An AMS Presentation by Sarah Hart

      One of the strong and consistent promoters of connections between mathematics and the arts is Sarah Hart and she recently gave the 2025 Einstein Public Lecture at Clemson University (sponsored by AMS, the American Mathematical Society) entitled "A Mathematical Journey Through Literature."  

     Hart is the author of Once Upon a Prime: The Wondrous Connections Between Mathematics and Literature (Flatiron Books, 2023) -- NYTimes review here;  purchase info here.  Her presentation, summarized here in an AMS article entitled "The Axiom of a Sonnet," explored ways that the guidelines for a sonnet -- or other poetic structure -- are similar to the guidelines for a mathematical structure such as a group or a ring.  A thought-provoking quote from her presentation:

Student-Run Math Poetry Magazine

     Several weeks ago I was surprised and delighted to receive an email from Lillian Liu, a high school student in Westchester, New York and also is a mentee of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) -- with mentor Dr. Annalisa Crannell, emerita professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania and someone I have been privileged to know.

     High school junior Lillian Liu has recently founded The Hyperbolic Review --  her response to noticing that "mathematical poetry isn’t as widely discussed or recognized as it should be. It seemed that many people weren’t even aware of its existence." Because this blog shows my connection with mathy poetry, Liu reached out to me, via email, and sent me this link to Issue 1 of The Hyperbolic Review: https://www.thehyperbolicreview.com/issue-1.

Below I offer the opening stanzas of "Asymptotes" by Devanshee Soni; following this sample will be a link to The Hyperbolic Review -- containing the complete poem and lots of others.

2025 BRIDGES--mid-July in Eindhoven, Netherlands

      Once again, my mathematician-poet-friend Sarah Glaz has carefully organized a math-poetry reading -- this one to be held at the upcoming Bridges Math-Arts Conference, July 14-18, 2025 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.  Details concerning the exact time and location for the reading, scheduled for Thursday, July 17, will be announced here at this link.

     Below I offer a sampling from the poets who will be reading at Eindhoven -- a CENTO that I have built by inclusion of a phrase from a poem by each of the poets registered for participation in Bridges 2025.  (Information about the poets is found here at this website maintained by Sarah Glaz._

WE CELEBRATE MATHEMATICS

        The power of a theorem lies 
        with a diagram of clockwise arrows 
        hovering high over the town,                        
        while infinite time is waiting
        and triple sixes strive
        in-between our beginnings and ends.    

Math Class

      One of my very-special math-poetry connections -- and a frequent sharer of new poems with me -- is Gregory Coxson, Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the US Naval Academy  in Annapolis, Maryland.  Recently he sent me the poem "Math Class" by Poet Mary Crow -- a poem that deals with the role of women in math.  I offer its opening lines below, followed by a link to the complete poem.  (A good poem to stimulate class discussion of the currently-growing status of women in math.)

     Math Class     by Mary Crow

          Somehow that shriveled arm
          seemed the perfect arm
          for tracing the odd shapes of geometry
          in white on our black chalkboard
          showing us a woman could do
          this unwomanly thing
          and sometimes a girl would let out a giggle
          almost like a pig squeak
          and our teacher would stop, chalk
          in her lifted hand
          and her back would stiffen
          as she turned and glared at us
          then returned
          to tracing out her mysteries
          we girls thought
          meant math is for old maids  .  .  .

               Crow's complete poem is available online here at poets.org.  

Power Grows with Numbers

     A worthy organization in Washington, DC in which to get involved is FREE MINDS BOOK CLUB (https://freemindsbookclub.org/about-us/) -- an organization that collects books and provides reading opportunities for incarcerated individuals AND ALSO offers online presentations of poems (https://freemindsbookclub.org/poems/) for volunteers to read and offer comments.  I encourage you to participate -- participants need not be poets, simply interested readers!

     Here are the opening lines of one of the poems I found at the Free Minds website; please visit the site to sign in and read more:

Math Poems for Students

      Here at the website We Are Teachers I found a delightful collection of 38 Math Poems for Students in All Grade Levels.  Although I liked the offering there of "Eighteen Flavors" by Shel Silverstein I found the sample there to be incomplete (only ten flavors) and I searched further to find Silverstein's complete poem (found here) and, ice-cream lover that I am, I offer it below:

Remembering Pennsylvania Poet Harry Humes

     A Pennsylvania poet whose work I enjoyed and learned from has recently passed away --  Harry Humes, who taught literature and film at Kutztown (PA) University and produced and edited  (until his retirement in 1999) a bi-annual poetry journal, Yarrow.

     Humes' poetry was not mathy  but I connected with it deeply because we had Pennsylvania in common,  Back in 2010, in the early days of this blog, I posted Humes' poem "The Butterfly Effect" at this link.  Here is a screenshot of the poem's opening lines: