sampled in this 2015 posting).

September Brings THE BLOOMSBURG FAIR

     During the past weekend, long-time friends in Pennsylvania have reminded me that this is the week of The Bloomsburg Fair -- an annual event held in Bloomsburg, PA (where I lived with my family and taught mathematics at Bloomsburg University for a bunch of years).  Public schools in Bloomsburg started their fall classes a week early so that students could have vacation-time during Fair Week -- held near the end of September.  The fair brings farmers and gardeners and cooks and other creative country folk together to show their products and it was easy for me to get involved since I lived just a few blocks from the Bloomsburg Fairground.  Moreover, Pennsylvania county fairs were familiar to me from my childhood.  I grew up on a farm near Indiana, PA  -- home of the Indiana County Fair, in which my father participated by exhibiting crops and animals and which I attended to enjoy Ferris-wheel rides and other carnival entertainments.

     One of my celebrations of this fondly-remembered Bloomsburg event was to write a poem entitled "The Bloomsburg Fair," a poem with bits of math.  Here is one of its stanzas.

Midlife Calculus -- poems by Britt Kaufmann

     Today's featured poet, Britt Kaufmann, is not only a writer but also a graphic designer, a playwright, and "a lifelong reader and learner."  And a math tutor!  Out this month (from Press 53) is her mathy collection, Midlife Calculus -- a thoughtful and  fun-to-read collection that links math ideas to a variety of life's experiences.  

     Last February, I was introduced to Kaufmann's work when her book-title-poem, "Midlife Calculus," appeared in Scientific American.  I was delighted to also find her poem,  "Z-score of Zero" here in the April-May edition of MAA Focus and I was drawn to include it in this April, 2024 blog-posting.  Visit and enjoy!

     Midlife Calculus is available here.  And below are a couple of samples:    

Playing Hopscotch . . . and Counting . . .

      Growing up on a Pennsylvania farm gave me lots of opportunities to use mathematics -- counting sheep, choosing patterns for planting, and many kitchen tasks.  I also enjoyed occasional times to join friends at in-town playgrounds and, on their paved areas, hopscotch was one of our arithmetical and geometrical activities.  Recently I came across a wonderful online collection of poems by Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014) -- and, within it, this slightly mathy poem that includes hopscotch and also speaks of racial injustice:  

     Harlem Hopscotch    by Maya Angelou

     One foot down, then hop! It's hot.
     Good things for the ones that's got.
     Another jump, now to the left.
     Everybody for hisself.  

Favorite Number -- a Baker's Dozen

      Among my favorite emails are those that come from Innisfree, an online journal (at this link) edited by poet Greg McBride, with new issues emerging each six months.  A wonderful discovery in the most recent issue is the mathy poem "Lagniappe" by Michigan poet Lynn Domina.  

    Domina's poem relates to some of my delightful childhood experiences:  I often was asked to help a great aunt with her shopping  and, for both of us, one of our favorite stops was a family-owned bakery which supplied an extra pastry to any dozen purchased -- in case one of the dozen was a bit small or otherwise inferior -- and my aunt always rewarded me with the extra.  Today, no pastries -- but a great poem; read on:

math talk -- a way to learn

EXPLORE MATHEMATICS BY TALKING ABOUT IT!

      math talk: mathematical ideas in poems for two voices is the title of a 1991 poetry collection (Wide World Publishing, available here) by theoni pappas, a long-time teacher of mathematics and  author of  many books that help to popularize mathematics.  Here are the opening lines of her poem-for-two-voices, "Zero," -- found on page 23 of her math-talk collection.

Creating New Poems by Sampling Old Ones

      In its collection of Math Voices the American Mathematical Society (AMS) has a very interesting Feature Column -- a column written for students, teachers, and the general public -- that offers essays about math that it describes as "useful, fun, inspiring, or startling."  When browsing the column recently I found and enjoyed a column by Sara Stoudt of Bucknell University entitled "Sampled Poems Contain Multitudes" -- an article that gives readers an opportunity to experience Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself" (a book-length poem with a total of 52 poem-sections, found here at the Poetry Foundation website) via a poem with a sample line for each section,  Here are the opening lines:

From Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself":

World's Most Interesting Mathematician

     Angela Tabiri, a young mathematician from Ghana, in July captured global attention by winning the title,  World’s Most Interesting Mathematician. Here is her story!  This accolade was bestowed upon her by The Big Internet Math-Off, a competition held in the US last July.  Here is a link to the finals in the competition in which Angela's winning entry is included.

Go here for Angela Tabiri's math story.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics

      Daniel May -- professor at Black Hills State University in South Dakota -- enjoys not only teaching mathematics to future teachers but also exploration of the combinatorics of card games and the poetry of mathematical patterns and ideas.   He spends his summers working with Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), a mathematics enrichment program for under-served public middle school students in New York City and Los Angeles.

     Below I offer a poem by May that was part of the program at the recent BRIDGES Conference.  (May's poem also is found with lots of BRIDGES poetry and poet-information here at the website of Sarah Glaz.)

          Eight Minutes     by Daniel May

          Eyelids closed,
          warm
          sunlight shining

          bright

          onto my thin skin.
          Earth below me, lush and vibrant from
          our star's
          nearly infinite rays.

Prison Math and Poetry Projects

     One of the good things that is happening is that poets and math people -- and others -- are investing time and funds in projects to help incarcerated individuals find crime-free activities for their present and future lives.  Here is a link to information about a Prison Math Project and this link leads to information about Prison Poetry Workshops.  A wonderful variety of activities have been taking place!

     Below I offer the opening lines of a poem that counts prisoners and tells of the racial and other injustices that they suffer-- a poem by prisoner, Korean war veteran, and poet Ethridge Knight (1931-1991).  (Knight's complete poem may be found here  -- along with many more -- at the Poetry Foundation website.)

A Fable      by Etheridge Knight

Once upon a today and yesterday and nevermore there were 7 men and women all locked / up in prison cells. Now these 7 men and women were innocent of any crimes; they were in prison because their skins were black. Day after day, the prisoners paced their cells, pining for their freedom. And the non-black jailers would laugh at the prisoners and beat them with sticks and throw their food on the floor. Finally, prisoner #1 said, “I will educate myself and emulate the non-colored people. That is the way to freedom—c’mon, you guys, and follow me.” “Hell, no,” said prisoner #2. “The only way to get free is . . . 

Knight's complete poem is available here.

Previous blog postings telling of math-poetry opportunities for incarcerated persons may be found here at this link.

BRIDGES Poetry -- and Clerihews

    One of my favorite mathy publications is the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, an online peer-reviewed journal published twice yearly by the Claremont Colleges Library and edited by Mark Huber, Claremont McKenna College, and Gizem Karaali, Pomona College.  The most recent issue -- (Vol. 14, issue 2), available online here.  The screen-shot below shows the poetry-contents of this issue.

A Nickel, a Dime, a Dollar . . .

    In childhood -- and later also -- rhymes help us to remember.  I recall reciting, in early years. "Pme, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, shut the door . . ."  Here -- at the website, Empowered Parents -- are a number of counting songs and rhymes.

    Recently I found among the poems of one of my favorite poets -- Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) -- a delightful counting poem entitled "Brass Spittoons."  Here are some of its lines:

Math can lead us to Poetry . . .

      As I age and find myself slowing down in my math-poetry ventures it is a delight to see other mathy writers surging with energy and thoughtful publications.

     One frequent source of math-arts connections is Sarah Hart, Professor Emerita of Mathematics, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Birbeck University, London.  Here is a link to an article by Hart containing material excerpted from her collection Once Upon a Prime:  The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature (Flatiron Books:  New York, 2023).  

     Once Upon a Prime is a prose explanation completed with frequent literary examples.  Here is a poem that her daughter, Emma, wrote "for Mummy's book." 

Math films -- and a Pi-song

     A film project worthy of support (and found at this website) is JOURNEYS OF BLACK MATHEMATICIANS: A documentary project by writer and film-maker George Csicery.   Severely underrepresented in mathematics, African Americans have played important roles as researchers and educators in the field. This documentary traces the history of the individuals who worked as pioneers in expanding the presence of African Americans in mathematics.

Go to this link (the same one as sbove) and scroll down for access to the films in Csicery's collection; featured mathematicians include:  Evelyn Boyd Granville, Robert Edward Bozeman, Edray Goins, Johnny L. Houston, Monica Stephens Cooley,  Ulrica Wilson, Omayra R. Orgega, Virginia K. Newell, Scott Williams, Duane Cooper, Talitha M. Washington . . .

     I close with the opening lines of a song, written by Mitchell Moffit and found at this link, that can be helpful in memorizing many digits of pi -- an amazing endeavor that some people undertake.

Whenever you see a tree . . .

Often I explore and enrich my thinking by organizing information with a tree diagram.  The following poem by Padma Venkatraman (found here in the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine) is not mathematical in content BUT it uses a diagram of a tree to discover and organize thoughts.  Enjoy!

Whenever You See a Tree     by Padma Venkatraman

This poem by Padma Venkatraman appeared in the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine.

Bridges 2024 -- in Richmond, VA

      As she had done in numerous preceding years, mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz is once again an organizer for a poetry reading at the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference -- this year to be held in Richmond, Virginia, August 1-5.

Bridges Poetry Reading Website

  Poetry Reading Sunday, August 4, 3:00 - 5:00 pm     

Science Museum of Virginia , Room: RF& P Forum

2500 West Broad Street    Richmond, Virginia