Before the poem a bit of history about its source of publication:
The Humanistic Mathematics Network Newsletter (HMNN) was founded by Alvin White (1925-2009) of Harvey Mudd College in the summer of 1987. The Newsletter was later renamed The Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal (HMNJ). The last issue of the HMNJ was published in 2004 -- and a current, related (online, open-accesss) journal is the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM). Recently the digital archive of the full run of the HMNN/HMNJ (1987-2004) has become available at this link.I was an active participant in HMNJ -- contributing articles and serving for several years as poetry editor -- and have enjoyed browsing the archives. One of my articles, "Mathematics and Poetry: Isolated or Integrated" is available here (Issue 6, 1991).
Explore!
There's lots more!
Back in Issue 3 of HMNJ (from 1988) I found these entertaining lines from topologist and math historian William Dunham -- setting to rhyme an an apocryphal tale of why there is no Nobel prize in mathematics. For Whom Nobel Tolls by William Dunham
It is well-known that Nobel Prizes
Come in many shapes and sizes.
But one is missing from the list --
The Nobel Math Prize does not exist.