Zero is three!

     February's second weekend was a busy one with the AWP Writer's conference in downtown Washington, DC -- and one of the special treats of that weekend was browsing the Book Fair, renewing connections and finding special books.  One of my great finds was the bilingual collection of Jean Cocteau's Grace Notes (The Word Works, 2017), translated by Mary-Sherman Willis.  Cocteau surely is a challenge for translators as he plays with with connections between disparate images; in the poem I offer below I much enjoyed the mathy connections -- person and number, three and zero, triangle and oval, and so on.

Zero plus anything is . . .

     Poet Jane Hirshfield is an award-winning poet, essayist and translator whose work and I admire and enjoy.  In her collections I have found a thoughtful share of poems with links to mathematics -- and links to my previous postings of her work may be found here.  The MATH theme collection at poets.org has led me to another of her poems and I offer its opening stanzas here:

     Zero Plus Anything Is a World      by Jane Hirshfield

     Four less one is three.

     Three less two is one.

     One less three
     is what, is who,
     remains.     

Excitement in mathematics classrooms

Poems from three women illustrate a range of emotional content in the mathematics classroom: Rita Dove's "Geometry" captures the excitement of a new mathematical discovery.  Sue VanHattum's "Desire in a Math Class" tells of undercurrents of emotion beneath the surface in a formal classroom setting.  Marion Deutsche Cohen's untitled poem [I stand up there and dance] offers a glimpse of what may go on in a teacher's mind as she performs for her class. 

Math-themed poems at Poets.org

     The poetry website Poets.org is a wonderful source of thousands of poems.  During one recent visit to the site, I saw that they have a collection of themes and, when I examined these themes, I found that one of these is "Math"  -- and I enjoyed taking time to explore.
     When I read mathy poems by non-maths often I am intrigued by their alterations of correct mathematical statements -- part of "poetic license." Non-maths can use intriguing language that I, with my mathematics background, could not allow myself to say.  For example, George David Clark's poem "Kiss Over Zero"  has this opening line:

anything over zero is zero

I was delighted to find in this math-themed group several old favorites, one of which is "Counting" by Douglas Goetsch -- a poem among those Sarah Glaz and I gathered a few years back for the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters / CRC Press, 2008) -- now available as an e-book.

Stop saying GIRLS can't do MATH

     Found at Poets.org, this poem by Brenda Cárdenas that, like too many others portrays a girl in a can't do-math situation.  Another aspect of the poem, however, is its Spanish-language descriptions of Hispanic contributions to mathematics.  And, despite my protest, I find this a lovely poem and worth sharing.

     Calculations     by Brenda Cárdenas

     “I don’t know what to tell you.
     Your daughter doesn’t understand
     math. Numbers trouble her, leave
     her stuck on ground zero.”

                                    Y fueron los mayas
                                    quienes imaginaron el cero,
                                    un signo para nada, para todo,
                                    en sus gran calculaciones.

                     Is zero the velvet swoop into dream,
                     the loop into plumes of our breath?    

Imagine new numbers

     As a child I wrote poems but abandoned the craft until many years later when I was a math professor; at that later time some of my poems related to ideas pertinent to my classroom.  For Number Theory classes "A Mathematician's Nightmare" gave a story to the unsolved Collatz conjecture; in Abstract Algebra "My Dance Is Mathematics" gave the mathematical history a human component.  
     My editor-colleague (Strange Attractors), Sarah Glaz, also has used poems for teaching --  for example, "The enigmatic number e."  And Marion Cohen brings many poems of her own and others into her college seminar course, "Truth & Beauty: Mathematics in Literature."  Add a west-coaster to these east-coast poet-teachers -- this time a California-based contributor: teacher, poet, and blogger (Math Mama Writes) Sue VanHattum.  VanHattum (or "Math Mama") is a community college math teacher interested in all levels of math learning.  Some of her own poems and selections from other mathy poets are available at the Wikispace, MathPoetry, that she started and maintains. Here is the poet's recent revision of a poem from that site, a poem about the invention (or discovery?) of imaginary numbers.

Imaginary Numbers Do the Trick      by Sue VanHattum    

Stimulate Math Class Discussion with Poems

     Sometimes teachers want to understand more about their students' attitudes and concerns about learning a particular subject.  Often, rather than asking direct questions like, "What is your difficulty?" or "Why don't you like geometry?" it can be useful to stimulate discussion with a poem.   The website of the Academy of American Poets, offers at this link a wide selection of poems about school subjects.  Scrolling down through this long list, eventually one comes to Poems for Math Class -- with poems for Algebra, Calculus, and Geometry.  

     One of the Academy's suggested poems is "Calculations" by Brenda Cardenas  -- I offer the first stanza below -- the complete poem is included here in this posting from November, 2017.  

          from    Calculations      by Brenda Cárdenas    

Seeking an EQUATION for LOVE . . .

       One of the interesting and fun people I had the good fortune to meet at the 2017 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Waterloo, Ontario, is Lisa Lajeunesse.  At Capilano University, Lajeunesse teaches a course entitled "Math and Creative Arts" and presented at Bridges a thought-provoking paper entitled "The Golden Ratio:  How Close is Close Enough?"   My close connection with her came because we both were involved in a Bridges 2017 Math-Poetry Reading.  She has given me permission to include her clever and mathy poem here.

  An Equation for Love    by Lisa Lajeunesse     

          They’ve found an equation for love

          It goes something like this
          love equals attraction times compatibility to the power of opportunity
          there’s more of course and there’s been much fiddling
          with coefficients and lesser terms
          involving age, pheromones and duration of eye contact   

Math in Song Lyrics -- Joni Mitchell

       One of the fun surprises I have had recently is to discover mathematics in the lyrics of a once-popular song -- in "Ray's Dad's Cadillac" by musical legend Joni Mitchell, recent recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

     Joni Mitchell -- who has recently come back to the stage after serious illness -- has surmounted barriers to female achievement and recognition as have many math-women.  She has indeed "looked at life from both sides now" . . .   Below I offer two mathy stanzas from her song -- "Ray's Dad's Cadillac."    (The complete lyrics are available at this link).

from   Ray's Dad's Cadillac     by Joni Mitchell     

Poetry and Science

     Originally from Scotland, Alice Major is a celebrated Canadian poet whose work often focuses on key ideas in mathematics and science. (Visit her website for lots of links.)  The following lines of Major's verse appear in the Canadian magazine Prairie Fire (offering Major's presentation in the Anne Szumigalski lecture series entitled "Scansion and Science"); they are taken from Major's latest collection, Welcome to the Anthropocene."  Enjoy this sample, then follow the links and read much more:

 . . . poetry by Alice Major . . .

Also from Welcome to the Anthropocene, Major's poem  "Zero divided by zero" is available at this link here in my blog "Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics" -- and a blog-search leads to lots more of her work.

Make Something of Nothing ... with Bob Dylan

     The puzzle of nothing actually being something is central to our use of numbers -- and I use it today as an excuse to link to a Bob Dylan song and celebrate his recent Nobel prize.  Below I offer one (the 3rd, of six) of the stanzas of "Too Much of Nothing" -- followed by a link to the complete lyrics.  (And for those readers seeking other poems of nothing, here is a link to blog poetry from 2011 about division by zero, this link leads to making something of nothing . . .  and this link leads to several nothing links -- it was found via a blog search using the search term "zero.")

from     Too Much of Nothing     by Bob Dylan

          Too much of nothing
          Can make a man abuse a king
          He can walk the streets and boast like most
          But he wouldn’t know a thing
          Now, it’s all been done before
          It’s all been written in the book
          But when there’s too much of nothing
          Nobody should look

Here is a link to the complete lyrics of "Too Much of Nothing."  Enjoy.
                                          

How much for a digit of PI?

Scottish poet Brian McCabe writes playfully of numbers.  In the following poem he imagines an auction of the digits of π.

   Three Point One Four One Five Nine Two
   Six Five Three Five Eight Nine Seven Nine
   Three  Two Three Eight Four Six Two Six
       Four Three Three Eight Three Two
         Seven Nine Five Zero Two Eight             by Brian McCabe 

Stories of Quadrilaterals

     Sometimes I have time to browse my shelves and rediscover old favorites.  Several of this blog's much-read poems have come from Scottish author Brian McCabe (Find blog search results at this link) -- and below I offer the first part of McCabe's two-part poem ("Two Quadrilaterals") entitled "The Restless Square."

Two Quadrilaterals    by Brian McCabe

     Part 1.  The Restless Square  

          There was a square who yearned
          to become something else.

          It stretched its legs to mimic
          an elegant rectangle but
          lost its balance, leaned over
          in a perilous parallelogram.    

Browse Math-Poetry Links . . .

     Today I invite you to browse -- to spend a moment reading titles, clicking on a title that intrigues you.   ENJOY!

• TITLES OF POSTS (with links)
•      January, 2020
  •     We become what we think . . .
  •     With bits of mathematics, a poem for a New Year
•      December, 2019 
  •     Poetry made visual with math terms
  •     Math-poetry in support of immigrants
  •     Counted syllables --> holiday wishes . . .
  •     Where are you from?
  •     Writing to Learn -- try Haiku        

Love, marriage, and number . . .

     Australian poet Richard Scutter has online collection of his own poems (this link leads to a chronological listing) and of favorite poems (go to this link and scroll down) by himself and others.  Here are samples:

        Marriage Mathematics

        each one bending
        to a heavenly plus
        couple greater value
                   1 + 1 = 3 + ...      

         ... and serious if a series starts
        but the minus of hell
        when one leaves  
                   2 – 1 = 0                          

   The poem was found (dated 18 June 2007) at this site.

Something for nothing

     Among my favorite mathematical ideas are the seeming-paradoxes -- notions that require a twist and a turn and a leap before one can say "aha."  Using a symbol for "nothing" is one of those leap-requiring ideas.  I don't remember when I first understood zero, but I have enjoyed watching my children -- and now grandchildren -- grapple with ideas of things that are absent rather than present. 
     Here, from Hailey Leithauser, is a poem  that celebrates the cipher. 

Spheres and parallels

On 23 January 2013 I posted a latitude-longitude poem "Zero-Zero" by Elizabeth Bodien and today I offer another of her poems of celestial geometry, this one inspired by a painting by San Francisco artist Blazin.  Here, first, is Blazin's painting, followed by Bodien's poem -- both entitled "Midnight / Noon Along the Solar / Lunar Meridian." 

After loss we have nothing--which is something ...

     A poet whose work I much admire is A. E. Stallings -- born in the US, in Georgia, but now living in Greece.  This poem -- a sonnet -- deals with the paradox that nothing is something -- as with the integer zero and with the absence of a loved one.  The poem was written for her father who taught statistics at Georgia State University.

     Sine Qua Non     by A. E. Stallings

       Your absence, father, is nothing. It is naught—
       The factor by which nothing will multiply,
       The gap of a dropped stitch, the needle's eye
       Weeping its black thread. It is the spot
       Blindly spreading behind the looking glass.
       It is the startled silences that come
       When the refrigerator stops its hum,
       And crickets pause to let the winter pass.

       Your absence, father, is nothing—for it is
       Omega's long last O, memory's elision,
       The fraction of impossible division,
       The element I move through, emptiness,
       The void stars hang in, the interstice of lace,
       The zero that still holds the sum in place.

"Sine Qua Non" is found in Stallings' collection Hapax (Northwestern University Press, 2006) and also in the anthology Strange Attractors:  Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters/CRC Press, 2008).

 A wonderful collection of Stallings' poems is available at the PoetryFoundation website -- and more about this poet and her work is may be found here at her at Stallings' website.

Start with a number . . .

     April celebrates both poetry and mathematics -- this month that is the gateway to spring is also National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month (with theme "Mathematics, Statistics, and the Data Deluge").

     Last month (March 22-25), mathematics and poetry met at the DC Poetry Festival, Split this Rock where several of us gathered for a workshop, "Counting On" -- where writers were encouraged to use a number (or numbers) as a focal point for a poem. During the workshop hour, several of us picked numbers that mattered to us and started the process of forming a poem; here are lines from Sonja deVries, Yael Flusberg, Janine Harrison, Jaime Lee Jarvis, Margaret Rozga, and me.

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.