Friday, April 13, 2018
Interview with mathy poets . . .
Each of these math-poetry women has been featured often in this blog -- and, in addition to reading the interview, I urge you to click on their names to explore these links: Marion Cohen Sarah Glaz Gizem Karaali
I close with a link to an article of mine, "Mathematics in Poetry, " published by the MAA a bit more than ten years ago -- an easy read that has generated some recent attention.
Wednesday, March 8, 2023
International Women's Day
Today, March 8, is International Women's Day -- a day to pause, recognize, and celebrate the achievements and abilities of women (and their equality with men).
In my poetry-stanza below I celebrate Laura Church -- my high school math teacher (in Indiana, PA) a bold spokesperson for math-for-all back in the 1950s AND the woman who led me into mathematics.
Chalk in hand,
she tosses her book,
strides across the room,
excited by trigonometry,
excited that we,
restless in our rows,
caught some of it.
Flamboyant, silver,
fearless woman.
The stanza above is part of "The Ones I Best Remember" -- the full poem is available here.
Recognition and celebration of women in mathematics has increased dramatically since my high school days. On of the important advocates is the Association for Women in Mathematics, founded in 1971, and often mentioned in this blog. Here is a link to a poem that celebrates AWM.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Limericks for Hedy Lamarr
May a beautiful actress present
Skills beyond stage and screen content?
Yes! Hedy Lamarr
Excelled as a star,
And had also talent to invent!
Monday, January 3, 2011
From 2010 -- titles and dates of posts
A scroll through the 12 months of titles below may lead you to topics and poets/poems of interest. Also helpful may be the SEARCH box at the top of the right-hand column; there you may enter names or terms that you would like to find herein.
Dec 31 The year ends -- and we go on . . .
Dec 30 Mathematicians are NOT entitled to arrogance
Dec 28 Teaching Numbers
Dec 26 Where are the Women?
Dec 21 A Square for the Season
Dec 20 "M" is for Mathematics and . . .
Friday, July 5, 2024
Black Momma Math
I have signed up for a Google email service, "Google Alert" which sends to my g-mail address links to items found in Google searching that contain the words "poetry" and "mathematics". Recently such an email alerted me to a sharing by a psychiatrist who writes poetry about his medical experiences.
Richard Berlin, MD, has been writing a poem about his experience of being a doctor every month for the past 26 years in Psychiatric Times in a column called “Poetry of the Times.” He is instructor in psychiatry, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, Massachusetts. His latest book is Tender Fences. At this link, he shared the poem "Black Momma Math", by Kimberly Jae who is an award-winning poet, ranked among the top 30 slam poets in the world in 2018. The poem is also available here at the Poetry Foundation website. I offer its opening stanzas below.
Friday, February 15, 2019
Musical sounds of math words -- in a CENTO
Thursday, January 14, 2021
Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2021
Learn more here: http://bridgesmathart.org/ |
Since 2009, interested contributors from mathematics and various arts -- poetry, music, theater, visual art . . . -- have gathered at an annual Bridges conference to celebrate and deepen math-art connections. Due to Covid-19 the 2020 conference was virtual but so far, with hope, the 2021 conference is planned as an in-person conference in Finland. Connecticut mathematician Sarah Glaz has been active in coordinating poetry events for the conference and here is a link to her announcement of the poetry program at Bridges 2021 -- including links to biographical sketches and poems by each participating poet. My own poem therein honors mathematician Emmy Noether.
Here is a link to several postings in this blog that celebrate math women.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Excitement in mathematics classrooms
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
IF/THEN #IfThenSheCan THE EXHIBIT
One of the exciting current events here in the Washington, DC area is the #IfThenSheCan Exhibit -- a monumental exhibit of 120 3-D printed statues celebrating contemporary women innovators in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)and features the most statues of real women ever assembled together. One of the featured women is Minerva Cordero who "applies her expertise in finite Geometries to computer science and artificial intelligence, and works to increase representation of women in STEM.
"The best gift to a young girl is the belief that she can do anything she sets her mind to do." "She will persevere! Minerva Cordero is a Puerto Rican mathematician and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her research on Finite Geometries has applications to several fields, including computer science and artificial intelligence. She has traveled all over the United States and Europe sharing her research and passion for Mathematics. (Go HERE for more about Cordero.)
Wednesday, August 17, 2022
HER Math Story
I learned the information above from the European Women in Mathematics – The Netherlands (EWM-NL) website where I also found this poetic quote by mathematician Marta Pieropan:
Proving a theorem gives me the same satisfaction
as laying the last tile of a jigsaw puzzle
that finally reveals the whole picture
and highlights the relations
between the various parts.
Find some time . . . visit the EWM website . . . read . . . and reflect!
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Imagine a Fractal
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Women in Maths -- on Facebook
Related to this concern, wonderful news came in my email box recently from Susanne Pumpluen (video) at the University of Nottingham. She has started a Women in Maths page on Facebook . There one can find bios, videos, news links and FRIENDS. Visit. LIKE. Offer your comments and support.
Thursday, March 7, 2024
Celebrating Women who write Mathy Poems
Now in March -- in Women's History Month -- many writers are taking a bit of extra time to explore the history and achievements of women. It was my delight to find a March 6 posting here on the Poetry Blogging Network with a list of celebrated women in poetry that includes several writers of mathy poems. Of the ten poets listed, the following five have been included in this blog -- in earlier postings. For each, I include a mathy sample and the poet's name is linked to earlier postings that include their work.
Adrienne Rich from Planetarium
a woman ‘in the snow
among the Clocks and instruments
or measuring the ground with poles
in her 98 years to discover
8 comets
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
For Hazlett -- an Exquisite Corpse poem
Monday, August 12, 2024
Prison Math and Poetry Projects
One of the good things that is happening is that poets and math people -- and others -- are investing time and funds in projects to help incarcerated individuals find crime-free activities for their present and future lives. Here is a link to information about a Prison Math Project and this link leads to information about Prison Poetry Workshops. A wonderful variety of activities have been taking place!
Below I offer the opening lines of a poem that counts prisoners and tells of the racial and other injustices that they suffer-- a poem by prisoner, Korean war veteran, and poet Ethridge Knight (1931-1991). (Knight's complete poem may be found here -- along with many more -- at the Poetry Foundation website.)
A Fable by Etheridge Knight
Once upon a today and yesterday and nevermore there were 7 men and women all locked / up in prison cells. Now these 7 men and women were innocent of any crimes; they were in prison because their skins were black. Day after day, the prisoners paced their cells, pining for their freedom. And the non-black jailers would laugh at the prisoners and beat them with sticks and throw their food on the floor. Finally, prisoner #1 said, “I will educate myself and emulate the non-colored people. That is the way to freedom—c’mon, you guys, and follow me.” “Hell, no,” said prisoner #2. “The only way to get free is . . .
Knight's complete poem is available here.
Previous blog postings telling of math-poetry opportunities for incarcerated persons may be found here at this link.
Saturday, July 14, 2012
More of Hypatia -- brave, smart woman
What cruel laws depress the female kind,
To humble cares and servile tasks confined!
In gilded toys their florid bloom to spend,
And empty glories that in age must end;
For amorous youth to spread the artful snares,
And by their triumphs to enlarge their cares.
Thursday, March 15, 2018
Math-minorities -- stories needing to be shouted
For a poetic comment on this situation I turn to the final stanza of a poem of mine about Emmy Noether, a verse that illustrates the oft-repeated habit of praise that actually is a put-down.
Today, history books proclaim that Noether
is the greatest mathematician
her sex has produced. They say she was good
for a woman.
Readers interested in reading a bit more are invited to visit my 2017 article in the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, "They Say She Was Good for a Woman: Poetry and Musings."
Monday, March 1, 2021
Celebrating Math-Women -- Caroline Herschel
In the United States, March is National Women's History Month -- and today I am looking back to previous postings that celebrate astronomer and mathematician Caroline Herschel. In her collection Letters from the Floating World, artist and poet Siv Cedering (1939-2007) has given us a poignant portrait of this math-woman:
Letter from Caroline Herschel (1750-1848) by Siv Cedering
William is away, and I am minding
the heavens. I have discovered
eight new comets and three nebulae
never before seen by man,
and I am preparing an Index to
Flamsteed's observations, together with
a catalogue of 560 stars omitted from
the British Catalogue, plus a list of errata
in that publication. William says
I have a way with numbers, so I handle
all the necessary reductions and
calculations. I also plan
every night's observation
schedule, for he says my intuition
helps me turn the telescope to discover
star cluster after star cluster. . . .
The rest of this poem is found here in this posting from 2012.
Additional poetry that celebrates Herschel may be found at this link.
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
Student Essay Contest -- Write about a Math-Woman
Essay Contest -- Sponsored by AWM and Math for America
Each year the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) and Math for America co-sponsor a contest for essays written about the lives and works of contemporary women mathematicians and statisticians in academic, industrial, and government careers.
Each essay should be based primarily on an interview with a woman currently working in or retired from a mathematical sciences career. Participation is open to three groups -- middle school, high school, and undergraduate students. Submissions open December 1 and continue to February 1, 2023. Complete submission information may be found at this link. (AND, 2022 winning essays may be found here.)
I close with a poem about a math-woman -- "San Antonio, January, 1993" -- a poem inspired by my time at a long-ago mathematics conference and included in a chapbook of my mathy poems, My Dance is Mathematics (available at this link).
Monday, July 22, 2019
Mathematicians are not just white dudes . . .
The following lines are from a puzzle-poem by mathematician-poet Benjamin Banneker -- a non-white dude; the sample has been obtained from a website that celebrates Banneker -- a website compiled by Washington, DC high school teacher John Mahoney. These lines come from Puzzle 5:
A snip from a puzzle by Benjamin Banneker |