Math meets Poetry -- Student's Senior Project

      Lawrence "Larry" Lesser is a mathematics and statistics professor at the University of Texas in El Paso -- and is also an active poet and song-writer.  This link leads to my previous inclusions of his poetry and ideas earlier in this blog.  Recently one of Lesser's Facebook postings led me to an article about a student at Kalamazoo College in Michigan who combined math with poetry for her senior project.  This article about Elizabeth "Lizzy" Rottenberk tell how her loves for mathematics and poetry connect and it offers the following sample math-poetry pair:

A Template for Student Math Poems

      Earlier this month, mathematician, songwriter, and poet Larry Lesser posted a link on Facebook to an article (found here at "The Conversation") about ways that Penn State University Professor Ricardo Martinez combines mathematics and poetry in a course entitled "The Ways Math and Poetry Can Open Your Eyes to the World."   When asked, "What prompted the idea for the course?", Martinex responded:

I have always enjoyed writing poetry. As a high school mathematics teacher, I recall telling my students that everything is and can be connected to math, even creative writing. Then, as a graduate student, I read about people using “I am” poem templates for young people to express who they are through a series of “I am” statements, and I thought to myself, where is the “I am” math poem template? So I created one.

Here is a portion of a template that Martinez has created to use with students: 

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     

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;    

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!

Celebrating mathematics with song . . .

     Some of the most memorable links between mathematics and the arts are found in song-lyrics.  For example, "That's Mathematics" by retired American musician, singer-songwriter, satirist, and mathematician   Tom Lehrer (now aged 93):  Here is the opening stanza (the complete lyrics are found at this link):

    Counting sheep
    When you're trying to sleep
    Being fair
    When there's something to share
    Being neat
    When you're folding a sheet
    That's mathematics!             More mathy lyrics (by Lehrer and others) are found here.

     A current math educator offers us lots more lyrics to learn from and enjoy; from Larry Lesser -- a professor at the University of Texas in El Paso -- is a long-time creator of math-music works.  Here's a link to a list.

 This blog also has previously published lots of Lesser's fine work; here's a link.

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.

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. 

What does CANCEL mean? -- some poetic wordplay!

      Lawrence "Larry" Lesser is a professor in the Mathematical Sciences Department at the University of Texas in El Paso and a widely published creator of mathy poems.  Here are the opening stanzas of  a poem that appeared in the Winter 2021 issue of Teaching for Excellence and Equity in Mathematics (TEEM), a journal of the NCTM affiliate organization TODOS: Mathematics for ALL. 

 from     ₵AN
           ₵EL           by Lawrence Mark Lesser

      Cancel is from Latin for ‘make like a lattice’,
      like crisscrossed wood fencing
      in our backyard where we safely
      dine with friends,

      or like COVID-caused crossouts
      on calendars--  
      a cancelled appointment (dis-appointment)
      or music event (dis-concerting).

      Teachers don’t like saying ‘cancel’
      lest students get carried away,
      cancelling sixes of 26/65,  
      which does equal two-fifths 

Math-Poetry for a virtual BRIDGES Conference

     Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year's 2020 Bridges Math-Arts Conference will not be held.  One of the regular events at this international conference has been a poetry reading organized by mathematician and poet Sarah Glaz.  This year, Glaz has prodded math-poets to develop on-line videos of their poems and offers a wonderful program of poetry here at this link.  (Brief poet-bios and links to more info about each are also found at the preceding link.)

Participating poets, with links to their poetry videos are: 

Sarah Glaz,  Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya,   Robin Chapman,  Marian Christie,  Carol Dorf,  Susan Gerofsky,  Emily Grosholz,  Gizem Karaali,  Lisa Lajeunesse,  Marco Lucchesi,   Alice Major,   Mike Naylor,   Eveline Pye,  Stephanie Strickland,  Ursula Whitcher,

Marion Cohen,   Maria Mannone reads Federico Favali's poem,   JoAnne Growney    Hedy Hempe,   Philip Holmes,    Lawrence (Larry) Lesser,  Kaz Maslanka,  Daniel May,   Iggy McGovern,   Tom Petsinis,   Susan Sulic.

Thank you, Sarah Glaz, for organizing and presenting all of this poetry!

We look forward to the forthcoming BRIDGES 2020 Poetry Anthology

New math poems -- recently found online

     A couple of days ago an email brought me the Table of Contents of the latest issue (Vol. 42, Issue 1) of  The Mathematical Intelligencer -- and it had links to two poems that I hope that you also will enjoy.
     First was "The Day I Receive My Ph.D." by Arkaye Kierulf of Cornell University. Kierulf's poem begins with these lines:
          I’ll head out into the streets to hand out
          My dissertation abstract like discount-hotel flyers.

          For Christmas I’ll send copies of my diploma to  . . .

For Kierulf's complete poem go here.

     Also in this same issue of the Intelligencer -- and available at this link -- is the poem, "Remembering e" by Robert J. MacG. Dawson of Halifax University in Nova Scotia.  Dawson's math-poetry has been featured in several previous posting's in this blog.  Visit and enjoy!

     Additional very rich sources of mathematical poetry are the twice-yearly issues of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (online here). The latest issue (January 2020) contains a folder of Statistical Poetry by Larry Lesser (many of Lesser's poems also are featured in this blog), and five additional poems:
     "Perfect (a poem)" by Joseph Chaney, "A Letter to Niccolò Fontana de Brescia" by Jessica Huey, "The Empress's Nose: A Parable, After Feynman" by Robert Dawson, "SIGINT signifier" by Terry Trowbridge, and "The Master Oiler" by Ernesto Estrada.
 

Counting syllables, considering snowflakes

     From Larry Lesser, a professor at The University of Texas at El Paso (a researcher in math education) and a poet and songwriter and friend, today's poem offers a thoughtful reflection on the properties of a snowflake--and the fragility of thought and weather patterns.  But first (and also from Lesser), here's a clever "2019" stanza (in which each line has the number of syllables of the corresponding digit in that year):

                    Silence

                    is
                    sometimes the strongest thing we can say.

       SNOWFLAKE     by Lawrence Mark Lesser

        Some say
        ‘‘no two alike’’,
        others say
        ‘‘not too alike’’.

Dogs Know . . . Mathematics

     A mathematics/statistics education researcher who writes both poetry and song lyrics -- who writes these often and well -- is Lawrence "Larry" Lesser, professor at The University of Texas at El Paso.  A search of prior postings in this blog leads to a variety of Lesser's poems: here's a link.
   And here is another Lesser poem to enjoy  -- this one found along with lots more math-poetry in the Bridges 2016 Poetry Anthology, edited by Sarah Glaz (Tessellations Publishing, 2016).

   
       Dogs Know     by Larry Lesser

       A dog-eared College Mathematics Journal lies
       open to a paper called
       "Do dogs know calculus?"
       where the author's canine travels land
       and water to reach most quickly
       the ball thrown
       into Lake Michigan.  

What does MEAN mean?

Visual poetry by Mathemusician Larry Lesser:

These diagrams are part of a paper by L.M. Lesser found here.

Use MUSIC to enrich STEM teaching

     Last year this blog announced an online conference involving the use of song in teaching STEM subjects.  From one of the organizers, Gregory Crowther, I have this update -- announcing a second annual VOICES conference in September 2018:

       The first all-online VOICES conference 

       featured 40 presentations on teaching STEM subjects with music. 

       Presentation ideas are now being solicited for the 2018 conference

                     to be held on 26 September 2018.   All are welcome to enter!"

     Song lyrics often are poetry; here are links to several lyrics featured earlier in this blog:  "The Derivative Song" by Tom Lehrer,  Lines from "Mandlebrot Set" by Jonathan Coulton,  "Circle Song" and lines from "Hotel Infinity"  by Larry Lesser,  "Questions You Can't Ever Decide" by Bill Calhoun.  

Statistics and Mindfulness . . .

     April was Math-Stat Awareness Month and National Poetry Month  -- and here in this blog we celebrate those topics year-round -- today with a selection from Larry Lesser, professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, and first published at the website of  The American Statistical Association.

     Mindful Means      by Lawrence M. Lesser

     An explanatory variable has a response and
     The space
     Before response is deemed
     Freedom,
     Sought by degrees:
     More time to reflect
     If randomness is
     Uniform, if correlation is
     Causal, chance, or complexity yet
     Unnamed.     

Using SONGS to teach STEM -- online conference

     A recent email from Greg Crowther has let me know of an upcoming conference that looks to be LOTS OF FUN -- an interdisciplinary virtual conference on the use of song in teaching STEM subjects.  The conference is "VOICES: Virtual Ongoing Interdisciplinary Conferences on Educating with Song"  -- the dates are Sept. 27-28, 2017, the conference is entirely online, the registration cost is $10.  Early registration is encouraged to allow time for preparation and submission of presentation proposals.

     Song lyrics often are poetry and in this blog we have included lyrics on a variety of occasions.  Here are links to several lyrics featured herein.
          "The Derivative Song" by Tom Lehrer,
           Lines from "Mandlebrot Set" by Jonathan Coulton,
          "Circle Song" and lines from "Hotel Infinity"  by Larry Lesser (who is one of the featured VOICES speakers),
          "Questions You Can't Ever Decide" and two others by Bill Calhoun.

Julia . . . Set Aside Gender Roles . . .

       For me there is a special pleasure in finding in my reading a word like "identity" or "prime" that has a special mathematical meaning in addition to its ordinary usage.  And, because poets work hard to capture multiple images in their work, poems are where such pleasure occurs most often.  Poet and songwriter and professor Lawrence M. Lesser has beautifully connected the Julia Set of fractal geometry with his grandmother, Julia -- and he has given me permission to share his poem, "Julia,"  offered below.  This poem is offered, along with other work by Lesser, in a Poetry Folder, "Moving Between Inner and Outer Worlds," in the most-recent issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.

For more about Julia Sets, visit http://www.karlsims.com/julia.html.

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.   

Talking-Writing offers Math Poems

     In recent weeks, the online journal Talking-Writing has been featuring math poems and last Monday they posted my "Skagway Study" -- which follows a style explored in one of my favorite poems by Wislawa Szymborska.
      Carol Dorf, poetry editor of Talking-Writing, is a math teacher as well as a poet and her work as well as those of others with math interest are explored in "Wild Equations," the Spring 2016 Issue of Talking-Writing.   Here are some links:

By Giavanna Munafo    "Twenty-Four Hours"

By JoAnne Growney    "Skagway Study" 

By Alice Major     "Euclid's Iron Hand" and "Bird Singularities"

By Amy Uyematsu   "Three Quick Studies of Math-Art"

By Carol Dorf   "Action Potential" and "e"

By Eveline Pye   "Celestial Navigation," "Three," and "The Law of Statistics"

By Larry Lesser    "Margins" 

By Katie Manning   "28, 065 Nights" and "Week by Week" (Fibonacci poem)

By Stephanie Strickland   "Doomed calculations which God acknowledged

                                                Islands (Invaginated by Saltwater
                                           Bays with a Stream and Another Both Flowing
                                              All Through Them along Enfolded Paths)" 

Earlier this week in an American Mathematical Society blog posting entitled "Math and Verbal Gymnastics," Duquesne University mathematician Anna Haensch also celebrated the join of mathematics and poetry.