This final section of "Six Significant Landscapes," by attorney and insurance executive (and poet) Wallace Stevens (1879-1955), playfully explores the limitations of rigid thinking.
Showing posts with label square. Show all posts
Showing posts with label square. Show all posts
Friday, May 13, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Permuting words and and enumerating poems
Caleb Emmons teaches mathematics at Pacific University. Here is his very-clever description of the requirements for a poem to be a sestina -- spelled out in a poem that is itself a sestina. (A sestina has 39 lines and its form depends on 6 words -- arrangements of which are the end-words of 6 6-line stanzas; these same words also appear, 2 per line, in the final 3-line stanza.)
Labels:
Caleb Emmons,
enumerator,
mathematics,
poem,
poetry,
sestina,
square
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Earth Day, 2011
My father, a farmer, was respectful of our earth's resources. Replenish what you take, he taught. But some of us consume without replacement as if the earth is infinite in its capacities.
When growth is exponential, we may not see its consequences before it is too late. (Have we already destroyed the balances of nature?) The following 8 x 8 syllable-square poem restates a oft-used math-textbook question -- and reminds us that little time may be left to solve environmental problems.
When growth is exponential, we may not see its consequences before it is too late. (Have we already destroyed the balances of nature?) The following 8 x 8 syllable-square poem restates a oft-used math-textbook question -- and reminds us that little time may be left to solve environmental problems.
Labels:
Earth day,
environment,
exponential growth,
JoAnne Growney,
mathematics,
poem,
poetry,
square
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
9 9-square stanzas
In the current (March 21, 2011) issue of The New Yorker (pages 46-47) may be found the poem "Green Farmhouse Chairs" by Donald Hall. Hall's fine nostalgic poem consists of 9 stanzas; each stanza is "square" -- and has 9 lines with 9 syllables per line. Enjoy!
Labels:
Donald Hall,
mathematics,
poetry,
square,
The New Yorker
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
How much math does a math-poem need?
Poems offered in this blog vary in the levels of mathematics they contain. One mathematical reader commented privately that in some of the poems the use of mathematical terms is "purely decorative." Indeed, some people have particular expectations for poetry that relates to mathematics -- they want the content to use mathematical notation or to present a mathematical truth. Such as, perhaps, this abbreviated statement of the four-color theorem (formulated as a 4x4 square):
Labels:
curve,
diagonal,
four-color theorem,
John Vieira,
map,
mathematical,
mathematics,
poetry,
square,
Strange Attractors,
tallies,
vector
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sonnet for a geometry teacher
Wisconsin poet Ronald Wallace has fun with math-words in the following sonnet that celebrates a teacher of plane geometry.
Labels:
ellipse,
geometry,
infinity,
intersect,
mathematics,
poetry,
Ronald Wallace,
square,
trapezoid
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Mathematics and race
Sherman Alexie is a Spokane / Coeur d’Alene Indian from Wellpinit, Washington. Besides several collections of poetry, Alexie has published novels and short-stories; he wrote the screen-play for the 1998 film, Smoke Signals. Here, in verse, he deals with the mathematics of racial identity:
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Where are the Women?
Here is a small square poem about a paradox that's been on my mind recently.
Little Women
In school, many
gifted math girls.
Later, so few
famed math women!
Little Women
In school, many
gifted math girls.
Later, so few
famed math women!
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
A Square for the Season
Now, near the Solstice,
we turn on bright lights
and give gifts. Oh, Sun,
please shorten our nights
with your quick return.
Season's Greetings
to mathematicians, to poets, and to all who inspire them--
from JoAnne Growney.
we turn on bright lights
and give gifts. Oh, Sun,
please shorten our nights
with your quick return.
Season's Greetings
to mathematicians, to poets, and to all who inspire them--
from JoAnne Growney.
Labels:
JoAnne Growney,
mathematician,
mathematics,
poem,
poet,
poetry,
solstice,
square
Monday, December 20, 2010
"M" is for Mathematics and . . .
Today's poem by Miroslav Holub (1923-98) is square, having 5 lines of 5 letters each; it describes the letter M by using what is "not M" -- a style of reasoning often used to good effect in both poetry and mathematics.
Labels:
complement,
mathematics,
Miroslav Holub,
poetry,
square,
square poem
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
New poems from old -- by substitution
Poet Lee Ann Brown was the featured poet at the November, 2010 Conference on Constrained Poetry at UNC Ashville; this conference celebrated the 50th anniversary of the founding of Oulipo. In a poetry sampler archived from the Boston Review, we find "Pledge" (see below) and other samples of Brown's work. Recordings are available at Penn Sound.
Labels:
constrained poetry,
constraint,
Lee Ann Brown,
mathematics,
N+7,
Oulipo,
poetry,
square,
substitution,
Wallace Stevens
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
A square riddle -- by Sylvia Plath
Metaphors by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)
I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
This 9 x 9 square first appeared in Crossing the Water (Faber and Faber, 1971).
I'm a riddle in nine syllables,
An elephant, a ponderous house,
A melon strolling on two tendrils.
O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers!
This loaf's big with its yeasty rising.
Money's new minted in this fat purse.
I'm a means, a stage, a cow in calf.
I've eaten a bag of green apples,
Boarded the train there's no getting off.
This 9 x 9 square first appeared in Crossing the Water (Faber and Faber, 1971).
Friday, November 19, 2010
Syllable-Sestina -- a square permutation poem
Some poetry is "free verse" but many poems are crafted by following some sort of form or constraint--they might be sonnets or ballads or pantoums or squares, or possibly even a newly invented form. From poet Tiel Aisha Ansari I learned of a "syllable sestina challenge" from Wag's Revue. The desired poem contains six lines and only six syllables, which are repeated using the following permutation-pattern (the same pattern followed by the end-words in the stanzas of a sestina):
Labels:
constraint,
free verse,
mathematics,
permutation,
poem,
poetry,
sestina,
square,
syllable-sestina,
Tiel Aisha Ansari,
Wag's Review
Monday, November 15, 2010
Special square stanzas
My recent posting (November 14) of a symmetric stanza by Lewis Carroll illustrates one variety of "square" poem -- in which the number of words per line is the same as the number of lines. My own square poems (for examples, see October 7 or June 9) are syllable-squares; that is, each stanza has the same number of syllables per line as there are lines. Lisa McCool's poem below is, like Carroll's, a word-square; in McCool's poem -- in addition to the 6x6 shape -- the first words of each line, when read down, match the first line of the poem, and the last words of each line, when read down, match the last line of the poem.
Labels:
Lewis Carroll,
Lisa McCool,
Marian Dunn,
square,
symmetric
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Continuing Climate Concerns
Split This Rock, an activist confederation of poets concerned with vital human issues, has directed attention to environmental concerns by publishing my "Mitigation of Toxins" as their poem of the week for this final week in October; please follow the link and enjoy this poem and others their archive offers. ("Mitigation of Toxins" first appeared in Innisfree and also is included in my new collection, Red Has No Reason .)
In continued support of climate concerns--which seem to me often to fit a square-poem format -- here is "Arctic," a 5x5 square by poet Linda Benninghoff, author of six chapbook collections.
In continued support of climate concerns--which seem to me often to fit a square-poem format -- here is "Arctic," a 5x5 square by poet Linda Benninghoff, author of six chapbook collections.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
A Lemma by Constance Reid
Constance Reid (1918-2010), died on October 14. Sister of a mathematician (Julia Robinson), Reid wrote first about life in World War II factories that supported the war effort and then, later, several biographies (including one of her sister) and other books about mathematics. Kenneth Rexroth's poem "A Lemma by Constance Reid" (offered below) is based on material appearing in Reid's popular book From Zero to Infinity: What Makes Numbers Interesting (Thomas Y Crowell, 1955). Reid is known for the enthusiasm and clarity with which she presented mathematical ideas--seeking to attract and to satisfy non-mathematical readers.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Voices in a Geometry Classroom
I have been invited to return next week (October 20 at 7 PM) to Bloomsburg University, where I taught mathematics for lots of years, for a poetry reading. Preparation for the reading (which celebrates my new book, Red Has No Reason) drew my thinking back to my teaching days at Bloom and to "Geometry Demonstration," a poem about the arguments in my head as I faced a particularly challenging class of geometry students. Here it is.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Squares of Climate Concern
The square (with as many lines as syllables per line) is a poetry-form that has existed for centuries and is now enjoying a revival. Here are three small squares that come from my concerns for the precarious imbalances we humans have created within our natural environment.
There is no
place to throw
that's away.
There is no
place to throw
that's away.
Labels:
environment,
iceberg,
JoAnne Growney,
mathematics,
metaphor,
square,
square poem
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Word Play with the Hypotenuse
Here we have a playful treatment of the language of the Pythagorean Theorem in "Talking Big" by John Bricuth.
Labels:
big,
energy,
hypotenuse,
infinity,
John Bricuth,
Pythagorean Theorem,
square,
squared,
wordplay
Thursday, July 29, 2010
A wedding song -- shaped by mathematics
This posting includes a stanza from of "A Wedding on Earth" by Annie Finch. In the poet's words: the poem has 11 stanzas with 11 lines for a total of 121 lines, this number symbolizing the two single members of a pair joining into a 2, which is the prevailing theme of the poem; and each stanza combining [averaging] the stanza of Spenser's epithalamion (18 lines) with Sappho's stanza (4 lines).
Labels:
angle,
Annie Finch,
balanced,
circling,
geometry,
intersection,
line,
mathematics,
one,
pairs,
paradox,
pyramid,
square,
Tupelo Press,
two,
wedding,
Wompo
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