Surreal parabola, Mobius strip

     When a math term appears in a poem, will its usage make sense to a mathematician? Some mathematical folks are critical of poetic use of math words because precision may be lost to "poetic license." Others feel a pleasing tension between the mathness of a term and the stretched or layered meanings suggested by the poem. With these thoughts in mind, consider these two mathematically-titled poems "Mobius Strip" and "Parabola" by Robert Desnos (France, 1900-1945), translated by Amy Levin and selected from "A sampling of French surrealist poetry."

     Mobius Strip     by Robert Desnos (trans. Amy Levin)

     The track I'm running on
     Won't be the same when I turn back
     It's useless to follow it straight
     I'll return to another place

Our curve is a parabola

Found in the essay, "Intellect" (1841) --  these words by 19th century American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882):

     When we are young, we spend much time and pains
     in filling our note-books with all definitions
     of Religion, Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, 
     in the hope that, in the course of a few years,
     we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia
     the net value of all the theories
     at which the world has yet arrived.
   
     But year after year our tables get no
     completeness, and at last we discover
     that our curve is a parabola,
     whose arcs will never meet.    

Of all geometries, feathery is best . . .

The title for this post comes from Twinzilla (The Word Works, 2014), by Charleston poet Barbara Hagerty.  The title character of this collection is one of several poetic personalities that inhabit Hagerty's verse, and she offers a playful view of life's dualities -- sometimes versed in mathematical terminology.  Here's a sample.  

     Twinzilla Cautions *     by Barbara G. S. Hagerty

     Do not accept packages from unknown persons.
     Beware non-native strangers who may be concealing
     hazardous contraband "down there."
     Question algebra.  Dismantle thoughts traveling
     the brain's baggage carousel in parabolas.

Baseball, math, and poetry

The end of summer approaches and, with it, the end of the baseball season.  This blog celebrated the triplet (baseball, mathematics, poetry) on 9 April 2010, featuring samples from and links to poems by Marianne Moore and Jerry Wemple. Today we herald the same trio, this time with "Night Game" by Jonathan Holden.

Sense and Nonsense

     Nonsense verse has a prominent place in the poetry that mathematicians enjoy. Perhaps this is so because mathematical discovery itself has a playful aspect--playing, as it were, with non-sense in an effort to tease the sense out of it.      Lewis Carroll, author of  both mathematics and literature, often has his characters offer speeches that are a clever mix of sense and nonsense. For example, we have these two stanzas from "Fit the Fifth" of The Hunting of the Snark, the words of the Butcher, explaining to the Beaver why 2 + 1 = 3.