Today, a poem in three parts, "Trouble with Numbers" -- from the collection Mathematics and Other Poems by William Wall.
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label numbers. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
Numerology
On her website Deanna Rubin describes herself this way, "I have a degree in Technical Writing and Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University, and my head is full of random numbers." Illustrating this latter claim is her poem, "Numerology":
Labels:
Deanna Rubin,
infinity,
mathematics,
numbers,
numerology,
poetry,
random numbers
Friday, February 18, 2011
Srinivasa Ramanujan
One of the most intriguing tales in the modern history of mathematics involves Indian-born mathematician and genius Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887-1920) who traveled to England to work with G H Hardy (1877-1947). Poet Jonathan Holden, who writes often of matters mathematical, offers this portrait of the Indian prodigy:
Labels:
digits,
G H Hardy,
Jonathan Holden,
mathematics,
numbers,
pi,
poetry,
Ramanujan
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Self-portrait with numbers
Visual poet Geof Huth lives and blogs in Schenectady, NY. In 2010 he turned 50 and early in 2011 he sent me (via snail mail, on smooth white paper) a letter. The letter is a poem; the poem is a celebration of life, a sort of self-portrait, using numbers. Geof gave me permission to post it here.
Labels:
counting,
digit,
Geof Huth,
JoAnne Growney,
meter,
natural number,
numbers,
poem,
poetry,
portrait
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Poetry with base 10
In his collection, Rational Numbers (Truman State, 2000) Harvey Hix presents "Orders of Magnitude" -- a collection of 100 stanzas in which each stanza has ten lines and each line has ten syllables. Beyond this numeric structure is frequent use of mathematical imagery; here are samples (stanzas 42 and 100):
Labels:
curvature,
decimal,
Euclid,
fractions,
Gauss,
H. L. Hix,
mathematics,
numbers,
orders of magnitude,
poetry,
rational,
Strange Attractors,
Truman State
Monday, September 20, 2010
The Magic of Numbers -- Kenneth Koch
I first became acquainted with Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) through his small and hugely valuable paperback of teaching strategies, Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry. Later, searching for poems about trains, I stumbled upon "One Train May Hide Another" -- which I return to again and again for its wise beauty. Today I present, for our reflection, Koch's poem, "The Magic of Numbers." Enjoy.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Snowballs -- growing/shrinking lines
Today's post explores poetic structures called snowballs developed by the Oulipo (see also March 25 posting) and known to many through the writings of Scientific American columnist Martin Gardner (1914-2010). TIME Magazine's issue for January 10, 1977 had an article entitled "Science: Perverbs and Snowballs" that celebrated both Gardner and the inventive structures of the Oulipo. Oulipian Harry Mathews' "Liminal Poem" (to the right) is a snowball (growing and then melting) dedicated to Gardner. The lines in Mathew's poem increase or decrease by one letter from line to line. Below left, a poem by John Newman illustrates the growth-only snowball.
Labels:
Dominique Fitzpatrick-O'Dinn,
Harry Mathews,
John Newman,
Martin Gardner,
numbers,
one,
Oulipo,
snowball,
zero
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Poets who Count
For some poets, counting is part of the language of the poem. For others, counting determines the structure. Here are two poems of the former sort -- "Counting" by British poet Philip Larkin (1922-1985) and "Adding It Up" by New England poet Philip Booth (1925-2007) -- followed by opening stanzas of a poem for which counting is part of both content and structure: "Millennium" by mathematician Peter Cameron .
Labels:
account,
add,
blog,
count,
counting,
measure,
numbers,
one,
Peter Cameron,
Philip Booth,
Philip Larkin,
poetry,
spiral,
ten,
translation,
two
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Digital poetry -- Stephanie Strickland et al
Stephanie Strickland writes with mastery of numbers, as we see in her poem below. But numbers are only the beginning of her work. A director of the Electronic Poetry Association and author of "Born Digital," Strickland is one of the leaders in the development of new types of poems that are constructed using animation and rearrangements and other visual and aural communications made possible by computers and the internet.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Poems starring mathematicians - 3
Today's poems illustrate the satirical humor and rhyme that frequently inhabit poems by mathematicians. (Previous postings of poems about mathematicians include March 23, April 14, and April 15.)
I Even Know of a Mathematician by John L Drost
“I even know of a mathematician who slept with his wife only
on prime-numbered days…” Graham said.
―Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
I Even Know of a Mathematician by John L Drost
“I even know of a mathematician who slept with his wife only
on prime-numbered days…” Graham said.
―Paul Hoffman, The Man Who Loved Only Numbers
Labels:
continua,
decimal,
discrete,
infinities,
irrational,
John Drost,
Keith Allen Daniels,
mathematician,
numbers,
pi,
primes,
Rankine,
Sandburg,
transcendental
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