Genius grant for Math-Woman

     Mathematician Lauren K. Williams (PhD ’05 MIT, currently Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University) has won a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, a prestigious honor often called the “genius grant.” The award is presented annually by the MacArthur Foundation to “talented individuals in a variety of fields who have shown exceptional originality in and dedication to their creative pursuits.”  The MacArthur Foundation praised Williams for “uncovering transformative connections between algebraic combinatorics and problems in other areas of math and physics.”

BRIDGES Math-Poetry in Halifax -- July 27-31, 2023

     BRIDGES, an annual conference that celebrates connections between mathematics and the arts, will be held this year in Halifax Nova Scotia, July 27-31.  (Conference information available at this link.)  A poetry reading is one of the special event at BRIDGES and Sarah Glaz, retired math professor and poet, is one of the chief organizers of the event.  Here at her University of Connecticut website, Glaz has posted information about the July 30 reading along with bios and sample poems from each of the poets.   For poets not part of this early registration, an Open Mic will be available (if interested, contact Glaz -- contact information is available here at her website.)

Here is a CENTO I have composed using a line of poetry from each of the sample poems (found online at this link) by the 2023 BRIDGES poets:

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!

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. 

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 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

A poet that makes math personal

     Mathematician-poet Marion Cohen has a new poetry collection just out -- The Project of Being Alive.  Here is a sample from that collection, a poem that highlights her relationship with mathematics:

      Statement     by Marion Deutsche Cohen

     A good teacher is supposed to teach students, not subjects.
     But I teach math.
     Whoever the students, math is the subject.
     If there were no students I’d probably still teach my subject.
     I’d teach and I’d learn
     all by myself.

Echoing Marion's thoughts, I think that many of us who love mathematics and/or love poetry, enjoy the challenge of reading and rereading -- and struggling to absorb difficult ideas. 

Interview with mathy poets . . .

     Philadelphia mathematician and poet Marion Cohen has worked with Sundress Publications to prepare an interview offering MATH-POETRY viewpoints from three other mathematician-poets and herself -- including me and Sarah Glaz, recently retired in the mathematics department at the University of Connecticut, and Gizem Karaali, in the mathematics department at Pomona College.  All of these math-women have numerous books, articles, and so on -- and I invite you to follow the links associated with their names and also to go here to read the Sundress interview (which does, at the end, include several poems).

     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.

A CENTO from BRIDGES 2017 Poets

     A cento is a literary work made from quotations from other works -- most often it is a poem, assembled from lines by other poets.    Below I have created a cento from lines written by the poets who have been invited to participate in the July 30 Poetry Reading at the 2017 Bridges Math-Arts Conference in Waterloo, Ontario.  A wonderful program is planned -- it's not too late to register and join us.

       All is number,      mysterious proportions             
       Like Egyptians      burying gold with the dead       
       Golden Fear                    
       that divides and leaves     no remainder   

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.   

Loving the difference quotient ... and more ...

     From Philadelphia poet-mathematician, Marion Cohen, a new collection  -- Closer to Dying (Word Tech, 2016).  When I received the book a few days ago and began to read I did, of course, seek out mathy poems.  Two of these are included below. In this first poem Cohen has some fun with the terms and symbols of introductory calculus.  In the second, she tells of an encounter of the sort that happens to many mathematicians  -- meeting someone who supposes that mathematicians do what calculators do. (This link leads to a collection of mathy poems (including ones by Cohen) at talkingwriting,com.)

Limericks for Hedy Lamarr

     When seeking to draft a poem quickly, it is useful to have some sort of pattern to follow -- a pattern helping to dictate word choice.  This morning, upon discovering Google's online celebration of the 101st birthday of inventor and actress Hedy Lamarr, I have wanted to join the commemoration with a poem.  A verse pattern rather often used by hasty math writers is the limerick (see links below) -- and I have today constructed this pair of limericks to praise 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!  

Caught in an infinite loop . . ..

Philadelphian Marion Cohen has been a mathematician since girlhood and a poet almost that long.  Besides her mathematics and writing, she teaches an interdisciplinary math-and-literature course at Arcadia University.  Here is a sample of Cohen's math poetry -- which imaginatively links mathematics to everyday life, sort of -- from her recent collection, Parables for a Rainy Day (Green Fuse Press, 2013).

Weirdness at 22nd and Walnut     by Marion D. Cohen    

Mathy Poetry from Bridges 2014

     This year's math-arts conference, Bridges 2014, was in Korea.  And a dozen of us who write poetry-with-mathematics -- unable to attend in person -- worked with coordinator Sarah Glaz to offer (on August 16, hosted by Mike Naylor) a virtual reading of work videotaped in advance by the poets and edited into a coherent whole by Steve Stamps. 

     The virtual reading is here on YouTube. 

A Cento from Arcadia

Last week I had the enjoyable privilege of visiting with mathematician-poet Marion Cohen's math-lit class, "Truth and Beauty" at Arcadia University -- and the class members helped me to compose a Cento (given below), a poem to which each of us contributed a line or two of poetry-with-mathematics.  Participants, in addition to Dr. Cohen and me, included these students: 
          Theresa, Deanna, Ian, Collin, Mary, Grace, Zahra, Jen, Jenna, 
          Nataliya, Adeline, Quincy, Van, Alyssa, Samantha, Alexis, Austin.
Big thanks to all!

Writing mathy poems - a student activity

On the web-page of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz I found a link to this file of math-related poems that she prompted students to write when she visited an Arcadia University class session of "Truth and Beauty:  A Course in Mathematics and Literature" taught by mathematician-poet Marion Cohen.  The writing was prompted by an activity-list developed by mathematician-poet Carol Dorf.  Poems by Whitney Boeckel and Olivia Lantz particularly caught my eye and, with their permission, I present them here:

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). 

Truth and Beauty

     In both mathematics and poetry, truth and beauty are linked.  The true is likely to be beautiful, the beautiful is considered likely to be true.  
     Early in April I visited an interdisciplinary mathematics-and-literature class at Arcadia College to talk with them about some of the ways mathematics influences poetry.  The course I visited was was aptly titled "Truth and Beauty."  Thanks to Marion Cohen -- mathematician, poet, and course professor -- and to her students for the enjoyable time we had together.     
     Today, thinking back to that Arcadia class, I offer a translation of a poem by Romanian poet Marin Sorescu (1936-1996) which links the mathematics of counting to the literary god, Shakespeare.  Enjoy.