For lots of fun, go to plus online magazine at this link to find a poem that requires a knight's tour of a chess board for you to unscramble its words and read its eight lines.
Many thanks to Greg Coxson who alerted me to this puzzle-poem. Apparently it dates back to the 19th century and was a sort of puzzle popular before crossword puzzles were invented. When you visit plus for the poem, please plan to stay there for a while and browse. This wonderful online magazine includes a multitude of math-related treasures. (Excellently edited by Marianne Freiberger and Rachel Thomas, plus is part of the UK's Millenium Mathematics Project.)
Continuing with a puzzle-theme, here's a puzzle (about poems) by Lewis Carroll :
What conclusion may be drawn from these five statements:
I. No interesting poems are unpopular among people of real taste.II. No modern poetry is free from affectation.
III. All your poems are on the subject of soap-bubbles.
IV. No affected poetry is popular among people of real taste.
V. No ancient poem is on the subject of soap-bubbles.
I found this puzzle, along with a solution, on a page of logic puzzles by Lewis Carroll -- a page maintained by G. N. Hile, an emeritus mathematics professor at the University of Hawaii.
From his shoulder Hiawatha
Took the camera of rosewood --
Made of sliding, folding rosewood --
Neatly put it all together.
In its case it lay compactly,
Folded into nearly nothing;
But he opened out the hinges,
Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges,
Till it looked all squares and oblongs,
Like a complicated figure
In the second book of Euclid.
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