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.
JoAnne GrowneyAugust 16, 2018 at 9:12 AM
ReplyDeleteA 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