Creating New Poems by Sampling Old Ones

      In its collection of Math Voices the American Mathematical Society (AMS) has a very interesting Feature Column -- a column written for students, teachers, and the general public -- that offers essays about math that it describes as "useful, fun, inspiring, or startling."  When browsing the column recently I found and enjoyed a column by Sara Stoudt of Bucknell University entitled "Sampled Poems Contain Multitudes" -- an article that gives readers an opportunity to experience Walt Whitman's poem, "Song of Myself" (a book-length poem with a total of 52 poem-sections, found here at the Poetry Foundation website) via a poem with a sample line for each section,  Here are the opening lines:

From Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself":

All truths wait in all things . . .

       Tomorrow, May 31, is the 130th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman.  Below I include a few Whitman lines (with the mathy terms "logic" and "proves") that offer food for thought.

The rest of this poem and lots more by Whitman are found here at poets.org.

 Whitman's complete Song of Myself (52 poems) is available at this link.

A SEARCH using Whitman will lead to more of his work in in this blog.

Celebrating Walt Whitman . . .

     Last Friday -- May 31, 2019 -- was the 200th anniversary of the birth of American poet, Walt Whitman and the website of the Academy of American Poets offers poems by Whitman and background information to enrich our celebration.  Here, from his oft-revised-and-expanded Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics, 1960), is a poem -- "When I heard the learn'd astronomer" -- with mention of mathematics.  (Much of Whitman's work is available online here at Project Gutenberg.)

     WHEN I heard the learn'd astronomer
     When the proofs, the figures, were ranged before me,
     When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, 
               and measure them,

Poetry sometimes OPPOSES mathematics!

     One of the finest historians of mathematics is Judith V. Grabiner, professor emerita of Pitzer College;  here is a link to one of her thoughtful and widely informative articles, "The Centrality of Mathematics in the History of Western Thought," (originally published in Mathematics Magazine, 1988).
     Toward the end of this article is a section with the header "Opposition."  It opens with this statement:
          The best proof of the centrality of mathematics is that 
               every example of its influence given so far 
               has provoked strong and significant opposition.
Grabiner includes the voices of poets among the resisters.  She mentions Walt Whitman becoming "tired and sick" and leaving to look at the stars in "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" and quotes stanza from William Wordsworth's "The Tables Turned."   Wordsworth's condemnation of learning as an opponent to nature ends with these stanzas:  

Remembering Abraham Lincoln

Today -- April 14, 2015 -- marks the 150th birthday of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) and April 15 is the date on which he died. Lincoln loved poetry and trained his reasoning with Euclid's geometry.  Here is a brief sample of his own poetry (found -- along with other samples -- at PoetryFoundation.org).

       Abraham Lincoln     by Abraham Lincoln

       Abraham Lincoln
       his hand and pen
       he will be good but
       god knows When

From my copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (Signet Classics, 1955), from the section "Memories of Lincoln," I have copied these well-known and thoughtful (and non-mathematical) lines:

America, land of equals (perhaps)

Preparing to celebrate (after Valentine's Day) Presidents' Day, remembering particularly George Washington (b February 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (b February 12,1809), I offer a few lines by Walt Whitman (1819-1892).

       America     by Walt Whitman

       Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
       All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
       Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
       Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
       A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
       Chair'd in the adamant of Time.        [1888]

This poem is found here in the Walt Whitman Archive.