An important leader in the community of writers who link mathematics and poetry is Sarah Glaz --
a scholar who is not only a mathematician and poet but also an
organizer, participant, publicist, and recorder for numerous math-poetry
events. Glaz is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University
of Connecticut and her UConn webpage is a vast source of mathematical and poetry treasures.
I first came to know Sarah well as we worked together on an important project -- gathering poems for the anthology Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters / CRC Press, 2008). A preview of this collection is available here. Here, from that collection, is one of my favorites -- a thoughtful poem about parenting and attitudes (love? or not?) toward mathematics:
Love Story by Sarah Glaz
If I ever write about you--
he said--
it will be a love story
a story about
how much you want to be loved.
Father, do you love
your little girl?
I brought you
a soup full
of numbers
formulas chopped to perfection
integrals fried to a crisp
you wish
for supper
or higher mathematics?
I would lie at your feet
looking up
at your busy mouth
waiting for a smile to appear
a few words of approval and praise
one word of love
How long can one wait?
A lifetime if necessary--
even beyond
When you want to explore math-poetry, the materials developed and collected by Glaz offer wonderful opportunities. An active participant in BRIDGES Math-Arts conferences, Glaz has produced papers and poems and books -- and organized poetry readings -- and much is available at this link. Her poetry collection Ode to Numbers (Antrim House, 2017) offers wonderful reading (and a sample may be found here.)
AND . . . Glaz' work has been mentioned many (more than 20) times in this blog; here's a link.
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