Mathematical language can heighten the imagery of a poem; mathematical structure can deepen its effect. Feast here on an international menu of poems made rich by mathematical ingredients . . . . . . . gathered by JoAnne Growney. To receive email notifications of new postings, contact JoAnne at joannegrowney@gmail.com.
In childhood -- and later also -- rhymes help us to remember. I recall reciting, in early years. "Pme, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, shut the door . . ." Here -- at the website, Empowered Parents -- are a number of counting songs and rhymes.
Recently I found among the poems of one of my favorite poets -- Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) -- a delightful counting poem entitled "Brass Spittoons." Here are some of its lines:
As I age and find myself slowing down in my math-poetry ventures it is a delight to see other mathy writers surging with energy and thoughtful publications.
One frequent source of math-arts connections is Sarah Hart, Professor Emerita of Mathematics, School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Birbeck University, London. Here is a link to an article by Hart containing material excerpted from her collection Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature (Flatiron Books: New York, 2023).
Once Upon a Prime is a prose explanation completed with frequent literary examples. Here is a poem that her daughter, Emma, wrote "for Mummy's book."
A film project worthy of support (and found at this website) is JOURNEYS OF BLACK MATHEMATICIANS: A documentary project by writer and film-maker George Csicery. Severely underrepresented in mathematics, African Americans have played important roles as researchers and educators in the field. This documentary traces the history of the individuals who worked as pioneers in expanding the presence of African Americans in mathematics.
Go to this link (the same one as sbove) and scroll down for access to the films in Csicery's collection; featured mathematicians include: Evelyn Boyd Granville, Robert Edward Bozeman, Edray Goins, Johnny L. Houston, Monica Stephens Cooley, Ulrica Wilson, Omayra R. Orgega, Virginia K. Newell, Scott Williams, Duane Cooper, Talitha M. Washington . . .
I close with the opening lines of a song, written by Mitchell Moffit and found at this link, that can be helpful in memorizing many digits of pi -- an amazing endeavor that some people undertake.
Often I explore and enrich my thinking by organizing information with a tree diagram. The following poem by Padma Venkatraman (found here in the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine) is not mathematical in content BUT it uses a diagram of a tree to discover and organize thoughts. Enjoy!
Whenever You See a Tree by Padma Venkatraman
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| This poem by Padma Venkatraman appeared in the March 2021 issue of Poetry Magazine. |
As she had done in numerous preceding years, mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz is once again an organizer for a poetry reading at the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference -- this year to be held in Richmond, Virginia, August 1-5.
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| Bridges Poetry Reading Website |
Poetry Reading Sunday, August 4, 3:00 - 5:00 pm2500 West Broad Street Richmond, Virginia
I have signed up for a Google email service, "Google Alert" which sends to my g-mail address links to items found in Google searching that contain the words "poetry" and "mathematics". Recently such an email alerted me to a sharing by a psychiatrist who writes poetry about his medical experiences.
Richard Berlin, MD, has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences. At this link, he shared the poem "Black Momma Math", by Kimberly Jae who is an award-winning poet, ranked among the top 30 slam poets in the world in 2018. The poem is also available here at the Poetry Foundation website. I offer its opening stanzas below.
A couple of weeks ago (on June 19) I learned on X (formerly Twitter) that 401 years ago, mathematician Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was born -- more info here. Probably Pascal is best known for the array of numbers called Pascal's triangle -- and that array has influenced poetry as well as mathematics.
My source of this info about Pascal was an ongoing collection of postings on X by Mathematics & Statistics St Andrews, @StA_Maths_Stats, which offers lots of historical facts about math and math people. Their June 19 posting offered this:
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