The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics

      Daniel May -- professor at Black Hills State University in South Dakota -- enjoys not only teaching mathematics to future teachers but also exploration of the combinatorics of card games and the poetry of mathematical patterns and ideas.   He spends his summers working with Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics (BEAM), a mathematics enrichment program for under-served public middle school students in New York City and Los Angeles.

     Below I offer a poem by May that was part of the program at the recent BRIDGES Conference.  (May's poem also is found with lots of BRIDGES poetry and poet-information here at the website of Sarah Glaz.)

          Eight Minutes     by Daniel May

          Eyelids closed,
          warm
          sunlight shining

          bright

          onto my thin skin.
          Earth below me, lush and vibrant from
          our star's
          nearly infinite rays.

Bridges 2024 -- in Richmond, VA

      As she had done in numerous preceding years, mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz is once again an organizer for a poetry reading at the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference -- this year to be held in Richmond, Virginia, August 1-5.

Bridges Poetry Reading Website

  Poetry Reading Sunday, August 4, 3:00 - 5:00 pm     

Science Museum of Virginia , Room: RF& P Forum

2500 West Broad Street    Richmond, Virginia

Remembering Bob Grumman . . .

      Recently I discovered an online article -- "Bob Grumman’s mathematical universe: somewhere, minutely, a widening" by mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz) at Synapse International, an international visual poetry gathering, co-edited by Philip Davenport and karl kempton) that celebrates the work of math visual-poet Bob Grumman (1941-2015)..  When I visited the article by Glaz, I also found several other articles that celebrated Grumman -- found here at this link for Issue 7, January 2024.

     Below I post two of  Grumman's Mathemaku -- visual poems that involve mathematical symbols and the brevity of Haiku; one of them is found in the article by Glaz mentioned above and the second is found here (along with others) in an article by karl kempton.

Many accessible MATHY POEMS -- from BRIDGES

      One of the wonderful supporters of connections between mathematics and the arts has been BRIDGES, a conference-gathering that was initiated by Reza Sarhanghi (1952-2016) in 1998.  

     Here, at the BRIDGES website, one may find information about the upcoming 2024 conference.  This website also offers -- via the link Papers Archive -- access to conference papers from 1998 to 2023.  

     Poetry became part of the conference in 2011 and, at the link Mathematical Poetry, we are taken to a website maintained by math-poet Sarah Glaz -- a website that offers access to a vast and wonderful collection of poems, anthologies, recordings, videos, . . .

   Below I include an anthology sample, a very fine poem by Deanna Nikaido from the Bridges Stockholm 2018 Anthology.

     Ratio     by Deanna Nikaido

          They say there are two sides to everything.  

The Thirst to Know HOW MANY?

    One of the important math-poetry projects that I have been involved in is Strange Attractors:  Poems of Love and Mathematics, a poetry anthology collected and edited by mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz and me -- published by AK Peters/CRC Press in 2008 and now available on Kindle and at various online used-book sites.

     A poem in Strange Attractors that I have been drawn to again recently is "Ode to Numbers" by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904-1973).  Here are its opening lines: 

from  Ode to Numbers     by Pablo Neruda

          Oh, the thirst to know
          how many!
          The hunger
          to know
          how many
          stars in the sky!   

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:

Seeing the World through a dual prism . . .

     Based in Melbourne, Australia, Tom Petsinis is a mathematics adviser at Deakin University and is author of nine poetry collections as well as theatrical works and books of fiction.  He also is involved in the worldwide BRIDGES organization --which meets annually to investigate and celebrate connections between mathematics and the arts.  This year's BRIDGES conference will be held July 27-31 in Halifax, Nova Scotia and next year's conference is planned for August 1-5, 2024 at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.

     Below is "Zero" -- a mathy poem by Petsinis which is also offered as a sample at this BRIDGES link (a link that advertises and celebrates those poets participating in the 2022 conference).

MATHEMATICS and POETRY -- a balancing act!

     Recently I came across this article in Good Times -- a weekly newsletter from Santa Cruz County in California -- an article that features poet Gary Young and his two poet-sons -- one of whom (Cooper Young) chose to major in mathematics.  Quoting Cooper (from the Good Times article -- and referring to his father):

“He didn’t push poetry on me at all,” says Cooper, who recently graduated from Princeton University. “As I was growing up, poetry was always Jake’s interest. I was more of a science/math kind of guy. Then college came around and freshman year, I was looking for a fifth class. I figured I ought to know a little bit about what my father and my brother had dedicated their lives to. So I enrolled in a poetry class. And I really dug it.”

The poetry that I have found by Cooper Young is not mathy -- but it has led me to look back to one of my favorite mathematical poems  -- "To Divine Proportion," by Spanish poet Rafael Alberti (1902-99); I offer it below.

More Math-Poetry from JHM

     Every six months a new issue of the open-access online publication, Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, becomes available.  And -- among lots of other inclusions -- it offers a rich variety of mathy poems.   Here is a link to the table of contents of the latest issue -- and I strongly suggest that you visit and explore.  Math-poetry items, listed at the bottom of the TC, are shown in the screen-shot below:

Happy Valentine's Day

      A perfect way for math-poetry fans to celebrate Valentine's Day is to visit the anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (AK Peters/CRC Pres, 2008), edited by Sarah Glaz and me.  Here is a sample from that collection, a limerick;

     There Was a Young Maiden    by Bob Kurosaka*

       There was a young maiden named Lizt
       Whose mouth had a funny half-twist.
            She'd turned both her lips
            Into Mobius strips . . .
        'Til she's kissed you, you haven't been kissed!

     *Of Japanese heritage, Kurosaka was born in Lake George, NW -- he became a college teacher and author of science fiction and limericks.

     Here is a link to previous Valentine-related postings:  
this link leads to blog-search results for "Strange Attractors."

Applied Mathematics -- in Spoken Word Poetry

     Lots of mathy poems are available on YouTube -- for example, recordings by poetry participants in Bridges Math-Arts conferences are available;  here is a link to a webpage (maintained by Sarah Glaz) for 2022 Bridges poets and poems .  Today I have been fascinated by and want to share some words from an Applied Mathematics YouTube video by spoken word poet Dan Simpson, a UK writer, performer, producer, and educator.  A few lines from the poem appear below, followed by a link to the video performance.

I love the curvature of your wave form the way you deviate from the norm .  . .  when we touch it's an electric storm . . .  if you were described by numbers they would all be trying this but like Heisenberg you're uncertain  . . .  this verse is in a language that you can understand bringing maths and poetry together in double helix sounds . . .  statistically speaking I'll make you laugh sooner or later . . .

     Dan Simpson's complete and very entertaining YouTube performance of Applied Mathematics is available here.  Other mentions in this blog of Dan's poem and other YouTube recordings may be found at this link.

A Cone with a Sphere on top

      The phrase used as title for this post, "A cone with a sphere on top" -- from a slightly-mathy poem by Katharine O'Brien (1901-1986), "Einstein and the Ice Cream Cone" -- has caused me to visualize a Christmas tree and so, in this holiday season, I offer it to you.  Enjoy!  And Happy Holidays!

     Einstein and the Ice Cream Cone     by Katharine O'Brien

     His first day at Princeton, the legend goes,
     he went for a stroll (in his rumpled clothes).
     He entered a coffee shop --- moment of doubt --
     then climbed on a stool and looked about.
     Beside him, a frosh, likewise strange and alone,
     consoling himself with an ice cream cone.   

Math-Poetry Recordings on YouTube

     The arrival in 2020 of COVID caused a huge number of gatherings to take place online -- including mathematics conferences and poetry readings- -- and performances at many of these special events have been recorded on YouTube.  I offer below a few links to recordings and to further information.  Recording myself reading poems would probably not been one of my chosen activities but mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz, who has been an enthusiastic organizer of poetry events for the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conferences, has requested recorded samples from each participating poet.

     One way to start YouTube math-poetry explorations is to go to this link -- a link I found by searching for "poetry math" on YouTube.  In this blog, we have mentioned YouTube a bit in the past -- and the blog's SEARCH feature finds this list of previous postings that feature YouTube links.

Enriching Poetry with Mathematical Ideas

     An important leader in the community of writers who link mathematics and poetry is Sarah Glaz -- a scholar who is not only a mathematician and poet but also an organizer, participant, publicist, and recorder for numerous math-poetry events.  Glaz is an emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Connecticut and her UConn webpage is a vast source of mathematical and poetry treasures.

     I first came to know Sarah well as we worked together on an important project -- gathering poems for the anthology Strange Attractors:  Poems of Love and Mathematics (A K Peters / CRC Press, 2008).  A preview of this collection is available here.   Here, from that collection, is one of my favorites -- a thoughtful poem about parenting and attitudes (love? or not?) toward mathematics:

Love Story     by Sarah Glaz

       If I ever write about you--
       he said--
       it will be a love story
       a story about
       how much you want to be loved.

       Father, do you love
       your little girl?
       I brought you
       a soup full
       of numbers
       formulas chopped to perfection
       integrals fried to a crisp 

BRIDGES Conference 2022 -- Math-Poetry

      A couple of months ago (here in my June 8 posting) I offered a link to information about poetry to be offered at the 2022 Bridges Math-Arts Conference -- held last week in Finland.  This link leads to a series of YouTube recordings of Bridges mathy poems and this link (at the website of organizer Sarah Glaz) offers written information about Bridges poets as well as sample poems.  Visit, read and listen, learn, enjoy!

     One of my poems that is included on the Bridges poetry site is entitled "Three-fold Asylum" -- a poem that explores various roles of the number three.  I offer it below:

     Three-fold Asylum     by JoAnne Growney

     Third door left on level three, my room
     holds steel furniture—its items three:
     double platform bed (for dreamless sleep),

     square corner desk with three-castered chair
     that spins, loops, and glides from the barred door
     to the dark window that sees nowhere.

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.

Mathy Poems on YouTube

      In a recent posting -- 6/08/2022 -- I tell of mathematician-poet Sarah Glaz and link to her website that has a collection of links to works by various mathy poets that have participated in BRIDGES math-arts conferences.  Glaz not only offers connections to poet-information, she also offers links to YouTube recordings of poems -- and recently, to supply her with that, I worked with my granddaughter, Serena Growney, who has just finished her freshman year at high school and knows a lot more about using YouTube than I do.  Here's a link to our Growney-Growney YouTube collaboration.  (I had intended for Serena to focus on the book cover and not to catch my elbow, etc, in the background -- but perhaps all of that makes it more interesting.)  For viewers who like to see the text of a poem as well as to hear it, here is a link to a blog posting of "Things to Count On" -- and below I offer the text of the poem (a very new one), "A Tragic Mathematical Romance."

A Tragic Mathematical Romance        by JoAnne Growney

     Abscissa, my darling, what is the
     basis for your discontent?  When I
     calculate the
     distance between us, I
     even have trouble seeing it as
     finite – its growth has a steep
     graph, climbing out of my

Many, many mathy poems -- THANK YOU, Sarah Glaz

      Sarah Glaz, mathematics professor emerita at the University of Connecticut, is also a poet.  AND, not only a poet but a coordinator of math-poetry activities for the annual BRIDGES Math-Arts conference.  This year's conference will be held in Finland, August 1-5, 2022.  This link leads to Glaz' announcement of the poetry program at BRIDGES 2022 -- and includes bios and sample poems by poets who plan to attend the conference AND also includes samples of work from some of us poets who have been part of BRIDGES in the past but will be unable to attend this year.  Below are the opening lines from a poem by Glaz that is inspired by the mathematical field of Ring Theory.

The entire poem is available via Glaz's profile at this link.

Work by Sarah Glaz has been featured in a variety of previous posts in this blog.  Here is a link.

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;    

Bridges Math-Arts Conference 2022

      Founded by Reza Sarhangi (1952-2016) in 1998, the BRIDGES organization has had annual conferences and is an ongoing supporter of links between mathematics and the various arts.  This year's conference is scheduled for August 1-5, 2022 at Aalto University in Helsinki and Espoo, Finland.

Bridges Conference Information is available at this link.

Browsing and searching on the BRIDGES website can lead to a huge variety of math-arts connections -- including invited and contributed paper presentations, an exhibition of mathematical art, workshops, films, a poetry reading, music and theater -- including both descriptive and performance events.  Here is a link to a list of links to lots of exhibitions.   And this link leads to the results of a search in the Archive of BRIDGES papers that include the term "Poetry" in the title.

Adding to what the BRIDGES site includes is this rich source of math-poetry material at the University of Connecticut website of mathmatician-poet Sarah Glaz -- an active organizer of poetry at BRIDGES conferences.

               Poetry and
               mathematics
               build BRIDGES to
               understanding.