Friday, August 30, 2024

Creating New Poems by Sampling Old Ones

      In its collection of Math Voices the American Mathematical Society (AMS) has a very interesting Feature Column -- a column written for students, teachers, and the general public -- that offers essays about math that it describes as "useful, fun, inspiring, or startling."  When browsing the column recently I found and enjoyed a column by Sara Stoudt of Bucknell University entitled "Sampled Poems Contain Multitudes" -- an article that gives readers an opportunity to experience Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself" (a book-length poem with a total of 52 poem-sections, found here at the Poetry Foundation website) via a poem with a sample line for each section,  Here are the opening lines:

From Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself":

And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them,
My voice goes after what my eyes cannot reach, 
In vain the elk takes to the inner passes of the woods, 
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become                the wounded person,
Whatever interests the rest interests me, politics, wars, markets,                newspapers, schools,
They do not think whom they souse with spray.

                                      . . . .    continued here 

When your time permits  you may enjoy exploring essays, classroom offerings, and other various items written for people fascinated by mathematics -- here at Math Voices.  And this link leads to at Math Voices entries that feature the arts and humanities.


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