Is a proof the opposite of a poem?

      One of the valuable online sources from the MAA (Mathematical Association of America) is the Math Values blog -- found at this link -- a blog that explores COMMUNICATION, COMMUNITY, INCLUSIVITY, and TEACHING and LEARNING.  Using the SEARCH feature, I entered "poetry" and found this variety of resources -- including mention of the Steven Strogatz Prize for Math Communication -- SHARE YOUR LOVE OF MATH WITH THE WORLD -- a contest for high school students with deadline April 28, 2023.  Entry categories include Art, Audio, Performance, Social Media, Video, and Writing.  Guidelines are available here.

     Back in June, 2021 at this link I shared a portion of the poem by Julia Schanen that won in the Writing category that year.  It's second line is the title of this blog posting -- and the complete poem is available here.  A 2022 Strogatz winner was Wyeth Renwick -- and this blog posting features his poem.

     I close with two of my favorite lines of poetry:

        The Secret Sits     by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

               We dance around in a ring and suppose,
               But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Limericks about Graphs -- Prize-Winners

     A couple of weeks ago I posted information about prize-winning poetry in the Writing portion of the 2021 MoMath Steven Strogatz Contest for high school students.  After finding that I began to look for the results of earlier contests.  Apparently 2020 was the first year of these contests and in that year, also, poems were winners -- limericks (with related drawings) by Sarah Thau.  “Limericks and poetry are not a typical way to convey information about math,” admits Thau, “but I think it makes it more palatable than learning functions by rote.  Who doesn’t love a limerick?”

      From her winning collection, entitled "Little Function Limericks," here is a sample of Thau's work:

The entire collection of Thau's limericks is found here.

 

 

Math Communication with Poetry -- Strogatz Prize

Recently I have learned -- through Mo-Math (National Museum of Mathematics) -- of the of the Steven H. Strogatz Prize -- recognizing high school students for outstanding math communication projects.  Winners for the 2021 Contest were announced yesterday -- and information about upcoming contests is available here.

     This year's Strogatz winner in the Writing category was a poem by Julia Schanen, entitled "Math Person."  Below I offer Schanen's opening lines -- and the sample is followed by a link to the full text of her poem -- of mathematics and of the painful isolation that a 10th grade math girl often feels.