Light and laws, letters and numbers

     We viewers of the world see it through a variety of lenses -- for some of us music shapes our view, for others it is color, for others history; still others see through a lens of mathematics  -- perhaps geometry, or number, or randomization or . . .
     The Greek Nobelist (1979), poet, and essayist Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996) was once nicknamed "the sun-drinking poet" for views seen in The Axion Este / Worthy It Is.   A sample from this collection, "They Came," is offered below -- this poem is not only rich in the imagery of light but also pays tribute to geometry and numbers.   

Tribute to four teachers

Many people offer advice about education--and, in particular, about mathematics education.  I'm skeptical of general pronouncements because my encounters with learning (as student or teacher or parent) have been singular:  one mind meeting another mind for a period of exchange.  Here's a poem that recalls four of my teachers, three of them teachers of mathematics. 

Ideal Geometry -- complex politics

Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was an American poet, novelist, and publisher who was the son of a poet and musician (Lilian Janet Bird) and a mathematics professor (Frank Morley) at Haverford College. His "Sonnet by a Geometer," below, is written in the voice of a circle and compares mathematical perfection with human imperfection.  For us who read the poem 90 years after its writing, Morley's phrase in line 13 -- "They talk of 14 points" -- is puzzling at first.