Reading Numbers Like Poetry

      When I come across a title that connects math and poetry, I become interested -- and want to read more. Google helped me discover here, in China Daily, an article featuring German professor Andrea Breard entitled "Reading numbers like poetry: A journey into ancient Chinese math."  She goes on to tell about some algebraic methods that were written as poems -- the rhythm allowing easier and better memorization.  

     Andrea Breard is a German historian of mathematics, specializing in Chinese mathematics.  Her remarks took me back to my childhood when we frequently repeated "counting rhymes" as we dressed or played or whatever.  "One, Two, Buckle my shoe . . ." and "Hickory, Dickory, Dock . . . the mouse ran up the clock . . ." were frequent  parts of my childhood chatter.

Share the Love of Math -- Students -- Enter Contest!

A Contest for High School Students -- Read on to learn more . . .

     Students who are 15 to 18 years old (on September 1, 2025) are invited to apply for the 2026 Steven H. Strogatz Prize for Math Communication (sponsored by MoMath, the NY Museum of Mathematics) to share their love of math with the world!

     On or before April 23, 2026 projects will be accepted in the following categories:

        Art, Audio, Performance, Social media, Video, and Writing.

Examples include: podcasts, articles, school newspaper columns, art exhibits, videos, websites, Instagram accounts, songs, plays, and any other mode of public communication.  Detailed information is available at this link.

Celebrate Math-Women -- AWM Essay Contest

 Entry deadline is coming soon -- February 1, 2026.

Students are invited to interview a math-woman
and write about it -- 
and submit the essay to the Association for Women in Mathematics
by February 1, 2026.

Guidelines (middle-school, high school, college submissions) are here.

Previous winning essays are available here (follow the link and scroll down).  

Math, Poetry, and AI

     Recently I came across a math-poetry article here in a newsletter published by the University of Illinois, Springfield -- an article entitled "Navigating the Intersection of Math, Poetry, and AI: The Crossroads in Helena Soares’ Pursuit."  The article shares poetry by Soares -- who is a student majoring in both mathematics and English -- and also includes a brief essay by her, entitled "A journey through math, AI, and poetry."   Here is a poem by Soares from that article:  

Holding Logic and Imagination Together

     Recently Google led me to a recent and fascinating article about Jordanian poet Dr. Zaina Al-Qasem, a Jordanian scholar, who combines data science with creativity and is also a published poet.  For her, mathematics and poetry share thought patterns — both driven by interpretation, structure, and the search for meaning, but through different lenses.

Here are a few reflective lines of Zaina Al-Qasem's verse -- found in the article linked-to above  -- lines that capture both introspection and intent.

Shaped like a SNOWFLAKE

     Choosing a shape for a poem leads to restrictions on the numbers and lengths of words -- and sometimes this generously promotes creativity.  Moving through the chilly winter season, I have discovered this poem -- "The Six-Cornered Snowflake"  in POETRY (December, 1989) by poet and editor  John Frederick Nims (1913-99).  ENJOY!   

Math Ideas Expressed in Limericks

When you have time, a fascinating website to visit and browse is OEDILF  -- The Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form.   

Here is a sample:    

      cuproid by Recumbentman (Limerick #89414)

            Tetrahedrons are bounded by four
            Triangular faces, no more.
            If on each one of those
            A pyramid rose,
            A cuproid would then take the floor.   

Student Math-Poetry Contest -- submit by 1/20/26

     The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is again sponsoring a Math-Poetry Contest for students -- inviting submission of poems up to 20 lines in length in three admission categories:  

      Middle School      High School       College  

Information about how to submit entries -- along with wonderful results from past contests  -- is available at this link.

     The following poem (which is found online here -- along with other winners) by Nora McKinstry (Edmonds Heights K-12 S) was the Middle School winner in 2025.  

Effects of Counting

      A recent visit to the Poetry Foundation website brought me to poems by William Wordsworth (1770-1850) -- and I counted sadly as I read his poem, "We Are Seven."  I offer its opening stanzas below (and the complete poem -- 17 stanzas -- is available here.) 

We Are Seven       by William Wordsworth

          ———A simple Child,

          That lightly draws its breath,

          And feels its life in every limb,

          What should it know of death?  

Can Poems Affect Students' Math-Attitudes?

     For some students, math is fun BUT . . . if we don't understand something that can keep it from being fun.  For those who DO NOT FIND MATH FUN, it is important for the rest of us to try to change that attitude.  One useful viewpoint is that math need not be treated as an isolated subject . . . it is connected to our lives in VERY MANY ways.  And sometimes, as this blog's postings illustrate, poetry offers non-threatening ways of making connections.

     One of my recent discoveries is the website We Are Teachers where I found a collection of 38 mathy poems -- a dozen for elementary school students and the rest for middle and high students.  Here is a sample from the elementary school group.

Like Poetry, Mathematics is Beautiful -- -- again!

      Fourteen years ago, back in October of 2011, I posted a poem of mine entitled, "Like Poetry, Mathematics is Beautiful" (at this link).  Written more than thirty years ago, this continues to be one of my favorites of my mathy poems.   I offer a portion of it below.

       Like Poetry, Mathematics is Beautiful     by JoAnne Growney

             Timidly I ask
             each one I meet if they
             find mathematics beautiful
             or useful, and each one dares to say,
             "Useful, of course. I use it every day."
             And if I seem to want a proof,
             they all go on to tell  
             that daily they subtract and add
             to keep a checkbook; sometimes also
             they multiply to find how many squares
             they need to tile the kitchen floor.

Mathy Lines from the Poet Laureate

     Born in New York City (1950) and of Asian heritage, poet Arthur Sze is the 25th US Poet Laureate (named on September 15, 2025) and the first Asian American to hold that position.   In the October 20, 2025 issue of The New Yorker, we find Sze's poem, "Library of Congress,"  which opens with these somewhat mathy lines:

        You peer down a lit corridor
        on the fifth tier of stacks
        where a million books breathe
        on shelves, here's a book
        on neutrinos, captured in Antarctica,
        here's another on solar flares.
        A curator displays a book
        in Vai script and points to a triangle
        with two dots, you wonder . . . 

Mathematics organizes libraries!

More poetry from Sze can be found here;  
scroll down below the bio to find titles and links.

Poetry Comics Month -- with a bit of Math

     Poetry-comic-artist Grant Snider posts wonderfully illustrated and entertaining verses online -- on X (Twitter) @grantdraws -- and sometimes his postings are mathy. Here is a link to an interview with Snider.  Snider has indicated in his postings that our current month of October is Poetry Comics Month,  Here is a link to one of his past poetry-comics-month postings -- and below I offer one of his illustrated mathy haiku.

World Nursery Rhyme Week

 On X I learned that this week -- November 10-14, 2025 -- is World Nursery Rhyme Week, and I searched and found this website that offers information about the week and these "5 official rhymes for 2025":

    Monday, 10th -- Sing a Song of Sixpence  
         Tuesday, 11th -- Humpty Dumpty
    Wednesday, 12th -- When I Was One (I played the drum)
         Thursday, 13th -- I Hear Thunder
     Friday, 14th -- Two Little Dickie Birds

Here at this website are all of the above except "Two Little Dickie Birds" -- which I offer a version of below.  (Here in Wikipedia is more about that rhyme.)

Simplifying Mathematics with Poetry

 At this link, I found the following math-poetry information:

      JOHANNESBURG - Some good news for struggling mathematics students:

Award-winning author Botshelo Mthomboti has a solution for you.   In her book, Poetic Atmosphere of Mathematics, Mthomboti simplifies the subject through poetry. The 22-year-old Financial Management graduate has also penned two other books, A Black Child Transformed by Accounting, and The Poetic Atmosphere of Income Tax.

     Here is a link to a YouTube video of a news story -- entitled "Poetic Solutions to Complex Problems" -- that tells of Mthomboti and shares her poem entitled "Multiplication and Division of Variables."    And here is more about Mthomboti.

THANK YOU, Botshelo Mthomboti, for the enthusiastic energy you give to mathematics.  

"Who Counts, Counts" -- by Stephanie Strickland

       Stephanie Strickland is a poet whom I know and much admire -- and her work contains a rich variety of math-poetry creations; her poems have been featured in several posts in this blog (Here's a link to those postings.)  Today I had the good fortune to refind another of her poems -- not yet posted herein -- and I offer it below.  

     Who Counts, Counts      by Stephanie Strickland

          Baby and you
          --and me,
          we will make three,

                 but baby-and-me
                 are different; we're two-
                 who-are-one.  

Geometry and Poetry -- with a Pumpkin

     Posted on X by talented and prolific STEAM blogger, Heidi Bee Roemer (@poetweet4), this Halloween poem relates to the geometry of a carved pumpkin face -- with mathematical shapes. 

An activist children's author,  Romer promote literacy, shares STEAM resources & hosts contests for college, high school & jr. high students. Publications include 9 kids' books, and more than 400 poems.  Her website is steampoweredpoetry.com.   

Math Class -- featuring GIRLS

      I recently learned of a book by creative writer Kellie Krumrie entitled Math Class (Calamari Press, 2022) -- a book of essays that feature teen-age girls.  Exploring further I found poetry by Krumrie in La Vague -- an online feminist journal that has ceased publication BUT retains online records of previously published work.    

Here is one of Krumrie's poems which I am enjoying puzzling over!

c e m e n t   /  e m m y  n o e t h e r   by Kellie Krumrie

‘She had the faculty of visualizing remote, very complex connections without resorting to concrete examples.’

Can math be funny?

      Recently I discovered the website teacher planet and found there a variety of math-related resources including humorous versions of definitions of math terms.

Using a poetry-stanza format, I have included several of these "poetic" definitions below:

          Math is like love;
          a simple idea,
          but it can get complicated.  

Genius grant for Math-Woman

     Mathematician Lauren K. Williams (PhD ’05 MIT, currently Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University) has won a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, a prestigious honor often called the “genius grant.” The award is presented annually by the MacArthur Foundation to “talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits.”  The MacArthur Foundation praised Williams for “uncovering transformative connections between algebraic combinatorics and problems in other areas of math and physics.”