Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today, January 27, is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  Looking for mathy poems to connect to this theme I found this posting at jstheater.blogspot.com with lines by 1966 Nobelist Nelly Sachs (1891-1970) and Paul Celan (1920-1970).  Here is a sample of what is found there:

from Nelly Sachs, 

       The crooked line of suffering
       stumbling along the godfired
       geometry of the universe . . .

              from Paul Celan, "Draft of a Landscape,"

                    Circular graves, below.  In
                    four-beat time the year's pace on
                    the steep steps around them . . .

Read more at jstheater.blogspot.com. 

Let us remember . . . and resolve never to let such happen again . . .

The Fruits of Undefinitions

     The poem "Undefined Terms" by poet-mathematician Katharine O'Brien (1901-1986) is a favorite of mine from long ago that I re-found recently here . . . for greatest enjoyment, read it aloud.

Undefined Terms     by Katharine O'Brien

A point is a point, a line is a line,
   a rose is a rose is a rose.
We thus undefine in the manner of Stein
   some terms in unrhyme and unprose.  

On these as foundation we lay definitions,
   the girders for walls and a roof.
We assume some conditions to fit requisitions
   and build us a logical proof.

Inauguration Day Poem

 Read by Youth Poet Laureate, Amanda Gorman,
an inspiring Biden-inauguration poem, "The Hill We Climb."

" . . . we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us,
                                               but to what stands before us . . ."

" . . . we will never again sow division . . ."

 

Remembering Martin Luther King, Jr

       Today as a nation we remember and pay tribute to Rev.  Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) -- Baptist minster, Civil Rights leader -- a brave man who was assassinated for his fearless and humanitarian views.  

Here are a few of his words.
 
          We must accept
          finite disappointment
          but never lose
          infinite hope.  
                                               Freedom is never
                                               voluntarily given
                                               by the oppressor;
                                               it must be demanded
                                               by the oppressed.

This link leads to previous posts in this blog that celebrate this hero. 

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2021

Learn more here:  http://bridgesmathart.org/ 

Since 2009, interested contributors from mathematics and various arts -- poetry, music, theater, visual art . . . -- have gathered at an annual Bridges conference to celebrate and deepen math-art connections.  Due to Covid-19 the 2020 conference was virtual but so far, with hope, the 2021 conference is planned as an in-person conference in Finland.  Connecticut mathematician Sarah Glaz has been active in coordinating poetry events for the conference and here is a link to her announcement of the poetry program at Bridges 2021 -- including links to biographical sketches and poems by each participating poet.  My own poem therein honors mathematician Emmy Noether.

Here is a link to several postings in this blog that celebrate math women.

Number Personalities . . .

      Sometimes our experiences with objects or ideas leads us to assign them personalities -- a notion illustrated in the poem "Zero," by Sue Owen, a poem that lives on my shelf in the anthology Verse and Universe:  Poems about Science and Mathematics, edited by Kurt Brown (Milkweed Editions, 1998), and offered below.

Zero     by Sue Owen

       This is the story of zero,
       born to live a life
       of emptiness, only
       child of plus and minus.

       Its bones invisible
       so it could be seen through
       like an eye.
       With that vision, you could      

Poetic Mathy Quotes

      In India, National Mathematics Day is celebrated each year on December 22 -- the birthday of mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920).  A couple of weeks ago, as this day was celebrated in India, a list of quotes about mathematics included the following:

Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas -- Albert Einstein

An equation means nothing to me unless it expresses a thought of God -- Srinivasa Ramanujan

Without mathematics, there’s nothing you can do. Everything around you is mathematics. Everything around you is numbers — Shakuntala Devi

Some mathematician, I believe, has said that true pleasure lies not in the discovery of truth, but in the search for it -- Leo Tolstoy

Math is fun. It teaches you life and death information like when you’re cold, you should go to a corner since it’s 90 degrees there  — Anonymous

Previous mentions of Ramanujan in this blog can be found at this link.

Numbers and Faces, a math-poetry anthology

 Celebrating the NEW year with a collection of OLD favorites!

      Twenty years ago in 2001, supported by a grant from EXXONMOBIL, the Humanistic Mathematics Network published:

 NUMBERS AND FACES
A Collection of Poems with Mathematical Imagery

This collection of 24 poems (which I edited) is out of print but is available here (as a pdf).  A screenshot of the Table of Contents appears below: