BRIDGES Poetry -- and Clerihews

    One of my favorite mathy publications is the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, an online peer-reviewed journal published twice yearly by the Claremont Colleges Library and edited by Mark Huber, Claremont McKenna College, and Gizem Karaali, Pomona College.  The most recent issue -- (Vol. 14, issue 2), available online here.  The screen-shot below shows the poetry-contents of this issue.

Many, many mathy poems -- THANK YOU, Sarah Glaz

      Sarah Glaz, mathematics professor emerita at the University of Connecticut, is also a poet.  AND, not only a poet but a coordinator of math-poetry activities for the annual BRIDGES Math-Arts conference.  This year's conference will be held in Finland, August 1-5, 2022.  This link leads to Glaz' announcement of the poetry program at BRIDGES 2022 -- and includes bios and sample poems by poets who plan to attend the conference AND also includes samples of work from some of us poets who have been part of BRIDGES in the past but will be unable to attend this year.  Below are the opening lines from a poem by Glaz that is inspired by the mathematical field of Ring Theory.

The entire poem is available via Glaz's profile at this link.

Work by Sarah Glaz has been featured in a variety of previous posts in this blog.  Here is a link.

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2022

      Founded by Reza Sarhangi (1952-2016) in 1998, the BRIDGES organization has had annual conferences and is an ongoing supporter of links between mathematics and the various arts.  This year's conference is scheduled for August 1-5, 2022 at Aalto University in Helsinki and Espoo, Finland.

Bridges Conference Information is available at this link.

Browsing and searching on the BRIDGES website can lead to a huge variety of math-arts connections -- including invited and contributed paper presentations, an exhibition of mathematical art, workshops, films, a poetry reading, music and theater -- including both descriptive and performance events.  Here is a link to a list of links to lots of exhibitions.   And this link leads to the results of a search in the Archive of BRIDGES papers that include the term "Poetry" in the title.

Adding to what the BRIDGES site includes is this rich source of math-poetry material at the University of Connecticut website of mathmatician-poet Sarah Glaz -- an active organizer of poetry at BRIDGES conferences.

               Poetry and
               mathematics
               build BRIDGES to
               understanding.  

BRIDGES -- connecting math and poetry

     The BRIDGES Math-Arts organization held its 2021 conference (early in August) online  -- and, although many of the meetings were available only to registrants, archives of papers are available at this link to all who are interested.  

BRIDGES papers and events that link poetry and mathematics have been thoughtfully publicized by University of Connecticut emeritus professor Sarah Glaz who has created a webpage "Mathematical Poetry at Bridges" for that purpose.  On that webpage are links to pages for individual Bridges conferences as far back as 2010 -- with poetry involvement in the conferences increasing in the later years.  Here is a link to "Mathematical Poetry at Bridges 2021" -- a page with links to sample poems from more than 30 poets and also video readings of numerous poems.     VISIT the site and savor the poems.

Below I offer one of the poems from the Bridges 2021 site.  Playing with various ideas of "infinity" poet and math teacher Amy Uyematsu has created "This Thing Called Infinity" -- and she given me permission to offer it here. 

     This Thing Called Infinity     by Amy Uyematsu

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2021

Learn more here:  http://bridgesmathart.org/ 

Since 2009, interested contributors from mathematics and various arts -- poetry, music, theater, visual art . . . -- have gathered at an annual Bridges conference to celebrate and deepen math-art connections.  Due to Covid-19 the 2020 conference was virtual but so far, with hope, the 2021 conference is planned as an in-person conference in Finland.  Connecticut mathematician Sarah Glaz has been active in coordinating poetry events for the conference and here is a link to her announcement of the poetry program at Bridges 2021 -- including links to biographical sketches and poems by each participating poet.  My own poem therein honors mathematician Emmy Noether.

Here is a link to several postings in this blog that celebrate math women.

Poetry and Mathematics -- opening doors . . .

Since 1998 The Bridges Organization has been offering conferences that publicize and celebrate links connecting mathematics and the arts.  Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 conference was virtual -- but papers submitted to the conference are available online here.

One of the 2020 titles that has especially interested me is "Poetry in the Lesson of Mathematics" by Natalija Budinski and Zsolt Lavicza, available at this link.  The article describes a case study on how poetry can be used as a teaching tool in math classes -- helping students to understand complex mathematical concepts by writing about them using guidelines from poetry.

Links to additional Bridges articles by Budinski and by Lavicza are available via SEARCH here in the Bridges Archives.  And some of my earlier suggestions about using poetry in math classes are found in this posting.

In closing, a stanza from a long-ago poem of mine, "A Taste of Mathematics":

          She said, "A hot pepper
          is like mathematics--
          with strong flavor
          that takes over
          whatever
          it enters.

Links to mathy poems . . .

     The Annual Bridges Math-Arts Conference will not be meeting this year but mathematician Sarah Glaz has arranged for lots of math-poetic activity online -- go here and scroll down for links to poetry-presentations that she has arranged.  
     Glaz has gathered a Bridges 2020 Poetry Anthology (not yet published) that contains five of my mathy poems.  I read aloud two of them -- 

"Love Mathematics" and "A Baker's Dozen" -- here on YouTube.  

Thanks to my neighbor, Mark Willey, for help with the YouTube recording!

Something or Nothing -- Thinking about Zero

     The site of the 2019 Bridges Math-Arts conference has been announced  -- it will meet in Linz, Austria next July.  This link leads to the archives of the 2018 and earlier conferences.  Each recent year a poetry reading (coordinated by Sarah Glaz) has been part of the Bridges activities -- and this year a poetry anthology also was compiled.  Here is a poem by Canadian poet Alice Major that was featured both in this year's reading and in the anthology  -- a poem that also appears, along with other math and science poems, in Major's latest collection, Welcome to the Anthropocene. (University of Alberta Press, 2018).  Major's poem examines death and, as it does so, explores various meanings of zero.

Zero divided by zero     by Alice Major

There is no right answer.

The trains of logic crash, annihilate

certainty. Zero is just as good an answer

as one. Nothingness or loneliness.

There is no right answer.    

Imaginary Numbers

     Today a fine poem that plays with the meanings of "real" and "imaginary" -- and one that I like a lot.  Its author, Scottish mathematician-statistician-poet Eveline Pye is, like me, these days enjoying being a grandmother.  

       Imaginary Numbers      by Eveline Pye

       A real life ends, but is imagined  
       by those left behind. An imagined  
       death becomes reality, eventually.   

       The square root of minus one  
       can't exist since a squared number 
       can’t be negative 

       but imaginary numbers yield  
       real answers in the real world.   
       The difference between reality 

       and imagination: a false oasis  
       that blurs, shimmers  
       and melts before my eyes.  

Pye's poem is included in the anthology Bridges Stockholm 2018 from Tesselations Publishing.  This article, "Eveline Pye:  Poetry in Numbers" is a great place to read more about the poet and her work.  

BRIDGES, 2018 -- math-art-poetry -- in Stockholm

       During each summer since 1998, mathematicians and visual artists, poets and musicians, have gotten together at a BRIDGES conference to celebrate the overlapping connections of their arts.  This years conference, BRIDGES 2018, will be held July 25-59 in Stockholm.  As she has done in several previous years, mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz has organized a poetry reading as part of that event; this link leads to information about the participating poets.  Available for purchase, a poetry anthology with work from past and present Bridges poets.  The small poem offered below is one that is featured in the anthology.

          Good Fortune       by JoAnne Growney

          is good numbers—
          the length of a furrow,
          the count of years,
          the depth of a broken heart,
          the cost of camouflage, 
          the volume of tears.

     "Good Fortune" also is found in my collection, Red Has No Reason (Plain View Press, 2010).

From Hydrology to Poetry to Infinity . . .

     Carlos Puente is a professor of hydrology at the University of California, Davis AND he is so much more . . .  at Bridges 2017 he presented a paper that offered samples of artistic designs relevant to his research studies -- geometric structures linked, for example, to ice crystals and the DNA rosette.   Puente also integrates his work with poems and song lyrics.  Both he and I participated in a poetry-reading at the Bridges conference -- he read "Le plus improbable" and he has given me permission to offer you here a portion of "Conga to infinity." 

How does the Triangle relate to the Circle?

     One of the active promoters of poetry with links to mathematics is Californian Carol Dorf -- who teaches math at Berkeley High School AND is poetry editor for the online journal, TalkingWriting.  Along with several other mathy poets, Carol participated in the poetry reading at the Bridges 2017 Math-Arts Conference in Waterloo, Ontario.
     Here, playing with mathematical language -- from Carol's 2013 collection, enchantingly illustrated by Terri Saul, Every Evening Deserves a Title (Delirious Nonce, Berkeley, CA) -- is "Euclidean Shivers."

     Euclidean Shivers     by Carol Dorf

     So, how does the Triangle
     relate to the Circle?    

     Euclid and a radius prove points
     that radiate from the center, a circle,
     a method to navigate space.

Seeking an EQUATION for LOVE . . .

       One of the interesting and fun people I had the good fortune to meet at the 2017 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Waterloo, Ontario, is Lisa Lajeunesse.  At Capilano University, Lajeunesse teaches a course entitled "Math and Creative Arts" and presented at Bridges a thought-provoking paper entitled "The Golden Ratio:  How Close is Close Enough?"   My close connection with her came because we both were involved in a Bridges 2017 Math-Poetry Reading.  She has given me permission to include her clever and mathy poem here.

  An Equation for Love    by Lisa Lajeunesse     

          They’ve found an equation for love

          It goes something like this
          love equals attraction times compatibility to the power of opportunity
          there’s more of course and there’s been much fiddling
          with coefficients and lesser terms
          involving age, pheromones and duration of eye contact   

Centos from 2017 Bridges Math-Arts Conference

     Last Monday evening I returned home from the 2017 Bridges Math-and-the-Arts Conference at the University of Waterloo.  One of the special events in which I participated was a Sunday afternoon poetry reading; information about the reading (and links) are here in my July 17 posting .  
     Another conference activity -- machine-based and developed by Waterloo computer science grad student Erinn Atwater to work with a data-base of quotations I had gathered that relate to math or poetry -- was a machine set-up to invite conference attendees to compose a four-line Cento from a screen-selection of choices.
     Here is a sample of the Cento poetry that was created; the assembler of these lines listed her name simply as Bianca:

Mathematics is not only connected to art; it is just art.                  (by Solomon Marcus)
There is always a third point between any two.                             (by Michael Rosen)
My imagination is still the same. It’s bad with large numbers.       (by Wislawa Szymborska)
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.                        (by William Shakespeare)

Division by Zero

     At Victoria University in Melbourne, novelist, playwright and poet Tom Petsinis also teaches mathematics.  He participated in the 2016 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Finland this summer:  here are two of his poems from the 2016 Bridges Poetry Anthology -- and each of them plays with mathematical ideas in new and thoughtful (sometimes amusing) ways.   "Zeno's Paradox" follows this initial poem.  (Names and links for other anthology poets are given below.)

     Division by Zero     by Tom Petsinis

     She could’ve been our grandmother
     Warning us of poisonous mushrooms ‒
     To stress her point she'd scratch
     The taboo bold with crimson chalk.
     It should never be used to divide,
     Or we'd be howled from lined yard
     To pit where cruel paradoxes ruled.
     Her warnings tempted us even more:
     Young, growing full in confidence,
     We’d prove the impossible for fun ‒
     Nothing she said could restrain us
     From showing two is equal to one.   

Find math-poetry links in BRIDGES archives

     As noted in last week's posts, the annual international math-arts festival, BRIDGES, recently was held in Finland.  Now the archives of papers presented there are available at this link.
     One of the programs related to poetry was a workshop by poet Tom Petsinis of Melbourne, “Mathematics Through the Matrix of Poetry,” archived here.

Past BRIDGES conferences have also included
a variety of poetry-math connections.
For example, in 2015, "Composing Mathematical Poetry"  by Carol Dorf,
 “Visualizing Rhyme Patterns in Sonnet Sequences” by Hartmut F. W. Hoft,
and a few remarks from me, “Inspire Math-Girls-Women (perhaps with poems)”.

Using the SEARCH box (beneath the list of years in the left column) and entering the term “poem” led me  to a total of 28 hits.   Explore! Enjoy!!

More from BRIDGES poets . . .

     The 2016 BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference is currently taking place at the University of Jyväskylä in Jyväskylä, Finland.  Poets on this year's program include: Manfred Stern, Vera Schwarcz, Eveline Pye, Tom Petsinis, Mike Naylor, Alice Major, Emily Grosholz, Carol Dorf, Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Madhur Anand and the organizer, Sarah Glaz.
      Although he is not a participant in this year's BRIDGES, the name of Portuguese mathematician, poet, and translator Francisco José Craveiro de Carvalho appears near the top of the conference's poetry page for his translation of these lines that have become a sort of motto for BRIDGES poetry:

             Newton's binomial is as beautiful as Venus de Milo.
             What happens is that few people notice it.

                        --Fernando Pessoa (as Álvaro de Campos)
                          translated from the Portuguese by Francisco Craveiro  

Words -- and Meanings -- and BRIDGES, 2016

     Tomorrow the 2016 BRIDGES Conference (which celebrates the connections between mathematics and the arts) will open at the University of Jyväskylä in Jyväskylä, Finland.  Helping the conference to celebrate poetry will be Sarah Glaz, who has organized a poetry reading for the afternoon of August 12 and prepared a poetry collection that anthologizes poets who have been BRIDGES participants.   Here is a one of my favorite poems from the collection -- by Maryland poet Deanna Nikaido who, alas (and like me), will not be able to attend the conference.

     Trouble with Word Problems  by Deanna Nikaido

     Once asked to solve the arrival time of two trains
     traveling at different speeds
     toward the same destination—I failed.
     Mathlexia my friend said. 

Remembering Reza Sarhangi

     In 1998 at Southwestern College in Winfield, KS an Iranian mathematician, Reza Sarhangi, organized the first of a series of annual Bridges conferences that celebrate the intersection of mathematics and the arts.  On July 1, 2016, this vital mathematician-artist passed away.  Many will celebrate the life of this warm and generous and talented man.

     Here is a link to Bridges history and here is a link to the Bridges website 

where you can learn a bit about Reza Sarhangi and about this year's conference in Finland. 

 Here is a link to an article by Sarhangi on Persian art -- indeed, it includes a poem. 

 Here is a link to samples of Sarhangi's art.  

Sarhangi was at the time of his death, a professor at Towson University. 

 Here is a link to his informative Towson webpage which I hope the university will keep alive.

MatHEmatics / MatSHEmatics

     Last week at the 2015 BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference in Baltimore I gave a short talk on using poetry to celebrate and inspire math girls and women, to recognize achievements and to encourage speaking out -- and also to encourage staying and building community in what often is now a lonely field.  Through a poem we can open doors that help us to talk about difficult issues -- such as isolation or loneliness or misgivings or discrimination. 
     A time-clock at BRIDGES kept me from saying all that I would have wished --  I would like to have quoted the following lines, spoken by a girl and found in "Hanging Fire" by Caribbean-American poet Audre Lorde (1934-1992).

from   Hanging Fire      by Audre Lorde 

          Nobody even stops to think
          about my side of it
          I should have been on the Math Team
          my marks were better than his . . .