These recent days in the reign of the 45th US President have given new drama to the word survival. Looking for wisdom I revisited this poem, a survival-poem with a couple of numbers -- by Maggie Smith -- found at one of my favorite sources for poetry, PoetryFoundation.org.
Good Bones by Maggie Smith
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Girls can do EVERYTHING!
In a conversation years ago with one of my math colleagues at Bloomsburg University, each of us learned that the other had grown up on a farm. My colleague credited the problem-solving requirements of farm-life with being good training for mathematics. In time, I came to agree with him. Some environments EXPECT you to be a problem-solver and, in spite of yourself, you comply. I have tried to write poetically about this. My efforts so far include these 3x3 syllable-square poems.
And, here is a link to a recent NPR story about the underestimates that girls make about how smart they are -- so little has changed since I was a girl. Hoping I can help to change things for my granddaughters!
Girls who change
light-bulbs change
everything!
Girls who prove
theorems can
do it all!
And, here is a link to a recent NPR story about the underestimates that girls make about how smart they are -- so little has changed since I was a girl. Hoping I can help to change things for my granddaughters!
Thursday, January 26, 2017
Ultimately, all mathematics is poetry . . .
A popular vote on the truth of "all mathematics is poetry" might not lead to its affirmation. Because mathematics is a concise language, with emphasis on placing the best words in the best order, it often is described by mathematicians and scientists as poetry. Alternatively, and more accessible to most readers than poetic mathematics, we find verses by poets who include the objects and terminology of mathematics in their lines.
Perhaps due to aesthetic distance (featured in The Art of Mathematics by Jerry King), non-math poets like Christina M. Rau are able to be more playful in their uses of mathematical vocabulary than mathematicians dare to be. Enjoy below several stanzas from Rau's collection, Liberating the Astronauts -- which also includes titles like "Chasing Zero" and "Kepler's Laws" -- soon to be released by Aqueduct Press.
from: Overnight Rain by Christina M. Rau
Rain over Night
Equals
X over Autumn
Perhaps due to aesthetic distance (featured in The Art of Mathematics by Jerry King), non-math poets like Christina M. Rau are able to be more playful in their uses of mathematical vocabulary than mathematicians dare to be. Enjoy below several stanzas from Rau's collection, Liberating the Astronauts -- which also includes titles like "Chasing Zero" and "Kepler's Laws" -- soon to be released by Aqueduct Press.
from: Overnight Rain by Christina M. Rau
Rain over Night
Equals
X over Autumn
Monday, January 23, 2017
All Mathematicians are Equal!
Last Saturday's Women's March in Washington was one the great events of my lifetime -- the feeling of community that bonded us participants was palpable. We chatted and hugged and celebrated our differences and our common ideals. Here is a photo of the sign that I carried and, beneath the sign, are links to poems about women in mathematics who struggled to be considered equal.
This link leads to "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde. This link leads to a few words of mine, "Square Attitudes." A posting on girls and mathematics includes samples from Sharon Olds and Kyoko Mori and is available here.
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| This is the sign I carried at the Women's March on January 21, 2017. |
This link leads to "Hanging Fire" by Audre Lorde. This link leads to a few words of mine, "Square Attitudes." A posting on girls and mathematics includes samples from Sharon Olds and Kyoko Mori and is available here.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Dickens, from A Tale of Two Cities
Today I am facing tomorrow and the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. With many uncertainties and little mathematics in mind (see, however, math-poem link below), I have looked back to the opening words of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). Published in 1859, these words echo some of my thoughts today.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us . . .
Here is a link to a poem posted in 2014 that also features the words of Dickens. Written by Halifax mathematician and poet Robert Dawson, that 2014 poem was formed by applying a mathematical procedure to a passage from Dickens' Great Expectations.
It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us,
we had nothing before us . . .
Here is a link to a poem posted in 2014 that also features the words of Dickens. Written by Halifax mathematician and poet Robert Dawson, that 2014 poem was formed by applying a mathematical procedure to a passage from Dickens' Great Expectations.
Monday, January 16, 2017
Celebrate Martin Luther King
Today is our public celebration of the January 15 birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr (1929-1968) who was both preacher and poet in the "I have a dream" speech he delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.
Dr King's speech began with:
Five score years ago, a great American,
in whose symbolic shadow we stand
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been
seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Dr King's speech began with:
Five score years ago, a great American,
in whose symbolic shadow we stand
signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a
great beacon light of hope
to millions of Negro slaves who had been
seared in the flames of withering injustice.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Poems starring mathematicians
One of the challenges posed by a multi-year blog is locating interesting old posts. One of my frequent early topics was "poems starring mathematicians" and I offer links to several of these from 2011 below:
December 8 "Monsieur Probability" by Brian McCabe
November 13 My abecedarian poems, "I Know a Mathematician" and "Mathematician"
July 5 "Fixed Points" by Susan Case -- about mathematicians in Poland during WWII
July 2 "To Myself" by Abba Kovner
January 30 "Mr Glusenkamp," a sonnet to a geometry teacher by Ronald Wallace
January 28 "Mathematician" by Sherman K Stein
And, here is a link, via PoemHunter.com to "The Mathematician in Love," a poem by William John Macquorn Rankine, a poem that appears also in the multi-variable anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008), edited by Sarah Glaz and me. Here is the first (of 8) stanza of Rankine's entertaining poem:
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
December 8 "Monsieur Probability" by Brian McCabe
November 13 My abecedarian poems, "I Know a Mathematician" and "Mathematician"
July 5 "Fixed Points" by Susan Case -- about mathematicians in Poland during WWII
July 2 "To Myself" by Abba Kovner
January 30 "Mr Glusenkamp," a sonnet to a geometry teacher by Ronald Wallace
January 28 "Mathematician" by Sherman K Stein
And, here is a link, via PoemHunter.com to "The Mathematician in Love," a poem by William John Macquorn Rankine, a poem that appears also in the multi-variable anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters, 2008), edited by Sarah Glaz and me. Here is the first (of 8) stanza of Rankine's entertaining poem:
A mathematician fell madly in love
With a lady, young, handsome, and charming:
By angles and ratios harmonic he strove
Her curves and proportions all faultless to prove.
As he scrawled hieroglyphics alarming.
Friday, January 6, 2017
2017 is prime!
For her December 31 posting in Roots of Unity (Scientific American blog) mathematician Evelyn Lamb wrote about favorite primes -- and starring in her list is our new year-number, 2017.
My own relationship with primes also is admiring-- here is an excerpt from my poem, "Fool's Gold," (found in full here) that suggests a prime as a suitable birthday gift:
Select and give a number. I like large primes—
they check my tendency to subdivide
myself among the dreams that tease
like iron pyrites in declining light.
"Fool's Gold" appears in my chapbook, My Dance is Mathematics (Paper Kite Press, 2006); the collection is now out-of-print but is available online here.
Several poems about primes have been included in earlier postings in this blog. For example, here is a link to a 2013 posting of "The Sieve of Erastosthenes" by Robin Chapman. And, for further exploration, here is a link to the results of searching the six years of postings using the term "prime."
My own relationship with primes also is admiring-- here is an excerpt from my poem, "Fool's Gold," (found in full here) that suggests a prime as a suitable birthday gift:
Select and give a number. I like large primes—
they check my tendency to subdivide
myself among the dreams that tease
like iron pyrites in declining light.
"Fool's Gold" appears in my chapbook, My Dance is Mathematics (Paper Kite Press, 2006); the collection is now out-of-print but is available online here.
Several poems about primes have been included in earlier postings in this blog. For example, here is a link to a 2013 posting of "The Sieve of Erastosthenes" by Robin Chapman. And, for further exploration, here is a link to the results of searching the six years of postings using the term "prime."
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
December 2016 (and prior) -- titles, dates of posts
Here are the titles and dates of previous blog postings,
moving backward from the present.
For mathy poems related to a particular mathy topic -- such as women in math or climate or triangle or circle or teacher or . . . -- click on a selected title below or enter the desired term in the SEARCH box in the right-hand column. For example, here is a link to a selection of poems found using the pair of search terms "women equal." For poems about calculus, follow this link. To find a list of useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column.
Dec 31 Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
Dec 27 Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
Dec 26 Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
Dec 19 Numbers for Christmas . . .
Dec 15 Remembering Thomas Schelling (1921-2016)
Dec 12 When one isn't enough ... words from a Cuban poet
Dec 31 Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
Dec 27 Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
Dec 26 Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
Dec 19 Numbers for Christmas . . .
Dec 15 Remembering Thomas Schelling (1921-2016)
Dec 12 When one isn't enough ... words from a Cuban poet