International Day of the Woman -- 03-08-2022

 Celebrate Math-Women with Poems

Throughout the history of mathematics, women have often been excluded or ignored.  This is changing.  I offer below some links to poems that herald math-women -- for you to enjoy and to share as we celebrate tomorrow  --  "International Day of the Woman." 

Celebrate Philippa Fawcett.          Celebrate Sophie Germain.

Celebrate Grace Murray Hopper.       Celebrate Katherine Johnson.

Celebrate Sophia Kovalevsky.          Celebrate Ada Lovelace.  

Celebrate Florence Nightingale.          Celebrate Emmy Noether.

And, as your time permits, browse this blog -- or SEARCH -- to find more . . .

Remembering Eavan Boland, Grace Hopper

     Irish poet Eavan Boland (1944-2020) died last week and news of her death has caused me to look back and remember.  In this year in which the US celebrates 100 years of women's suffrage, I am reminded of this poem in the Irish Times in which Boland celebrated 100 years of Irish women's suffrage, a poem entitled "Our future will become the past of other women."  Here is a brief excerpt from that poem:
                         A hundred years ago a woman’s vote
                         Becoming law became the right
                         Of Irish women. We remember them
                         As we celebrate this freedom.

One of my favorite of Boland's poems is her tribute to another master of language, Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1988) -- Hopper was a computer pioneer and a navy rear admiral.  Here is the opening stanza of Boland's poem:

Learn of MATH WOMEN in POEMS!

 INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE WOMAN

Sunday, March 8, 2020

      Often it is difficult to find time for history in mathematics courses.  One rather concise way that some of us introduce math personalities into the classroom is through poetry.  Today, as part of Women's History Month, I offer links back to a sample of poems in previous postings that celebrate math-women.

Amalie "Emmy" Noether (1882–1935)
     Following stanzas about Noether's life and achievements, the poem ends with these lines:
                    Today, history books proclaim that Noether 
                    is the greatest mathematician
                    her sex has produced. They say she was good
                    for a woman. 

Celebrate Math-Women with Poems!

March is Women's History Month!
March 8 is International Women's Day!

and here in this blog we celebrate math-women with poems!

Herein appear lots of poems featuring women in math and the SEARCH box in the right-column may help you find them. To find a list of useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column.   For example, here is a link to a selection of poems found using the pair of search terms "women  equal."   AND, here are links to several poems to get you started:

A poem by Brian McCabe about Sophie Germain;

a poem by Eavan Boland about Grace Murray Hopper;    

a poem by Carol Dorf about Ada Lovelace;

a poem of mine about Sofia Kovalevsky;

a poem of mine about Emmy Noether.

Name five!

     A recent mailing from the National Museum of Women in the Arts offered me this challenge:  name five female artists!  Including friends who are artists made this easy -- but I needed a bit of internet help to list five famous names.  This effort has suggests another challenge: 

 NAME (at least) FIVE FEMALE MATHEMATICIANS ! 

One way to meet math-women is through a variety of poems that celebrate them -- lots of poems about math-women are found in this blog.  The Search and Labels features (in right-hand column of blog) can be useful.  Here are several links to get started:

       A poem by Brian McCabe about Sophie Germain;

              a poem by Eavan Boland about Grace Murray Hopper;    

                     a poem by Carol Dorf about Ada Lovelace;

                            a poem of mine about Sofia Kovalevsky;

                                   a poem of mine about Emmy Noether

And this link leads to a great variety of math-women resources.

A few words in closing:

          14 Syllables

          A hen lays eggs
          one by one;
          the way you
          count life
          is life.

from JoAnne Growney's collection Red Has No Reason (Plain View Press, 2010).

Problems with no solutions

     The syllable-square stanza is a poetic form I often turn to when scientific terminology gives me little hope of matching traditional patterns of rhyme or rhythm -- counting syllables gives discipline and invention to my word choices, and these are for me essential in writing poetry.
     As a grandparent of school-age children  I am deeply worried about the world they are inheriting.  I want it to offer a healthy environment and safety with vast opportunities for women as well as men.  And my own writing often supports these views.   I encourage readers to use the blog SEARCH to find an assortment of poems on a theme -- such as "girl" or "environment" or  . . . For example, here is a link to postings that include the word opportunity.  Scrolling through that list leads to this posting of Eavan Boland's poem, "Code," which honors Grace Murray Hopper.

     And here is my small, worried square:     

          Square worries

          Unless miracles give
          our earth new resources
          that prove unlimited,
          unchecked population
          growth and climate change are
          problems with no solutions.

The mathematician, she . . . .

     Tomorrow, March 8, is the International Day of the Woman -- and I celebrate the day with mixed feelings.  YES, there are many women I want to celebrate. BUT WHY are they not celebrated daily, equally with men? And a more specific concern, WHY, when the word "mathematician" is used, is the person assumed to be a man. (There is, on the other hand, a nice non-gendered neutrality in numbers -- as in this first stanza of "Numbers," by Mary Cornish, found below.)
      In this posting I celebrate Grace Brewster Murray Hopper (1906-1992) -- a mathematician with a doctorate from Yale, a navy admiral, a computer scientist who led in the development of COBOL, an early (c.1959) programming language.  A person I had the good fortune to meet when she visited Bloomsburg University in 1984 to receive an honorary Doctor of Science Degree.  Hopper was imaginative and articulate; here is some poetry found in her words.

                               If it's a 
                               good idea,
                               do it.  

Seeking poems about math-women

In this blog I have previously posted poems that speak of the lives of these math-women:

     Sophie Germain (1776-1831)

     Florence Nightingale  (1820-1910)

     Amalie "Emmy" Noether  (1882-1935)

     Grace Murray Hopper (1906 - 1988)

And also a poem about four influential teachers of mine; three of them math-people; three of them women.

I want more poems about women in mathematics;   
send me yours (or those of others) -- 
write new ones; CELEBRATE women in mathematics:

women who are alive or ones that have passed; 

women of fame or those without; 

women out in front or those in quiet corners -- 

women we want to remember.

Computer code -- is poetry?

Dubliner Eavan Boland is a master poet (and one of my favorites); Ireland shares her with the creative writing program at Stanford University.  In Against Love Poetry (Norton, 2001), we find Boland's tribute to the also-amazing master of language, Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1988).

                     Code          by Eavan Boland

             An Ode to Grace Murray Hopper  1906-88

    maker of a computer compiler and verifier of COBOL 

   Poet to poet.  I imagine you

     at the edge of language, at the start of summer

       in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, writing code.

         You have no sense of time.  No sense of minutes even.

           They cannot reach inside your world,

             your gray work station

               with when yet now never and once.

                 You have missed the other seven.

                   This is the eight day of Creation.