Gregory Coxson, recently retired faculty member at the US Naval Academy's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department -- and a long-time friend, enjoys discovering and sharing mathy poems -- some of them his own, Recently he sent me the following Fib.
A Fib by Gregory Coxson
I
You
We all
Have built-in
Math abilities
We’re captivated by puzzles
Daily life is full of numbers and calculations.
Here are the opening stanzas of a thoughtful poem by mathematician-writer Marian Christie:
Raymond Nat Turner is the poet-in-residence for Black Agenda Report (a website of news, commentary, and analysis from the black left) -- and I have found and been moved by his mathy poem of protest entitled "Short word problems: do the math" l I offer its opening stanzas below, followed by a link to the complete poem.
Enjoy a 1-minute video celebrating
the MATH and POETRY of Omar Khayyam
Each year an international BRIDGES Conference celebrates the connections between mathematics and the arts -- featuring connections with music, literature, visual art, theater . . . Here is a link to the website for the 2026 BRIDGES Conference -- to be held August 5-8 in Galway, Ireland.
An important and popular part of each BRIDGES Conference is a Poetry Reading. Scheduled for Saturday, August 8, 2026, the formal reading will include mathy poems from each of the poets named below; on this webpage (maintained by poetry reading co-organizer--and poet--Sarah Glaz) each of the following names is linked to biographical information and a sample poem.
I have been saddened to learn of the death, early in May, of philosopher, writer, and professor at Penn State University -- and a frequent contributor to this blog -- Emily Rolfe Grosholz. (Here is a link to her informative obituary.)
In remembrance of Emiy, here is the opening stanza of her poem ""In Praise of Fractals" -- posted in this blog at this link back in November, 2014.
 |
| from "In Praise of Fractals" by Emily Grosholz |
A website that I enjoy visiting and one that many current math teachers could enjoy visiting often is
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math – Helping families to learn and enjoy math together.
Learn more about Gaskins here in this biographical sketch -- and enjoy her Let's Play Math blog. Here is a link to a posting with several mathy poems: Math Makers: Write a Poem – Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math. Here is one of my favorite examples of her postings:
This month, America celebrates its Juneteenth, commemorating the day the last group of enslaved African Americans was informed they were free. Juneteenth marks the events of June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas when the last Black slaves of the Confederacy were ordered free following the arrival of Union troops. Also called Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, the holiday rose to national prominence in 2020 amid nationwide protests against ongoing racial inequities, sparked in part by the police killings of George Floyd, a Black man, and Breonna Taylor, a Black woman. Juneteenth has been long celebrated by the Black community but was officially recognized as a federal holiday by President Joe Biden in 2021.
Combining math and parenting . ..
It delights me that Scientific American includes science-related poetry -- and when my monthly issue arrives I turn first to the monthly poem. Here are the opening stanzas of 'The Algorithm' by California poet Barbara Quick from the May, 2022 issue.
Optimization under uncertainty
is a field of study in which my grown son
will earn his Ph.D. The math, in his case,
concerns the production of wind energy.He reads his papers aloud on the phone to me
as a way to optimize their clarity,
so that even a layperson, such as myself,
can understand what he’s saying,
in between each beautifully made
equation and graph.
. . . Quick's complete poem is available at this link.
Sent to me by poet Jacqueline Lapidus, I have this slightly mathy poem:
The Screaming Toddler Ratio
The volume of the voice is in inverse proportion to the size of the speaker/screamer. When I hear that screech in a store, I follow it to the stroller, squat down to eye level in spite of knee, and whisper, "Are you the very small person who's making that GREAT BIG NOISE?" Invariably, the kid stops screaming and looks at me with an expression that says, how the hell did she know?" I smile at the toddler, the toddler smiles back. I stand up and explain basic math to the grateful parent. Short people know! (I'm 2" shorter than when we first connected, of course.) Teachers, too.
Previous mentions of work by Lapidus in this blog may be found at this link.
A few weeks ago (during National Poetry Month) I came upon an opinion piece by Danny Heitman in the The Washington POST with this title: "I read poetry for work. You get to read it for pleasure." And today I am thinking about duality of roles for mathematics activity as well as for poetry -- a pleasure or a puzzle?? I celebrate both.
Danny Heitman is the editor of Phi Kappa Phi’s Forum magazine and the author of “A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House.” Heitman explains: As the editor of a magazine that includes a poetry column, I routinely read poems because I have to. But I also delve into poems for pleasure, something that makes me an outlier among America’s readers. According to a National Endowment for the Arts survey conducted in 2022, only 11.5 percent of American adults had read or listened to poetry in the previous year. When friends and I talk about what’s on our reading
And below, from the Spring, 2009 issue of Phi Kappa Phi Forum is a mathy poem by Robert Lima (1935-2022), for many years a Professor at Penn State University.
We different humans have different abilities . . .
Zoeglossia is a literary organization seeking to pioneer a new, inclusive space for poets with disabilities. Launched in 2017, Zoeglossia is the first such organization in the poetry landscape. The idea is to provide an intersectional community open to a wide range of disability poetics, encouraging conversation and support. This link leads to a wide variety of poems that explore the experiences and consequences of illnesses and disabilities . .. and I offer a the opening portion of a sample from that collection below.
Number Twenty by Jonathan Mack
This, the story that brings me to you, is one story in twenty. In the other nineteen I am dead. In five stories I’m dead of AIDS, having suffered every possible infection and died at home, in a variety of hospitals, and in the toilet of a theater. There are seven suicides between the ages of twelve and twenty-five. There are two terrible car accidents -- one involving a drunk driver and one that is entirely my fault. In one story I live only three days and . . .
Jonathan Mack's poem is from This New Breed. Copyright © 2002 by Jonathan Mack.
Each year the month of April is celebrated as National Poetry Month -- and upcoming April 29, 2026 is this year's Poem in Your Pocket Day.
I invite you to explore this blog to find a poem you'd love to carry in your pocket . . . .and, below, I provide another possible pocket-poem -- this one a poem whose line-syllables are counted by the Fibonacci numbers. These lines below are the opening lines of a poem by Arizona State professor and writer Punya Mishra; the complete poem is offered at this link:
This link leads to previous blog postings that offer Fibonacci poems.
Only a bit of math ... but an important concern ... needing a solution:
Today I have discovered the wonderful list of winning poems from this years Math-Poetry Contest sponsored by the American Mathematical Society. This link to the AMS website offers links to thirteen winning poems , ,, , I encourage you to follow the link and enjoy . . . and encourage students you know to explore math-poetry connections.
Below I offer the opening stanzas of a very fine poem by one of the AMS winners -- Jaycee Chen from the STEAM Academy at John F. Kennedy School. Chen's poem received an Honorable Mention in the Middle School Division.
A Quiet Music of Numbers by Jaycee Chen
April is National Poetry Month AND National Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month -- and here in this blog we continue to celebrate poetry-math connections. Below I offer the opening stanzas of an old poem of mine entitled "Time".
The clock goes round --
making time a circle
rather than a line.
Each year's return to spring
layers time on time.
The shape and patterns of the following lines have me thinking of them as a visual poem:
1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321
Lots of years ago, an important part of my awareness of poems that involve math came from reading work by Martin Gardner in his "Mathematical Games" in Scientific American . . . and it has been a delight to me to find poetry again in my issues of that magazine. METER, a Scientific American feature edited by Dava Sobel, offers a bit of science-related poetry each month -- and the April 2026 issue features three mathy limericks by Jeffrey Branzburg (a retired math teacher and technology consultant). I offer one of these limericks below.
Topology by Jeffrey Branzburg
Online I have learned about a recent lecture by Werner Herzog at Brooklyn Public Library's Pi-Day celebration: Is Math Art? Werner Herzog Says Yes.
Quoting from Herzog's presentation:
"Beyond all of this, I do believe mathematics is a new form of art. . . It is loaded with meaning. It's not just an aesthetic or a form of abstract painting. It's loaded with poetry."
A Congressional Resolution declaring 2026 as a Year of Math in the U.S. was introduced in the Senate (on 12/18/2025) by its co-sponsors, Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R,WV) and John Hickenlooper (D, CO), and in the House (on 3/92/2026) by its co-sponsors, Representatives Chrissy Houlahan (D, PA-6) and Jay Obernolte (R, CA-23). We deeply appreciate that this is a bipartisan effort in both chambers.
Each of the Senate and the House resolved that it:
(1) expresses support for the declaration of a “Year of Math” in the United States;
March brings shamrocks --
luck of Irish,
let's dance and sway.
These words about the day we celebrate on March 17 are from Catherine Pulsifer, A Holiday Awaits -- one of many examples of Words of Wisdom found here. Details about the life of St. Patrick may be found here.
Recently I as delighted to learn -- from Anuj Agarwal, the founder of FeedSpot -- that this blog Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics has been selected as one of the Top 90 Math Blogs on the web (2026 Edition). And I have mentioned two others of the top 90 in my blog postings (found here).
Here is a link to the FeedSpot listings.
Another FeedSpot list to consider -- 30 best Math Teacher Blogs.
Today I am briefly reflecting on the fact that both last month and this month (2026 February and March) contain a Friday-the-13th. And those thoughts have led me to a tiny, syllable-count triangle poem.
Is
it true
that Friday
the thirteenth's an
unlucky happening?
Counting syllables
can celebrate
( in a way )
that prime
day!
Sharing a few words (found on X Twitter) from a FB post by poet Brian Bilston:
A reminder of upcoming student mathy writing-contest deadlines:
Create a video for a STEAM poem (A list of poems is provided.) -- deadline April 30, 2026, more info here.
A MoMath Contest with a variety of entry categories, including poems -- deadline, April 23, 2026.
Contests for which entry deadlines have passed -- but which will offer new entry opportunities in the future -- include the AWM Essay Contest and the American Mathematical Society Poetry Contest.
And, starting to count by twos, I find:
Writing
is a process
to discover new thoughts.
This morning as I was looking online for Valentine greetings to send to my grandchildren, I found this mathy poem:
In Rochallyi's article -- entitled "Vector Poetry" -- he shows us three different illustrations of poetry portrayed using vectors. He takes a phrase that he would like to communicate poetically and offers three examples of how it could be portrayed using vector poetry. The phrase is:
Growing up in western Pennsylvania -- on a farm close to Indiana, PA -- I was not far from the town of Punxsutawney and enjoyed celebration each year on February 2 of "Groundhog Day." On this day a legendary groundhog who has burrowed underground to spend the worst of winter -- near Punxsutawney, PA -- peeks out to test the weather. If he sees no shadow, spring is on the way BUT if he sees his shadow, he quicky scurries back to his underground refuge, this departure predicting six more weeks of winter. (Recent publicizing of this event has altered it -- now the groundhog does his shadow-seeing and prediction in front of a large audience. And it is televised!)
Today, in her weekly radio broadcast on wpsu, poet Marjorie Maddox offered the slightly mathy Groundhog Day poem "On Gobbler's Knob" by Pittsburgh poet Shirley Stevens (1940-2022). I offer it below (followed by a link to background information about the poem and the poet). Alas, today's groundhog has predicted six more winter weeks.
On Gobbler’s Knob by Shirley Stevens
We gather on the hill outside Punxsutawney
to draw tight circles against the dark.
Five thousand strong, we twist and shout
to circulate blood to our frozen toes,
A few days ago I found poetic words (offered below) by G. H. Hardy (1877-1947) posted on X by @TheMathFlow -- I enjoyed not only the poem but also an exploration of various MathFlow postings -- which offer lots of delightful bits of mathematics. (Visit @TheMathFlow and enjoy!)
When I come across a title that connects math and poetry, I become interested -- and want to read more. Google helped me discover here, in China Daily, an article featuring German professor Andrea Breard entitled "Reading numbers like poetry: A journey into ancient Chinese math." She goes on to tell about some algebraic methods that were written as poems -- the rhythm allowing easier and better memorization.
Andrea Breard is a German historian of mathematics, specializing in Chinese mathematics. Her remarks took me back to my childhood when we frequently repeated "counting rhymes" as we dressed or played or whatever. "One, Two, Buckle my shoe . . ." and "Hickory, Dickory, Dock . . . the mouse ran up the clock . . ." were frequent parts of my childhood chatter.
A Contest for High School Students -- Read on to learn more . . .
Students who are 15 to 18 years old (on September 1, 2025) are invited to apply for the 2026 Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Math Communication (sponsored by MoMath, the NY Museum of Mathematics) to share their love of math with the world!
On or before April 23, 2026 projects will be accepted in the following categories:
Art, Audio, Performance, Social media, Video, and Writing.
Examples include: podcasts, articles, school newspaper columns, art exhibits, videos, websites, Instagram accounts, songs, plays, and any other mode of public communication. Detailed information is available at this link.
Entry deadline is coming soon -- February 1, 2026.
Students are invited to interview a math-woman
and write about it --
and submit the essay to the Association for Women in Mathematics
by February 1, 2026.
Guidelines (middle-school, high school, college submissions) are here.
Previous winning essays are available here (follow the link and scroll down).
Recently I came across a math-poetry article here in a newsletter published by the University of Illinois, Springfield -- an article entitled "Navigating the Intersection of Math, Poetry, and AI: The Crossroads in Helena Soares’ Pursuit." The article shares poetry by Soares -- who is a student majoring in both mathematics and English -- and also includes a brief essay by her, entitled "A journey through math, AI, and poetry." Here is a poem by Soares from that article:
Recently Google led me to a recent and fascinating article about Jordanian poet Dr. Zaina Al-Qasem, a Jordanian scholar, who combines data science with creativity and is also a published poet. For her, mathematics and poetry share thought patterns — both driven by interpretation, structure, and the search for meaning, but through different lenses.
Here are a few reflective lines of Zaina Al-Qasem's verse -- found in the article linked-to above -- lines that capture both introspection and intent.
Choosing a shape for a poem leads to restrictions on the numbers and lengths of words -- and sometimes this generously promotes creativity. Moving through the chilly winter season, I have discovered this poem -- "The Six-Cornered Snowflake" in POETRY (December, 1989) by poet and editor John Frederick Nims (1913-99). ENJOY!
When you have time, a fascinating website to visit and browse is OEDILF -- The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form.
Here is a sample:
cuproid by Recumbentman (Limerick #89414)
Tetrahedrons are bounded by four
Triangular faces, no more.
If on each one of those
A pyramid rose,
A cuproid would then take the floor.
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is again sponsoring a Math-Poetry Contest for students -- inviting submission of poems up to 20 lines in length in three admission categories:
Middle School High School College
Information about how to submit entries -- along with wonderful results from past contests -- is available at this link.
The following poem (which is found online here -- along with other winners) by Nora McKinstry (Edmonds Heights K-12 S) was the Middle School winner in 2025.
A recent visit to the Poetry Foundation website brought me to poems by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) -- and I counted sadly as I read his poem, "We Are Seven." I offer its opening stanzas below (and the complete poem -- 17 stanzas -- is available here.)
We Are Seven by William Wordsworth
For some students, math is fun BUT . . . if we don't understand something that can keep it from being fun. For those who DO NOT FIND MATH FUN, it is important for the rest of us to try to change that attitude. One useful viewpoint is that math need not be treated as an isolated subject . . . it is connected to our lives in VERY MANY ways. And sometimes, as this blog's postings illustrate, poetry offers non-threatening ways of making connections.
One of my recent discoveries is the website We Are Teachers where I found a collection of 38 mathy poems -- a dozen for elementary school students and the rest for middle and high students. Here is a sample from the elementary school group.
Fourteen years ago, back in October of 2011, I posted a poem of mine entitled, "Like Poetry, Mathematics is Beautiful" (at this link). Written more than thirty years ago, this continues to be one of my favorites of my mathy poems. I offer a portion of it below.
Like Poetry, Mathematics is Beautiful by JoAnne Growney
Timidly I ask
each one I meet if they
find mathematics beautiful
or useful, and each one dares to say,
"Useful, of course. I use it every day."
And if I seem to want a proof,
they all go on to tell
that daily they subtract and add
to keep a checkbook; sometimes also
they multiply to find how many squares
they need to tile the kitchen floor.
Born in New York City (1950) and of Asian heritage, poet Arthur Sze is the 25th US Poet Laureate (named on September 15, 2025) and the first Asian American to hold that position. In the October 20, 2025 issue of The New Yorker, we find Sze's poem, "Library of Congress," which opens with these somewhat mathy lines:
You peer down a lit corridor
on the fifth tier of stacks
where a million books breathe
on shelves, here's a book
on neutrinos, captured in Antarctica,
here's another on solar flares.
A curator displays a book
in Vai script and points to a triangle
with two dots, you wonder . . .
Mathematics organizes libraries!
More poetry from Sze can be found here;
scroll down below the bio to find titles and links.
Poetry-comic-artist Grant Snider posts wonderfully illustrated and entertaining verses online -- on X (Twitter) @grantdraws -- and sometimes his postings are mathy. Here is a link to an interview with Snider. Snider has indicated in his postings that our current month of October is Poetry Comics Month, Here is a link to one of his past poetry-comics-month postings -- and below I offer one of his illustrated mathy haiku.
On X I learned that this week -- November 10-14, 2025 -- is World Nursery Rhyme Week, and I searched and found this website that offers information about the week and these "5 official rhymes for 2025":
Monday, 10th -- Sing a Song of Sixpence
Tuesday, 11th -- Humpty Dumpty
Wednesday, 12th -- When I Was One (I played the drum)
Thursday, 13th -- I Hear Thunder
Friday, 14th -- Two Little Dickie Birds
Here at this website are all of the above except "Two Little Dickie Birds" -- which I offer a version of below. (Here in Wikipedia is more about that rhyme.)
At this link, I found the following math-poetry information:
JOHANNESBURG - Some good news for struggling mathematics students:
Award-winning author Botshelo Mthomboti has a solution for you. In her book, Poetic Atmosphere of Mathematics, Mthomboti simplifies the subject through poetry. The 22-year-old Financial Management graduate has also penned two other books, A Black Child Transformed by Accounting, and The Poetic Atmosphere of Income Tax.
Here is a link to a YouTube video of a news story -- entitled "Poetic Solutions to Complex Problems" -- that tells of Mthomboti and shares her poem entitled "Multiplication and Division of Variables." And here is more about Mthomboti.
THANK YOU, Botshelo Mthomboti, for the enthusiastic energy you give to mathematics.
Stephanie Strickland is a poet whom I know and much admire -- and her work contains a rich variety of math-poetry creations; her poems have been featured in several posts in this blog (Here's a link to those postings.) Today I had the good fortune to refind another of her poems -- not yet posted herein -- and I offer it below.
Who Counts, Counts by Stephanie Strickland
Baby and you
--and me,
we will make three,
but baby-and-me
are different; we're two-
who-are-one.
Posted on X by talented and prolific STEAM blogger, Heidi Bee Roemer (@poetweet4), this Halloween poem relates to the geometry of a carved pumpkin face -- with mathematical shapes.
I recently learned of a book by creative writer Kellie Krumrie entitled Math Class (Calamari Press, 2022) -- a book of essays that feature teen-age girls. Exploring further I found poetry by Krumrie in La Vague -- an online feminist journal that has ceased publication BUT retains online records of previously published work.
Here is one of Krumrie's poems which I am enjoying puzzling over!
c e m e n t / e m m y n o e t h e r by Kellie Krumrie
‘She had the faculty of visualizing remote, very complex connections without resorting to concrete examples.’
Recently I discovered the website teacher planet and found there a variety of math-related resources including humorous versions of definitions of math terms.
Using a poetry-stanza format, I have included several of these "poetic" definitions below:
Math is like love;
a simple idea,
but it can get complicated.
Mathematician Lauren K. Williams (PhD ’05 MIT, currently Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University) has won a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, a prestigious honor often called the “genius grant.” The award is presented annually by the MacArthur Foundation to “talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits.” The MacArthur Foundation praised Williams for “uncovering transformative connections between algebraic combinatorics and problems in other areas of math and physics.”
A varied and energetic and very valuable voice for the importance of connections between mathematics and poetry is STEAM-Poetry advocate Heidi Bee Roemer. Here is a link to her focus on mathy poems. (STEAM is a popular abbreviation for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics.)
Recently Romer has opened registration for a STEAM Poetry Video Contest. Between now and April 30, 2026, students can choose a STEAM-themed poem (from a selection of 40 poems), create short videos for their younger peers, and enter them in the contest. Contest details are here.
And here is a sample poem by Roemer -- a mathy poem written for elementary-school students.
Here in the US, we have a new poet laureate (announced by the Library of Congress on September 15, 2025) -- and this selected poet Arthur Sze sees poetry as a unifying agent -- "verse can bring us together".
Sze is a poet whose work I value reading -- but its links to mathematics are gentle and scattered. Here is a sample -- the closing lines from Sze's poem "Sight Lines". (The complete poem is available here at poets.org.)
A recent discovery that I have found fascinating is a reversible poem -- a poem with word/line choices that read the same from the last to the first as from the first to the last. Author Marilyn Singer offers the following sample on her website from her collection Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse Poems – illustrated by Josee Masse; Dutton/Penguin, 2010.
In this unique collection of reversible verse, classic fairy tales are turned on their heads. Literally. Read these clever poems from top to bottom. Then reverse the lines and read from bottom to top to give these well-loved stories a delicious new spin. Word patterns remain the same -- with changes only in punctuation and capitalization.
IN REVERSE by Marilyn Singer
Recently I found this online article in the Bangi News:
Why poetry has lost its lustre in the modern world
It offers the following forlorn math-and-poetry view:
Today, with schools pushing
math and science over the arts,
poetry feels like an old, boring puzzle.
Why spend time decoding a poem
when you can watch a 15-second reel
that makes you laugh?
Is this view useful? Explore more in the Bangi News here.
Recently I learned via a post on X -Twitter by Anthony Bonato (@Anthony_Bonato) that the new Roman Catholic Pope Leo was, in college, a math major. (For Wikipedia's info on Pope Leo, follow this link.) I celebrate this with one of my favorite poetic forms, a syllable-count triangle.
Math
is a
discipline
that can prepare
for leadership and
holiness -- Pope Leo!
Today I have been thinking about election results and the role that non-voters have in deciding elections and I have shaped my words into the following syllable-count triangle:
Count
the votes.
Elections
are decided
by we who vote -- and
also by those who don't!
This is a quick and brief post BUT its shortness may give you some time to explore these richly populated links:
Math Songs for Kids -- on YouTube.
Each year the Association for Women in Mathematics holds an essay contest -- inviting middle school and high school and college students each to interview a math woman and to write about it. The names of 2025 contest winners -- and links to their essays -- are available here at this link.
One of my delights as I browsed through the contest results was to find male as well as female essay winners. Here is a link to "Bridging Worlds through Mathematics" -- an essay by Alan Zhang of Francis Richmond Middle School, telling of an interview with Alena Erchenko (Dartmouth College), that won first place in the Grades 6-8 contest group. And this link leads to "Where Dreams Can Take You" -- an essay by Peter Holman of Frances C, Richmond Middle School telling of an interview with Kim Luke (Simbex).
What is Micro Poetry?
Micropoetry (a term sometimes offered as two terms) is an ultra-short form of poetry, typically under 25 words or 140 characters, blending creative brevity with precise language characterized by sharp imagery and emotional depth while allowing diverse interpretations. (Definition found at this website.)
Both mathematics and poetry are condensed languages, endeavoring to say much in a few words or symbols and so, when I recently came across the term "Micropoetry' -- aka micro-poetry or micropoetry -- I became curious (and I thought of Haiku) and I decided to to explore.
Poetic constraints such as syllable-counts and rhymes may seem at first glance to pose difficulties in constructing a poem BUT those of us who have explored using constraints very often find that meeting the imposed constraints guides us to new and creative thinking. At the July, 2025 Bridges Conference, Sarah Glaz and Lisa Lajeunesse offered a workshop that explored writing strategies derived from this ratio. (Here is a link to the abstract for the workshop -- and at that link you also can download a pdf of the complete paper.) Below I offer a couple of samples of their "golden ratio" poems.
Journaling Prompt 20: Math Poetry: The Square
Last week I mentioned the current (July, 2025) issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics and today I want to again call attention to the array of poetry that is in this issue; here is a ink to the Table of Contents and the photo below offers a list of poetry titles and authors. (Visit the JHM website; explore and enjoy; several delightful stanzas from Vijay Fafat and Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez were offered in this previous blog post.)
In a 2023 issue, in the JHM Section entitled The World of Mathematics, two of the eight articles involve poetry -- the 2nd and third articles named below; to get to the Table of Contents and access to the articles, follow this link.
A lavish and wonderful celebration of connections between mathematics and the arts is the annual international BRIDGES, Mathematics and the Arts Conference. This year's conference took place last month (July, 2025 in Eindhoven, Netherlands) and one of its special events was a poetry reading.
Information about the poets and sample poems are available here at the website of Sarah Glaz (mathematician-poet and coordinator of the BRIDGES readings). Below I have included one of these very special poems:
View no Fiery Night by Marian Christie
No
one
went to
the tower
to vie with the foe.
Fretting, worn, we rove in night fog ––
the ring, the theft, the vow forgotten. Hovering high
over the town, the frightening wyvern, whirr of her winging interwoven with fire.
Twice a year a new issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics is published online; here is a link to the Table of Contests for the July, 2025 issue which I have recently enjoyed browsing. This issue contains a plentiful variety of poems and articles related to poetry. The term "Linear Poem" was a concept new to me -- found here in the article, "Introducing the Linear Poem" by Cristian Ramirez Rodriguez -- and I offer it below:
Linear Poems
Are poems where each line
increases or deceases by the same number of
words every single line, this number is the slope, m, and
the words in title are b (intercept); Here m is 3, b is 2.
The author goes on to tell how he has used this form with math students -- and he offers additional examples.
In a few days I will be going on a vacation with family -- enjoying time with my children and grandchildren. As I think back to past times together, I remember querying my grandkids about their math interests and suggesting the invention of a mathy rhyme. I find rhyming statements easier to remember than non-rhyming ones -- and my grandchildren enjoyed discovering and inventing and repeating rhymes -- sometimes brilliant and sometimes silly.
One of my longest-known and all-time favorite mathy rhymes is this one that tells the days of the month; below is a version of this memory-aid, found online here at Math is Fun.
Poet and science-writer Sam Illingworth has been noted in earlier posts in this blog -- here's a link -- and I enjoy online-searching for his work again and again to find still more. Illingworth's blog, The Poetry of Science, is a wonderful site to visit and revisit, to read and explore.
Recently I discovered the following Illingworth poem (posted at The Poetry of Science on June 19, 2025) -- a poem with a bit of math AND inspired by recent research findings that living near a golf course increases the risk of Parkinson's disease (possibly due to exposure to pesticides used on the course).
Overspill by Sam Illingworth
They do not play,
but live beside
the tailored grass.
One of the mathematicians that I celebrate for her achievements is Ada Lovelace (1815 - 1832). Despite her short life (with death due to uterine cancer) Lovelace did important work on the development of computers (in her time called analytical engines).
Here is a link to a fascinating documentary, "Calculating Ada: The Countess of Computing -- 2015," about the life of Ada. Thinking about Ada and exploring mathy poems led me to the collection Against Infinity (on my bookshelf) and to the following poem:
Zero by Harriet Zinnes (1919-2019)
On X (Twitter) today I found the following quote posted by poet Ilya Kaminsky -- quoting recently deceased poet Fanny Howe (1940-2025). Howe's poetic statement, quoted below, is one that applies (for me, at least) to both poetry and mathematics:
One way to understand your own condition is to write something and spend a long time revising it.
In revising you teach yourself. You find your own information buried in your body. It is still alive until you are not.
Here, at PoetryFoundation.com, are more than twenty of Howe's poems; I offer one of these below:
I was captivated by the title -- "He's Not a Poet, But He Plays One" -- of a poem (found here) by Donald Illich -- and it led me to want to explore this poet's writing. Sometimes he uses mathematics -- not in major thematic ways but in very interesting ways. Below I offer a poem that illustrates my view.
Water Mathematics by Donald Illich
calculated the river and the stream,
modeled the pond under dangerous
situations. Water was really math,
The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM) offers delightful and broad-ranging connections between mathematics and the arts. An article that I discovered recently considers ways to use poetry in mathematics classes. Found in the July 2023 issue, "Teaching Mathematics with Poetry: Some Activities," by Alexis E. Langellier (an adjunct professor of Computer Science at Moraine Valley Community College and a graduate teaching assistant at graduate student in Mathematical Sciences at Northern Illinois University). Working toward a degree in Computer Science, Langellier has this intent: My goal is to get more women in STEM.
Musing this morning, this blogger found these words:
My
hands
hold a pen
and my fingers
translate thoughts into
words on paper. Sometimes
I meet someone who
thinks with fingers
like I do.
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