Include Arts in STEM -- and have STEAM !

Welcome to this blog where we support STEAM !

Visit YouTube for

 math-student, performance-poet Harry Baker's 

"A love poem for lonely prime numbers"

A bit more about Harry Baker can be found in this May 23, 2014 posting. 
In May 2015 visit Takoma Park Community Center Galleries for a STEAM exhibit organized by visual artist and poetry-lover Shanthi Chandrasekar.

Angles in Alaska

Last Thursday evening I was honored to read in Takoma Park's Third Thursday poetry series -- along with poets Judy Neri and Kathleen O'Toole -- and my reading focused on poems of my times in Alaska.  The brilliant geometry of  our 49th state affected me strongly and "Angles of Light" became the title poem for a chapbook I published with Finishing Line Press in 2009.  Here is section 3 (of 7) from that poem.

Topology for poets

     The title of this posting ("Topology for Poets") comes from Maryland Poet Amy Eisner's poem "Lure" (offered below) -- a poem that plays with math concepts.  (In mathematics, "topology" is a variant of geometry in two shapes are "equivalent" if one could be obtained from the other by stretching or bending.)   
     It was my pleasure to meet Amy when she read in the Takoma Park Third Thursday Poetry Series earlier this year.   I like her work.  Enjoy!

Lure    by Amy Eisner

1.

My friend is crocheting a fishing line. This is not a gift and keeps no one warm.
This is withdrawing. Persisting in a flaw. Forfending.

She knows there’s something perverse in it. Like growing a mold garden.
Fishing does involve a hook, a line, and a net. But not like this.

Odd numbers are common

A few weeks ago, on Thursday January 17, Chicago poet Virginia Bell was one of the very fine poets who participated (along with me) at a reading in Takoma Park.  Bell (a former TP resident) paid tribute that evening to Anne Becker, one of her teachers, who also read -- and beautifully -- that evening.  (Many thanks are owed to Sara Daines and poet Martin FitzPatrick  who organize these monthly readings.) Although Bell did not read any mathy poems at the TP reading, I found this one in her new collection:

Odd Numbers     by Virginia Bell

A Baker's Dozen -- in Takoma Park

This evening I had the privilege of being part of a poetry reading at the Takoma Park Community Center  -- one of four featured poets, I was the "mathematical" one and read several poems that involved counting -- counting in their subject matter or in their structural design.  Here is a villanelle that I composed for the occasion.

A Baker’s Dozen     by JoAnne Growney

Counting likes to start with number one.
A luscious mate to pair with one makes two –-
and three can be a triangle of fun.