Dinner at a Math Conference . . .

     A strong advocates of humanistic mathematics -- supporting links between mathematics and the arts -- is Greg Coxson, both a poetry fan and a Research Engineer in the Department  Electrical and Computer Engineering at the US Naval Academy.  Greg has been, over the years of this blog, a valuable contributor of information about mathy poems and poets.  Recently Greg has turned his hand to some poetry of his own -- and he has sent me this:

Crawfish Dinner at a Computational Theory Conference 

by Greg Coxson

In this drama, the crawfish come off the best
   Offered by our host as a gift of local color,
They look up innocently from their pile,
   Radiant in their trim carmine carapaces.

Next, there are the computational theorists
   Many of them from a more formal continent
Some are my heroes I am seeing up-close now,
   Not from photos at the end of reference sections.   

I am a player, too, but it is all for me somehow.
   A PhD candidate surrounded at table by my idols,
I sit paralyzed, searching my memory for procedure;
   I can muster only the pulling asunder and sucking of brains.

I fear these creatures pose lobster-ish puzzles, but tougher —
   Their more intricate design calling for finer tools.
I try and recall more directions from my vacation trip to Maine.
   In this crowd, though, can I risk such savagery?

My dining neighbors start in to their piles,
   Armed with silverware and continental gentility.
As they carve their prey with surgical precision,
   I am dismayed by their blinkered concentration.

Our host, watching for signs of delight
   Starts fidgeting. I imagine he is taken aback, like me,
Controlling the urge to reach in and re-direct his over-civil guests
   In crawfish eating, Louisiana style.

Feeling caught in the middle, I take the middle way,
   Treading between butchery and white-linen manners.
I earn only sparse morsels from the measured brutality,
   All the while expecting this impresses neither constituency.

Why does this moment stick with me like a twisted souvenir?
   Both a memory and metaphor, I call on Freud for help.
Certainly the host could play the role of my subconscious
   Advising me to eschew the monkish path of dry theory. Fais-do-do!
   
Looking back, though, I’m glad that I ignored that erstwhile inner host
   And went on to conquer Math-y dragons with fine fellow fighters.
Still, compadres, will you return with me to Lafayette,
   This time, we shall suck the heads!

Greg has added this personal note about his relationship with mathematics:
  "The most important thing about me is that embracing Math took me a long time, and I took a windy road.  Math had to win me over, despite my first wanting to go into the foreign service (like my dad and most people I knew), and my worries about how one supports oneself and a family (hang out a shingle advertising "Will solve derivatives for pay"?).  High school didn't help -- it did not seem cool to be into Math; fortunately I think the ubiquity and power of Math makes it cool(er) to study Math.