Here I link to an article by David Alpaugh, "The New Math of Poetry," -- not brand-new, for it bears a date of February, 2010 , but I found it only recently and have been thinking about its description of the seemingly unrestrained quantity of poetry expected to be published on the Internet. What happens to poetry if each of us calls what she writes "poems" and publishes them online, making them as available as the lines penned by a Poet Laureate?
Most of what I feel about proliferation of poetry is excitement. I love the democracy that lets all of us participate in poetry just as we all may run races, perhaps even taking a trophy in our neighborhood's turkey-day mile; we do not pretend excellence but, simply, it is fun and good for us. All of us who choose it can enjoy writing poems -- and experimentation with new forms -- and, from time to time, some surprising and splendid work will emerge.
Showing posts with label precision. Show all posts
Showing posts with label precision. Show all posts
Sunday, September 30, 2012
The best of the many
Labels:
math,
Mississippi,
Natasha Trethewey,
number,
Poet Laureate,
poetry,
precision,
space,
theories,
time
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
More statistics -- from Hiawatha
As the author of this poem owes a debt to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I too owe Greg Coxson -- who showed the poem to me.
Hiawatha Designs an Experiment by Maurice Kendall
Hiawatha Designs an Experiment by Maurice Kendall
Hiawatha, mighty hunter
He could shoot ten arrows upwards
Shoot them with such strength and swiftness
That the last had left the bowstring
Ere the first to earth descended.
This was commonly regarded
As a feat of skill and cunning.
Labels:
American Statistician,
average,
bias,
error,
estimate,
Greg Coxson,
Hiawatha,
Maurice Kendall,
measure,
poetry,
precision,
sample,
statistics,
variance
Monday, October 25, 2010
Writing poetry like mathematics
In an article about the Chilean mathematician and poet Nicanor Parra, Paul M Pearson says, : "Parra almost wrote poetry like he would a mathematical theorem using an extreme 'economy of language' with 'no metaphors, no literary figures.' " Today I present work by Nicanor Parra and Richard Aston, both of whom write their poetry with the same economy and care that are used when writing mathematics.
Labels:
arithmetic mean,
economy,
mathematician,
mathematics,
Nicanor Parra,
nothing,
plane,
poet,
poetry,
power,
precision,
Richard Aston,
Sisyphus,
whole,
zero
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Grasping at TIME
Different persons experience time differently -- as illustrated by the few lines included below (part II of "Time" from my new collection, Red Has No Reason). This musing is followed by the beautifully precise "Four Quartz Crystal Clocks" by Marianne Moore (1887-1972).
Labels:
accuracy,
clock,
four,
JoAnne Growney,
Marianne Moore,
mathematics,
poetry,
precision,
quartz,
Red Has No Reason,
syllabic verse,
time
Thursday, August 19, 2010
From Miroslav Holub -- a reflection on accuracy
In applications of mathematics, as in other scientific research, it is important to distinguish between the precision of measurements (how closely they agree with each other) and their accuracy (how closely measured values agree with the correct value). One of my favorite poets, Miroslav Holub (1923-98), also a research scientist (immunologist), has captured this dilemma with irony in his "Brief Reflection on Accuracy," translated from Czech by Ewald Osers.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
John Donne's numbers
Perhaps best known for the religious themes in his poetry, John Donne (1572-1631) also wrote many love poems. Although the mathematics here includes only numbers, they are well-used to strengthen both the intensity and the precision of the work.
The Primrose by John Donne
The Primrose by John Donne
Labels:
A K Peters,
John Donne,
love poem,
number,
precision,
Strange Attractors
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Howard Nemerov's mathematical imagery
GETTING IT RIGHT IN LANGUAGE -- Poets and mathematicians alike are concerned with precise statement. Two-time US Poet Laureate Howard Nemerov (1920-1991) characterized poetry in a way that many mathematicians would likewise characterize their subject: POETRY is getting something right in language. Nemerov often used mathematical imagery in his poems. Here is a sample.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)