Let's solve this subtraction problem:
Women do the job
minus the recognition.
____________________________
The "found poem" above is from a headline for an article by Petula Dvorak in the Washington Post on 21 August 2015. Dvorak's full headline was a bit longer, "Women do the job minus the training and recognition." (Indeed Dvorak's article portrays the military as an even more difficult environment for women than the STEM fields.)
Also found in the Post (this past weekend) an enthusiastic review by Marcia Bartusiak of Eileen Pollack's The Only Woman In the Room: Why Science Is Still a Boys' Club. Another problem to solve!!!
Showing posts with label found poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label found poem. Show all posts
Monday, September 28, 2015
Monday, August 31, 2015
The answer is NO
This past weekend I have much enjoyed reading Mathematics: a novel by Jacques Roubaud (Dalkey Archive Press, reprint 2010, translated from the French by Ian Monk); Roubaud is a mathematician, poet, and member of the OULIPO. And here is a found poem from Chapter 1:
.
A
question
posed to a
lively colleague:
do you tell your
dancing partners
that you practice
mathematics?
For me, like so many of us -- females especially -- revelation of a connection to mathematics leads to an awkward moment, an impediment to a possible relationship. And so we say things like "I am at the university" or "I am doing some writing" or . . .
.
A
question
posed to a
lively colleague:
do you tell your
dancing partners
that you practice
mathematics?
For me, like so many of us -- females especially -- revelation of a connection to mathematics leads to an awkward moment, an impediment to a possible relationship. And so we say things like "I am at the university" or "I am doing some writing" or . . .
Labels:
colleague,
found poem,
Ian Monk,
Jacques Roubaud,
mathematics,
Oulipo
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
Sex, Maths, and the Brain
I found this poetry in an abstract (with a link posted at "Women in Maths" on Facebook) for a lecture by Professor Gina Rippon entitled "Sex, Maths, and the Brain" at Aston University in Birmingham, England, on 30 June 2015. Enjoy!
Is there such a thing as a maths
brain? Are mathematicians born
or made? Is the lack of girls
in maths subjects
a 'brain' problem?
Is there such a thing as a maths
brain? Are mathematicians born
or made? Is the lack of girls
in maths subjects
a 'brain' problem?
Labels:
biological,
brain,
consequences,
found poem,
Gina Rippon,
girls,
mathematician,
mathematics,
maths,
sex,
social,
woman
Monday, June 29, 2015
Celebrating angles and rainbows . . .
C
E
L
E
B
M A R R I A G E
A A
T Y
E
And let me add a bit of mathematics -- for my friends (both gay and straight) who love to play with language:
A recent New Yorker article ("Go Ask Alice" by Anthony Lane, 6-8-15,48-54)
on Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) offered this quote -- this "found" poem:
Obtuse anger
is that which is greater
than right anger.
This year, 2015, marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Labels:
Alice in Wonderland,
Anthony Lane,
found poem,
Lewis Carroll,
mathematics,
New Yorker,
obtuse,
right
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Found poetry -- Mary Cartwright
Recently I have been reading about mathematician Mary Cartwright (1900-1998) and working to develop a poem about her -- relying on a fine article/interview by my friend Jim Tattersall published in the The College Mathematics Journal (September 2001). Her work on the foundations of chaos theory was prominently presented in a 2013 BBC News article. A couple of days ago my acquisition of Rachel Swaby's book -- Headstrong Women: 52 Women Who Changed Science and the World (Broadway Books, 2015) -- added to my information about Cartwright. Here, from quotations offered by Tattersall and Swaby, are some of Cartwright's poetic words (reflecting on the ages and genders of mathematicians). First, speaking of her employment at Cambridge:
I regret to say that my impression
when I began research was that, in general,
less qualified men were employed quite a lot,
which eliminated some quite good women.
I regret to say that my impression
when I began research was that, in general,
less qualified men were employed quite a lot,
which eliminated some quite good women.
Labels:
change,
found poem,
James Tattersall,
learning,
Mary Cartwright,
mathematics,
Rachel Swaby,
women
Friday, June 7, 2013
A Man-Made Universe and "found" poems
Some poems are found rather than crafted.
It's such fun -- can happen to anyone --
to be reading along and find a poem.
It's such fun -- can happen to anyone --
to be reading along and find a poem.
This post continues (from the June 4 posting) consideration of lines that were not initially written as poetry but have been later discovered to have the desirable characteristics of a poem.
In an early-April posting I offered a poem-in-a-photo, a poem created of book spines -- and the bottom book in my pile of six is Mathematics, the Man-Made Universe: an Introduction to the Spirit of Mathematics by Sherman K Stein (Third Edition, Freeman, 1976). Reprinted in 2010 in paperback format, Stein's textbook -- for a "general reader," a curious person who is not a mathematician -- has been on my shelf for many years and, though I never taught from it, I have enjoyed it and shared it with friends (and I love its title). Recently, in the opening paragraph of Stein's Chapter 19 (page 471), I found a poem:
Labels:
answers,
Descartes,
fire,
found poem,
Greg Coxson,
Jorge Luis Borges,
mathematician,
mathematics,
questions,
river,
Sherman Stein,
tiger,
time,
universe
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
A poem from an airline call center
Poet Laura LeHew offers us "The New Math"-- a "found" poem that features conversations and calculations from call center negotiations to reschedule an airline flight -- posted in April, 2011 by the nonprofit literary arts collective [PANK].
LeHew's poem starts out like this:
The New Math by Laura LeHew
a found poem
Credit for the call center in India
to change your flight to the wrong day,
again
LeHew's poem starts out like this:
The New Math by Laura LeHew
a found poem
Credit for the call center in India
to change your flight to the wrong day,
again
($350.00) USD
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Found in Flatland
Over the years I have shared with friends and students my copy of Edwin Abbott's Flatland (first published in England in 1884) and, alas, not all of these other readers have matched my level of excitement with the small volume. Even though the book's Victorian attitudes are mostly at odds with my own views, still the tiny book opened me to possibilities of new ways of seeing. Since observing the Flatlanders stuck in two dimensions from my advantageous three-dimensional position, I have wondered how I can now make the leap from three to four or more dimensions.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Celebrate Martin Gardner (1914-2010)
Martin Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:
π goes on and on
And e is just as cursed
I wonder, how does π begin
When its digits are reversed?
π goes on and on
And e is just as cursed
I wonder, how does π begin
When its digits are reversed?
Labels:
accidental,
Brian Agran,
e,
found poem,
J A Lindon,
Martin Gardner,
mathematical games,
palindrome,
pi,
Scientific American,
verse,
wordplay
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