Enjoy the Possibilities in a Multiple-Choice Poem

     Just as a test-taker mulls over which answer is correct, a poet mulls over word choices and what should come next.  South Dakota mathematician-poet Daniel May (professor at Black Hills State University) has broadly captured these decision choices in a poetry-form called a Digraph Poem or a Multiple Choice Poem.  I first learned of this idea several years ago at a Bridges Math-Art Conference at Waterloo, Canada when May and a colleague, Courtney Huse Wika, presented a paper entitled "The Poetics of a Cyclic Directed Graph" (available online here in the Bridges Archives).   In this paper is a poetry-creation by Huse Wika that involves various choices and orders of stanzas.

    This mixing of stanzas came to my attention again via a paper by May entitled "In the beginning all is null" which appeared in Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, Volume 14, Issue 1-2 (2020) as one of a group of "artist's statements."  In this latter paper, May thoughtfully describes his process of composing his poem --  he composed eight eight-line stanzas -- and the reader was to read a stanza, choose and read another stanza, and so on with a third.  In all, eight poems -- each sharing stanzas with others. 

     Recently a new online multidisciplinary journal, Poetrishy, has been born -- and it's first issue features another Multiple-Choice/Digraph poem by Dan May entitled "What the Body Does Next" --and available here.   Although you will need to follow the link I've offered to actually read the poem, I offer below a small screen-shot  -- so that you can get a sense of its structure.

Issue 1 of Poetrishy also contains work by these mathy poets -- Larry Lesser, Marian Christie, and  Marion Deutsche Cohen.  And several more authors whose work is fun to explore.

New issue -- Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

     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!

Visit BRIDGES -- for (art and) poetry

This growing-then-melting syllable-snowball poem is offered in recognition of mathematician-and-poet Sarah Glaz and as a reminder of the poetry reading Glaz is organizing --  to be held at the 2012 BRIDGES Math-Art conference at Towson University, July 25-29.

Mathy Poets plan for 2021 BRIDGES Conference

      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.  

Math-Poetry -- when distinct worlds collide . . .

     Carol Dorf has been a long-time leader in math poetry projects.  A now-retired secondary school math teacher from California, Carol is the poetry editor of  the online journal Talking Writing -- an online journal that has included a variety of mathy poems.   Recently, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings, Carol gave a presentation entitled "Poetry of Mathematical Definitions" -- the abstract for this talk begins with this provocative sentence:

Mathematical poetry begins when worlds we consider distinct collide.

Carol's poetry-editorship for Talking Writing has led to many math-related poems being published therein.  Here is a link to those poems and a bit of other math-related content;  the following list includes names of writers whose work has been included there:  Robin Chapman,    Marion Deutsche Cohen,    Allison Hedge Coke,    Mary Cresswell,    Catherine Daly,    Carol Dorf,    Iris Jamahl Dunkle,    Sarah Glaz,    JoAnne Growney,    Athena Kildegaard,    Larry Lesser,      Elizabeth Langosy , Marco Maisto,    Alice Major,    Katie Manning,    Daniel May,    David Morimoto,    Giavanna Munafo,    Karen Ohlson,    Eveline Pye,    Stephanie Strickland,    Amy Uyematsu,    Sue Brannan Walker,    and Jean Wolff.  Some of the poets have been featured more than once and to find all work by a particular author, SEARCH is recommended.

And here, from Talking Writing,  is one of Carol Dorf's fascinating poems:

       Lost Information     by Carol Dorf

       Visualize groups: there’s the babysitting co-op,
       with slips of scrip the children color during
       quarterly potlucks; and more than enough churches
       each with study evenings, and fundraising committees;    

Poetry with Math -- BRIDGES 2012, Limericks

During July 25-29, 2012, Towson University will be hosting BRIDGES 2012, a mathematics-and-the-arts interdisciplinary conference. This year's conference will feature a poetry day on Saturday, July 28. -- an event that is free and open to the public as are all "Family Day" conference activities after 2 PM.  Mark your calendar.  More information is available at the end of this post (scroll down) and at the BRIDGES website.

  This weekend in Washington, DC (April 28 - 29, 2012)

enjoy "the largest celebration of science in the USA" --

visit the FREE USA Science and Engineering Festival -- 

featuring more than 3000 exhibits. 

We note here once again the coincidence that comes with April -- when we celebrate both National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month.  Here are three limericks (bawdy, of course) by John Ciardi (1916-1986) that celebrate data collection and numerical information. 

Division by Zero

     At Victoria University in Melbourne, novelist, playwright and poet Tom Petsinis also teaches mathematics.  He participated in the 2016 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Finland this summer:  here are two of his poems from the 2016 Bridges Poetry Anthology -- and each of them plays with mathematical ideas in new and thoughtful (sometimes amusing) ways.   "Zeno's Paradox" follows this initial poem.  (Names and links for other anthology poets are given below.)

     Division by Zero     by Tom Petsinis

     She could’ve been our grandmother
     Warning us of poisonous mushrooms ‒
     To stress her point she'd scratch
     The taboo bold with crimson chalk.
     It should never be used to divide,
     Or we'd be howled from lined yard
     To pit where cruel paradoxes ruled.
     Her warnings tempted us even more:
     Young, growing full in confidence,
     We’d prove the impossible for fun ‒
     Nothing she said could restrain us
     From showing two is equal to one.   

BRIDGES poems, from 17 poets

Due to the hard work of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz, poetry has been an important part of recent BRIDGES-Math-Art Conferences. And, under her editing, a Bridges 2013 Poetry Anthology has been released, featuring poetry from these poets who participated in one or more of the three most recent BRIDGES conferences (Enschede, Netherlands, 2013; Towson, Maryland, 2012; Coimbra, Portugal, 2011). 

JHM -- a rich source of mathy poems

      Every six months the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics offers a new online issue and includes a generous offering of mathy poems.  Here is a link to the current issue (Vol, 11, No, 2, July 2021) and I offer --after a sample, which features a type of algebra problem -- the titles, authors, and links to JHM mathy poems.

    Train Algebra      by Mary Soon Lee

     Do not use a calculator. Show your work.
     Haruki leaves Chicago Union Station at 10:42 pm
     on a train traveling at 60 miles per hour.

     At 10:33 pm, Haruki boards the train.
     He’s abandoned his job,
     his collection of cactuses;
     has only his cell phone, his wallet,
     and a dog-eared paperback.
     He walks through two carriages
     before finding an open seat,
     apologizes as he sits down
     beside a woman his mother’s age.
     The woman glares at him.