Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Imaginary Numbers

     Today a fine poem that plays with the meanings of "real" and "imaginary" -- and one that I like a lot.  Its author, Scottish mathematician-statistician-poet Eveline Pye is, like me, these days enjoying being a grandmother.  

       Imaginary Numbers      by Eveline Pye

       A real life ends, but is imagined  
       by those left behind. An imagined  
       death becomes reality, eventually.   

       The square root of minus one  
       can't exist since a squared number 
       can’t be negative 

       but imaginary numbers yield  
       real answers in the real world.   
       The difference between reality 

       and imagination: a false oasis  
       that blurs, shimmers  
       and melts before my eyes.  

Pye's poem is included in the anthology Bridges Stockholm 2018 from Tesselations Publishing.  This article, "Eveline Pye:  Poetry in Numbers" is a great place to read more about the poet and her work.  

1 comment:

  1. JoAnne GrowneyAugust 16, 2018 at 9:12 AM
    A recent Facebook posting by Larry Lesser has reminded me of his lyric "Imaginary" -- available at http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1342&context=hmnj

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