Counting , , ,

 Here are the opening stanzas of a thoughtful poem by mathematician-writer Marian Christie:

Christie's complete poem is available here on her website and previous inclusions of her work in this blog may be found at this link.

Cross BRIDGES ... 2026 Bridges Galway Conference

    Each year an international BRIDGES Conference celebrates the connections between mathematics and the arts -- featuring connections with music, literature, visual art, theater . . . Here is a link to the website for the 2026 BRIDGES Conference -- to be held August 5-8 in Galway, Ireland. 

    An important and popular part of each BRIDGES Conference is a Poetry Reading.  Scheduled for Saturday, August 8, 2026, the formal reading will include mathy poems from each of the poets named below; on this webpage (maintained by poetry reading co-organizer--and poet--Sarah Glaz) each of the following names is linked to biographical information and a sample poem.  

Celebrating Poetry at 2025 BRIDGES Conference

     A lavish and wonderful celebration of connections between mathematics and the arts is the annual international BRIDGES, Mathematics and the Arts Conference.  This year's conference took place last month (July, 2025 in Eindhoven, Netherlands) and one of its special events was a poetry reading.  

     Information about the poets and sample poems are available here at the website of Sarah Glaz (mathematician-poet and coordinator of the BRIDGES readings).  Below I have included one of these very special poems:

View no Fiery Night        by Marian Christie 

No
one
went to   
the tower
to vie with the foe.
Fretting, worn, we rove in night fog ––
the ring, the theft, the vow forgotten. Hovering high
over the town, the frightening wyvern, whirr of her winging interwoven with fire.

2025 BRIDGES--mid-July in Eindhoven, Netherlands

      Once again, my mathematician-poet-friend Sarah Glaz has carefully organized a math-poetry reading -- this one to be held at the upcoming Bridges Math-Arts Conference, July 14-18, 2025 in Eindhoven, Netherlands.  Details concerning the exact time and location for the reading, scheduled for Thursday, July 17, will be announced here at this link.

     Below I offer a sampling from the poets who will be reading at Eindhoven -- a CENTO that I have built by inclusion of a phrase from a poem by each of the poets registered for participation in Bridges 2025.  (Information about the poets is found here at this website maintained by Sarah Glaz.)

WE CELEBRATE MATHEMATICS

        The power of a theorem lies 
        with a diagram of clockwise arrows 
        hovering high over the town,                        
        while infinite time is waiting
        and triple sixes strive
        in-between our beginnings and ends.    

Collections of Mathy Poetry

    My friend and colleague, Marian Christie, has let me know that the math-poetry collection (with commentary) that she published in 2021 -- From Fibs to Fractals: Exploring Mathematical Forms in Poetry -- is now available for free download on her website. Here is the link for downloading.   AND, this link leads to samples of Christie's own mathy poems. published earlier in her blog.

      Today I have been browsing From Fibs to Fractals.  In an entertaining and informative chat in Christie's opening chapter about the Fibonacci numbers, I encountered this sample, a six-line syllable-count Fib poem by contemporary American poet B. A. France:

       Looking     by B. A. France

               moon
               light
               rising
               above the
               skeletal treetops
               she wonders what tomorrow brings   

A 3-4-5 Triangle of Poetry

     A wonderful feature of the Internet is the opportunity it offers for rapid connection with ideas from people around the world -- and I have found delight in mathy poems from Africa, Australia, Canada, China, India . . . and many other places.  Today's poem comes from poet Marian Christie -- who grew up in Zimbabwe and now lives in Kent, England (and has been other places in-between).  (Here is a link to previous mentions of Christie's work in this blog.)

     Here, below, is a screenshot of a poem by Christie that she posted recently on X (Twitter) (@marian_v_o) --  her poetic interpretation of the Pythagorean Theorem: 

"Countless" -- a Scrabblegram poem

     At the website X (Twitter) one of my frequent enjoyments is a Scrabblegram posting by David Cohen, writer from Atlanta, Georgia.  Cohen writes stanzas -- often poetic --  that use each of the 100 tiles in a Scrabble game exactly once.  More than a year ago, alerted by blogger and poet Marian Christie, I found and shared a mathy Scrabblegram ZERO at this link.  And here is another, Countless, found at here Cohen's website.

Scrabblegram by David Cohen (lots more here)

This link leads to a long list of Scrabblegrams!  And some of them are mathy!

Shaping poems with Pascal's Triangle

      One of my favorite websites to visit is "Poetry and Mathematics" -- a blog from poet Marian Christie.  Today I focus on her posting of poems with word-lengths structured by Pascal's Triangle; here is a sample:

Christie's complete Pascal Triangle posting -- with a triangle for each season -- is available at this link. 

 AND, here is a link to previous connections to Christie and her work in this blog. 

Mathematician, Poet -- Blind to the worth of Women

     As we study mathematics and learn of outstanding mathematicians, many of us do not also learn which of those mathematicians also were poets.  A posting that I found recently in Marian Christie's blog, Poetry and Mathematics, features poetry by  Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831-39).

     Maxwell's verse also is featured in the math-poetry anthology, Strange Attractors:  Poems of Love and Mathematics (A.K Peters, Ltd., 2008);  preview available here at amazon.com.

     Below I offer a stanza from a Maxwell poem (posted in this blog back in December, 2015) -- a stanza that shows the long-mistaken attitude that has existed about inferior abilities of math-women: 

ADDING -- a List Poem

      Via an X (Twitter) posting by poet and blogger Marian Christie (@marian_v_o), I learned about a blog by writer Mike Ferguson entitled Gravy from the Gazebo -- available at this link.  Ferguson has posted a series of mathy list poems -- starting on November 10 with "Adding list poem".  The poem's opening lines are offered below and the complete poem is found at this link. 

The poem is introduced with these words:   Love a list poem, this is my latest – the kind of content and ideas I would like to introduce to students for writing their own:

Opening lines of a poem by Mike Ferguson -- the rest is here.

Ferguson next offered more lists: "Subtracting list poem" at this link AND "Multiplying list poem" at this link AND "Dividing list poem" at this link.

Read.  Reread.  Share.  Write your poetic response.  Share!

Geometry in Poetry

     Poet Marian Christie's blog, Poetry and Mathematics -- found at https://marianchristiepoetry.net/ -- is a website I much enjoy visiting; there I learn many many new things.  (Here is a link that leads to a list of my previous postings that feature Christie and her work.)

    The idea that the shape of a poem may be part of its message is not new -- but Christie has brought more than line-length and syllable-count into the picture and today I focus on her Circular Poems.  

A Circular poem by Marian Christie

Shaping a Poem with Fibonacci numbers

      One of my favorite websites to visit is this varied and thoughtful "Poetry and Mathematics"  collection of postings by Marian Christie.

     Throughout history, people who write poems have often been aided by constraints.  When we sit down to write, writing the words that first occur to us -- then shaping the word into extended meanings but following a pattern of rhythm or rhyme or word-count . . . or . . .  .  For many poets the sonnet, for example, has been a poetic structure that shapes thoughts into special arrangements of words.

     In long-ago days, when print and screen versions of poems were not easily available, rhyme schemes were an important aid -- helping one's memory to keep a poem in one's head.  Now, aided by widely available print and online visibility, poetry has moved into new forms -- including a variety of visual arrangements.  

TRITINA -- a tiny SESTINA

     In several previous postings (collected at this link) this blog has considered the poetry form called a sestina:    a sestina has 39 lines and its form depends on 6 words -- arrangements of which are the end-words of 6 6-line stanzas; these same words also appear, 2 per line, in the final 3-line stanza.

     The American poet Marie Ponsot (1921-2019) invented the tritina, which she described as the square root of the sestina.   the tritina is a ten-line poem and, instead of six repeated words, you choose three, which appear at the end of each line in the following sequence: 123, 312, 231; there is a final line, which acts as the envoi -- and includes all three words in the order they appeared in the first stanza.  Poinsot has said -- and I agree -- poetic forms like the tritina are "instruments of discovery . . . they pull things out of you."  Read more here in an article by poet Timar Yoseloff.)

   

Choosing the GEOMETRIC SHAPE of a poem

      Structural constraints often govern the patterns we find in poetry -- well-known in poetic history are rhythm-and-rhyme patterns including the sonnet and the villanelle and the limerick, and the syllable-counting pattern of some Haiku.  Because many poems were shared orally, rather than in writing, patterns of counting and sound helped to ease the challenges of remembering.

     For me a wonderful source for learning about new poetic forms is the blog of poet Marian Christie -- a writer and scholar, born in Zimbawe and now living in England , who has studied and taught both mathematics and poetry.  In her very fine blog, Poetry and Mathematics, found here, Christie explores many of the influences that mathematics can have on poetry -- including, here in a recent posting, some effects transmitted by the SHAPE of a poem.

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.               

Trying a Tritina

      Writer and scholar Marian Christie (born in Zimbabwe and now in Kent, England) has had a long term interest in mathematics and poetry and, during the last several years, she has created a blog -- Poetry and Mathematics -- in which she explores, with careful detail, some interesting and important links between these two arts.

     Christie's work has been featured several times in this blog and my posting today shows my attempt to learn from one of her postings.  At this link, on July 13, 2022, Christie posted "Turning in Circles -- the Tritina" and I have used her posting to learn the requirements for a tritina and, then, to try to write one.

     A tritina consists of ten lines -- three three-line stanzas with a final, separate line.  The stanzas have the same three end-words, rotated in the sequence 123, 312, 231, and a single final line containing all three end-words. 

     I have tried to write a tritina and offer my example below -- not because it is good but because it explores a pattern that I think might work well for students trying to write a poem in a math class.     

ARE THINGS DIFFERENT NOW IN SCHOOL?     a sample tritina     

Poems with multiple choices of what to read . . .

      When you pick up something to read -- a newspaper article, instructions for a new appliance, or a poem, or whatever  -- in what order do you read it?  For many of us, reading is not a beginning-to-end process but a jumping around in which we survey the scope of what's to be read, look for internal highlights, focus on particular terms, etc.  A fascinating exploration of multiple ways of reading a particular poem is a treasure I have found in a blog that I visit often, Poetry and Mathematics by Marian Christie.

      Born in Zimbabwe and now living in the UK, mathy poet Marian Christie offers a delightful and informative blog that thoughtfully explores various ways in which the arts of mathematics and poetry are linked.  In this January, 2022 blog posting Christie examines what she calls a "multiple choice" poem -- that is a poem that offers multiple ways of reading what the page presents. The poem she considers is one written in 1597 by Henry Lok in honor of Elizabeth I; below I offer a diagram of that poem, copied from Christie's blog.

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!

Aelindromes -- and Pi

     On Twitter, I have seen frequent posts by UK-based writer Anthony Etherin -- and, encouraged by mathy poet Marian Christie, I have found it interesting to explore his work.  Etherin focuses on constrained, formal, visual, and experimental poetry -- he tweets @Anthony_Etherin; he manages Penteract Press.  AND  Etherin has invented a new type of writing-constraint called the aelindrome -- a bit like the palindrome ( such as  top spot  or  never odd or even ) except that the reversals involve more than one letter.   Here is a simple example of an aelindrome: 

melody, a bloody elm  which can be divided into   m el ody ablo ody el m

Found in a Twitter posting by @Anthony_Etherin on 10/21/21 is this aelindrome whose segment-lengths follow the first 14 digits of pi;  31415926535897

       Moonless Moonlight        by Anthony Etherin

       Low, fatal nights! Late, moonless.... Tense, we glitch.
       We swim bled sky, along the ashy glow.
       Shy glow along the ambled sky, we switch.
       We glisten -- see slate moonlight's natal flow.

Go here to learn more of Anthony Etherin and his work.

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.