A few words in closing:
14 Syllables
A hen lays eggs
one by one;
the way you
count life
is life.
Mathematical language can heighten the imagery of a poem; mathematical structure can deepen its effect. Feast here on an international menu of poems made rich by mathematical ingredients . . . . . . . gathered by JoAnne Growney. To receive email notifications of new postings, contact JoAnne at joannegrowney@gmail.com.
In a summer email from math-poet-editor Carol Dorf, I first enjoyed "If a Garden of Numbers" -- a mingling of numbers with the natural world -- by California poet Cole Swensen. I offer its opening lines below followed by a link to the complete poem.
If a Garden of Numbers by Cole Swenson
If a garden is the world counted
and found analogue in nature
One does not become two by ever ending
so the stairs must be uneven in number
The online, open-access Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM) publishes new issues twice each year -- and the first issue for 2022 is now available and is rich with math-poetry offerings. One of the fun items is a folder of Fibs, featuring contributions (with email contact information) from:
Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya, Gerd Asta Bones, Robin Chapman,
Marian Christie, Marion Deutsche Cohen, Stephen Day,
Carol Dorf, Susan Gerofsky, Sarah Glaz,
David Greenslade, Emily Grosholz, JoAnne Growney,
Kate Jones, Gizem Karaali, Lisa Lajeunesse,
Cindy Lawrence, Larry Lesser, Alice Major,
Kaz Maslanka, Dan May, Bjoern Muetzel,
Mike Naylor, Doug Norton, Eveline Pye,
Jacob Richardson, S. Brackett Robertson,
Stephanie Strickland, Susana Sulic,
Connie Tettenborn, Racheli Yovel.
And the current JHM issue contains five more poems -- thoughtful and thought-provoking: "What's So Great About Non-Orientable Manifolds?" by Michael McCormick, "Wrong Way" by Joseph Chaney, "The Solipsist’s First Paper" by Sabrina Sixta, "Heuristic or Stochastic?" by E Laura Golberg, and "So Long My Friend" by Bryan McNair.
In closing, I offer here a sample from the folder of Fibs, this one written by Gizem Karaali, one of the editors of JHM.
Where does math come from?
If
You
Want to
Do some math,
Dive into the depths
Of your mind, climb heights of your soul.
Thank you, Gizem Karaali, for your work in humanizing mathematics!
Last weekend, April 6-9, was a virtual national jmm - Joint Mathematics Meetings -- and I attended a number of sessions that explored links between the focused languages of mathematics and poetry. Presenters that I was privileged to hear included Carol Dorf, Sarah Glaz, Gizem Karaali, and Dan May. Math guy Douglas Norton of Villanova University organized contributed-paper session on "Mathematics and the Arts" and also hosted a Friday-evening poetry reading -- an event in which much of the action was writing and sharing Fibs (6-line poems with syllable count being the first six Fibonacci numbers). Here are several samples:
From Doug Norton: From Dan May:
Me? Pet
Write? me
A Fib? Or I
Not a fib. will bite you.
Put my heart in it. Nighttime is here, time
Let’s just see what comes bleeding out. to burn off all that hay I ate.
From David Reimann: From Gizem Karaali:
Joint one
Math golde
Meetings dragon
Zoom with friends metallic,
poetry alive majestic creature --
breathing words across many miles . . . not sure I want to meet one now
TalkingWriting is an online journal that's celebrating its 10th birthday -- TEN YEARS of including mathematics in its mix of poetry. This mathy connection has grown strong through the poetry editorship of Carol Dorf, poet and retired math teacher. In this anniversary issue, poems are paired with works of visual art and the effect is stunning; from it, I offer below samples of poems by Amy Uyematsu and by me.
Amy Uyematsu's poem "Lunes During This Pandemic" thoughtfully applies
the counting structure of the "lune" (aka "American Haiku") with
three-line stanzas of 3/5/3 words per line.
The Annual BRIDGES Math-Art
Conference will be virtual again this year (August 2-6, 2021) and
mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz has developed an online array of poets and
poetry to be part of this program. Bios and sample poems are already available here.
Participating poets include: Marian Christie, Carol Dorf, Susan Gerofsky. David Greenslade, Emily Grosholz, JoAnne Growney, Lisa Lajeunesse, Marco Lucchesi, Mike Naylor, Osmo Pekonen, Tom Petsinis, Eveline Pye, Any Uyematsu, Ursula Whitcher -- and, also, these open-mike participants: Susana Sulic, S. Brackert Robertson, Stephen Wren, Marion Deutsche Cohen, Connie Tetteborn, Jacob Richardson, Robin Chapman. Stephanie Strickland. (Bios and sample poems here.)
Here is a sample from the BRIDGES poetry program:
Descartes by Eeva-Liisa Manner
translated from the Finnish by Osmo Pekonen
I thought, but I wasn't.
I said animals were machines.
I had lost everything but my reason.
Today,
March 8, is International Day of the Woman for 2021. I continue to
consider the challenge that I heard offered lots of years ago concerning
women in the art world, Name FIVE.
Each of us who cares about mathematics should be able to name at least five
women who made important contributions to the field. A wonderful
resource is this website "Biographies of Women Mathematicians" -- maintained by Larry Riddle of Agnes Scott College that tells of the important lives of math women.
Here are a few lines that from a poem I wrote that celebrates algebraist Amalie "Emmy Noether" (1882-1935); read more here.
Emmy Noether's abstract axiomatic view
changed the face of algebra.
She helped us think in simple terms
that flowered in their generality.