Shaping sentences with Fibonacci numbers . . .

Counting words . . ..  

     1                One
     1               person
     2               with courage
     3               makes a majority.               Andrew Jackson (updated)

Counting syllables . . .

     1               Life
     1               is
     2               painting
     3               a picture
     5               not doing a sum.                    Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Reservation Mathematics

Both a talented writer and an articulate conveyor of the culture of American Indians, 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.  "Reservation Mathematics"  is from Alexie's poetry collection First Indian on the Moon, (Hanging Loose Press, 1993) and was previously posted in this blog in January 2011.

Reservation Mathematics     by Sherman Alexie

Poetry found in Scrabblegrams

      Poetry is often shaped by constraints -- syllable counts, patterns of rhythm and rhyme, and others -- and a writing constraint that has come to my attention recently is the "Scrabblegram."  I learned of the Scrabblegram in a blog posting by Marian Christie -- it is a collection of words that uses each of the 100 Scrabble-tile (including the pair of blank tiles, identified as needed) exactly once.

     Christie's blog introduced me to the work of David Cohen who -- using the Twitter handle @dc_scrabblegram -- posts a Scrabblegram daily.  Here is a link to Cohen's website.  And here is a mathy Scrabblegram verse that he posted on Twitter on World Maths Day, March 8, 2023.

A Scrabblegram from David Cohen.

Here is a link to another of David Cohen's Scrabblegrams -- this one features PI (and is also offered as a comment to my March 6 posting).        And here is one about the Fibonacci sequence.               

Math-Poetry Contest for Maryland Students

Submission deadline:  November 9, 2018
Winners Announced:  December 12, 2018

Winning Poems Presented:  January 19, 2019

     The American Mathematical Society is conducting a math poetry contest for Maryland students–middle school, high school, and undergraduate students -- as part of the 2019 Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore (Jan. 16-19, Baltimore Convention Center).   The contest is free to enter; information is at this link.  Winning poems will be printed on posters and poets will read them at the meeting as part of Mathemati-Con, a math festival for students.

          Write
          a
          thoughtful
          poem that
          shows ways math is most
          amazing -- a subject we love!

The stanza above is a Fib -- whose lines have syllables counted by the first six Fibonacci numbers.

Words -- and Meanings -- and BRIDGES, 2016

     Tomorrow the 2016 BRIDGES Conference (which celebrates the connections between mathematics and the arts) will open at the University of Jyväskylä in Jyväskylä, Finland.  Helping the conference to celebrate poetry will be Sarah Glaz, who has organized a poetry reading for the afternoon of August 12 and prepared a poetry collection that anthologizes poets who have been BRIDGES participants.   Here is a one of my favorite poems from the collection -- by Maryland poet Deanna Nikaido who, alas (and like me), will not be able to attend the conference.

     Trouble with Word Problems  by Deanna Nikaido

     Once asked to solve the arrival time of two trains
     traveling at different speeds
     toward the same destination—I failed.
     Mathlexia my friend said. 

Poetry in DC -- counting sheep

The Washington, DC area offers a rich diversity of poetry events -- workshops and readings, contests and conferences.  An excellent way to find out what's happening is through the online listing, Beltway Poetry News, maintained by editor and poet Kim Roberts.  One of the very active DC poetry organizations is The Word Works whose board chairperson, Karren Alenier, is also a fine poet. 

Last week I enjoyed one of Karren's readings -- at Café Muse in Friendship Heights Village Center.  On May 7 Karren read from her recent collection, On a Bed of Gardenias:  Jane and Paul Bowles (Kattywompus Press, 2012).  These poems were exciting to hear --  they are part of an opera libretto that Karren is working on -- but not mathematical; thus, I turn back to one of her earlier poems, "Dialectic of the Census Takers," for presentation here. 

Math, Magic, Mystery -- and so few women

Today, April 30, is the final day of Mathematics Awareness Month 2014; this year's theme has been "Mathematics, Magic and Mystery" and it celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of the most interesting men of mathematics; educated as a philosopher, Martin Gardner wrote often about mathematics and sometimes about poetry.  Gardner described his relationship to poetry as that of "occasional versifier" -- he is the author, for example, of:

     π goes on and on
     And e is just as cursed
     I wonder, how does π begin
     When its digits are reversed?   

Mathematical Forms in Poetry . . .

      During recent days, one of my special enjoyments has been finding time to read Marian Christie's blog -- a delightful collection of poetry and poetic musings with frequent connections to mathematics.  Christie's biographical sketch (available here) indicates that she, like me, grew up enjoying both poetry and math.  She became a math teacher and, after her years of teaching ended, she turned her attention to poetry.  Below I present a sample of her mathy poetry, followed by links to several of her postings.

Today, in a season that is approaching summer, I coolly offer Christie's "Midwinter" poem (found here in her blog)  -- a stanza in which the poet uses Pascal's triangle to pattern her words:

a Pascal-triangle poem -- find it and lots of other mathy poems here.

Here, next, are links to several of Christie's math-poetry blog postings.  ENJOY!

Blog history -- title, links for previous posts . . .

      My first posting in this blog was nearly eight years ago (on March 23, 2010).  If, at the time, I had anticipated its duration, I should have made a plan for organizing the posts.  But my ambitions were small.  During the time I was teaching mathematics at Bloomsburg University, I gathered poetry (and various historical materials) for assigned readings to enrich the students' course experiences. After my retirement, I had time to want to share these materials -- others were doing well at making historical material accessible to students but I thought poetry linked to mathematics needed to be shared more.  And so, with my posting of a poem I had written long ago celebrating the mathematical life of Emmy Noether, this blog began.  Particular topics featured often in postings include -- verse that celebrate women, verses that speak out against discrimination, verses that worry about climate change.   

You're invited to:
Scroll through the titles below, browsing to find items of interest
among the more-than-nine-hundred postings since March 2010
OR 
Click on any label -- a list is found in the right-hand column below the author profile 
OR
Enter term(s) in the SEARCH box -- and find all posts containing those terms.

 For example, here is a link to the results of a SEARCH using    math women 

And here is a link to a poem by Brian McCabe that celebrates math-woman Sophie Germain.
This link reaches a poem by Joan Cannon that laments her math-anxiety.
This poem expresses some of my own divided feelings.

                                       2017 Posts

December 2016 (and prior) -- titles, dates of posts

Here are the titles and dates of previous blog postings,

moving backward from the present.

For mathy poems related to a particular mathy topic -- such as women in math or climate or triangle or circle or teacher or . . . -- click on a selected title below or enter the desired term in the SEARCH box in the right-hand column.  For example, here is a link to a selection of poems found using the pair of search terms "women  equal."  For poems about calculus, follow this link.  To find a list of useful search terms, scroll down the right-hand column. 

     Dec 31  Happy New Year! -- Resolve to REWARD WOMEN!
     Dec 27  Celebrate Vera Rubin -- a WOMAN of science!
     Dec 26  Post-Christmas reflections from W. H. Auden
     Dec 19  Numbers for Christmas . . .
     Dec 15  Remembering Thomas Schelling (1921-2016)
     Dec 12  When one isn't enough ... words from a Cuban poet

Is this Fib true?

     Is
     it
     true that
     among folks
     not anchored to math
     by study or career choice, more
     people show delight in being poor at math than good ?

The lines above have syllable counts that follow the first seven Fibonacci numbers: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13.

A Multi-Author Poem Celebrating Math-People

     At the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore last Friday evening, the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (JHM) and SIGMAA-ARTS sponsored a poetry reading.  

Moderated  by Gizem Karaali, the pre-reregistered participants included

 Lawrence M. Lesser, Sarah Glaz, Ben Orlin, Rachel Levy, Luise Kappe,

Brooke C. Johnston, Douglas Norton, Claudia Gary, JoAnne Growney

In addition to poems by participants registered in advance, the event included a "crowd-sourced" poem.  Each person attending was invited to submit two lines of poetry about math-people -- and the pairs of lines were put together into a poem that I offer below.  MANY THANKS to these participants who gave us lines.

Order of contributors (2 lines each): David Reimann, Maru Colbert, Greg Coxson,

 David Flesner, Nancy Johnston, Kate Jones, Hunter Johnston, Debra Bordeau (4 lines), 

Luise Kappe (in German—with translation at end), Margaret Kepner, Thomas Atkinson,  

Brooke Johnston, Andrew Johnston, Ximena Catpillan, Bronna Butler, Courtney Hauf,

 JoAnne Growney, Doug Norton, Sean Owen, Eric Marland

Sending THANK-YOU to all of the authors, 

               I present below our poem, "We Love Mathematics."

We Love Mathematics

Mathematicians are meeting today—
ideas unfold in space, time, and hearts. 
   Math is the language of everyone
   Any part of everything began as a sum.   

Sunflower Swirls

     From Sharon Jones at Connell Co-op College in Manchester, UK, I have learned about National Poetry Day -- an event organised by Forward Arts Foundation and held on the first Thursday of October -- an annual celebration encouraging everyone to make, experience, and share poetry with family and friends.  Today, October 5, I celebrate the day by offering one of Sharon Jones' poems.

Turing's Sunflowers       by Sharon Jones

I am perplexed by mathematics.

The numbers and patterns make no sense to me.

I am transfixed by the yellow blaze of sunflowers.

Like you.

EARTH DAY -- what are ways to preserve our planet?

Save
our
Mother
Earth -- conserve 
our resources, shift 
to non-polluting substances.

As many of you readers know, the poem above is an example of  a FIB -- a six-line poem with syllable-counts matching the first six Fibonacci numbers,  When I sit down to write about a particular topic, I often find the the FIB format is a good way to start -- developing an idea starting with single words and gradually developing longer phrases.   And, today, outside of this blog, I am trying to learn more about earth friendly substances.

If you have time to be interested in more mathy and earth-friendly poems, this link leads to the results of a blog search for climate change and this second link leads to previous Earth Day blog postings.

 This link leads to postings -- and poems -- in this blog related to CLIMATE.

And here is a link to several previous EARTH DAY postings..

Math-Poetry at JMM in Denver --January 2020

Deadline, November 12 -- Math-Poetry Contest for Colorado students

More details here in this blog-posting and 
here at the American Mathematical Society website.
Winners will read at the 2020 Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM)
on January 18 at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.

Deadline November 15:  details below about how to sign up to participate 

in a JMM poetry reading on the evening of January 17 -- 

also at the Denver Convention Center.

    Continuing a math-meetings tradition, math poets will gather at JMM for an MAA Special Presentation: An Evening of Poetry -- this upcoming program will be on Friday, January 17,  7–8:30 pm, in Room 503 of the Colorado Convention Center.  In 2020, we want especially to feature poetry with a focus on how math can help unify us and improve our world.  

Taken out of context . . .

Sometimes good lines fit so well into their poems that their individual merits go unrecognized.  And then, taken out of context, they can lead lives of their own.  Here is a start for a collection of such lines.

From Poets.org here are two lines from "Ceriserie" by Joshua Clover:   

       Mathematics: Everyone rolling dice and flinging Fibonacci, going to the opera, counting everything.

       Fire: The number between four and five.