Links to non-intersecting celebrations of April
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
as National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month
Recently I revisited my copy of Elizabeth Bishop: The Compete Poems, 1927-1979 (FSG, 1999) and turned to "The Monument" -- a poem mathematically interesting for its geometry. Here are the opening lines; the complete text and many other Bishop poems are available online here:
from The Monument by Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)
Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.