Recently I have found a website maintained by Jenna Laib, a K-8 math specialist in the Boston area -- and at her website there I have found a posting of a Halloween poem with accompanying prose that considers the value of using numbers to tell stories. The poem is below -- and, along with it, the website offers many more.
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| More about Raffi and Ken Whitely available at this link. |
Growing up on a Pennsylvania farm gave me lots of opportunities to use mathematics -- counting sheep, choosing patterns for planting, and many kitchen tasks. I also enjoyed occasional times to join friends at in-town playgrounds and, on their paved areas, hopscotch was one of our arithmetical and geometrical activities. Recently I came across a wonderful online collection of poems by Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014) -- and, within it, this slightly mathy poem that includes hopscotch and also speaks of racial injustice:
Harlem Hopscotch by Maya Angelou
One foot down, then hop! It's hot.
Good things for the ones that's got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In childhood -- and later also -- rhymes help us to remember. I recall reciting, in early years. "Pme, two, buckle my shoe; three, four, shut the door . . ." Here -- at the website, Empowered Parents -- are a number of counting songs and rhymes.
Recently I found among the poems of one of my favorite poets -- Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) -- a delightful counting poem entitled "Brass Spittoons." Here are some of its lines:
One of my recent discoveries of math-poetry is in the activities of Hofstra University professor Johanna Franklin, Franklin asks her students to compose Haiku and she has recently sent me the following material from various courses and semesters:
Math equals patterns
patterns not everyone sees
patterns we all need.
(introduction
to proofs, Spring 2023)
Why do I have my math students write haikus at the end of the semester? Because I love both poetry and playing with words, and the American conception of a haiku strikes me as a perfect poem for a mathematician: the counting of syllables, the symmetry.
One of my favorite email subscriptions is to A.Word.A.Day -- a day-to-day collection each week (gathered by Anu Garg) of five related terms to learn anjoy. On April 15, I learned the new word arithmomania -- and quote the following from Garg's posting.
arithmomania PRONUNCIATION: (uh-rith-muh-MAY-nee-uh)
MEANING: noun: An obsessive preoccupation with numbers, calculations, and counting.
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
This quote from science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is found here along with other related views. For me also -- with poetry or math or some other subject -- writing is an important thinking strategy: my fingers with my pen lead me to new ideas. And counting syllables shapes my words like this:
I
start with
just a few
words -- and write them --
AND my fingers help
to develop my thoughts.
One of my favorite memories of Christmas when I was a child involves recitation -- with family or classmates -- of this holiday rhyme, "The Twelve Days of Christmas." I include a few lines below, and a here is a link to the entire poem:
On the first day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree.
On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
. . . Read more here.
Found in a posting on November 26 on Twitter the following thoughtful lines -- featuring counting -- by poet and editor Dr. Maya C. Popa,
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!
Back in June I found an interesting article online by USAToday Entertainment Editor Pamela Avila that raises questions about how to read poetry -- questions that are similar to those asked about reading mathematics. I offer samples below:
Here are words from poet Clint Smith, author of new poetry collection Above Ground and writer for The Atlantic:
"Sometimes we're taught to read poetry as if it's a code that we have to unlock or that it's a puzzle or a geometric proof with a specific answer," says "I don't think that that's what poems are or should be." ("Counting Descent" is a mathy poem that explores Smith's family history.)
The beauty of a poem can lie in not knowing.
One of my art-and-poetry friends, Kyi May Kaung alerted me to the online journal, Glass -- and I had lots of fun browsing in the archives . . . . and found (in Volume 1, Issue 2) a mathy poem-- which I offer below.
My Math by Allan Peterson
Two egrets and three gulls are five,
ten with shadows, doubles of the night in daylight,
plus two for the red hawks watching.
This is my math, just as I was multiplied by the bear
and her cubs crossing at Chama,
by the swarm of winged ants and the warblers
that came frenzied for them.
If I wait for the fall migration, if I am my integer
while being stalked by bacteria,
I might calculate an uneasiness of earth, including
the skink that hides in the dryer vent,
a continent about to shift in its chair, but I am impatient,
still counting deliberately on my fingers and stars.
Another poem by Peterson with lots of numbers may be found here at poetryfoundations.org.
The website of author and screenwriter Betsy Franco contains a great variety of literary links (including this link to this interview of Franco by Oprah). Her writing includes poetry -- including collections of mathy poems for kids: Counting Our Way to the 100th Day and Mathematickles -- small mathy stanzas that are a bit like Haiku.
Here is a sample from Mathematickles:
Mathematickles are math haiku that tickle your brain. Fun words take the place of numbers in all sorts of math problems. Math becomes playful, beautiful, sassy, and creative in this whimsical romp through the seasons!
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| Mathematickles -- by Betsy Franco |
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:
As a child, I learned to love numbers via counting rhymes (of which many are found at this Lit2Go website); -- often I reinforced my number-memory by reciting rhyming verses such as "One, two, buckle my shoe" and "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and enjoying the trick in "Going to St. Ives." University of Arkansas mathematician Edmund Harriss (whom I met a bunch of years ago at a conference in Banff) and co-authors Houston Hughes (poet) and Brian Rea (visual artist) have a book -- HELLO NUMBERS! (published in 2020 by The Experiment). This book, like those old rhymes, gives young readers the opportunity for fun with numbers as they learn.
Here's a sample:
Learning meets wonder
when you invite numbers to come play in your imagination!
First think of One peeking out from the night
Like a point, or a dot, or a shimmering light.
A Pennsylvania friend who is now in Oklahoma, Sharon Solloway -- whom I got to know when we were both faculty members at Bloomsburg University (now part of Commonwealth University) -- shared with me on Facebook the following mathy poem, "Inventing Zero" by Canadian astronomer Rebecca Elson (1960-1999). Found in Elson's collection, A Responsibility to Awe (Carcanet Classics, 2018) "Inventing Zero" is available along with other samples of Elson's work here at this link.
Inventing Zero by Rebecca Elson
First it was lines in the sand,
The tangents, intersections,
Things that never met,
And you with your big stick,
Calling it geometry,
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.
On January 30, the wonderful and versatile poet, Linda Pastan (1932-2023) died. Here at the Poetry Foundation website is a brief bio of Pastan along with ninety-six of her poems -- including the mathy poems "Arithmetic Lesson: Infinity" and "Counting Backwards". This link leads to previous mentions of Pastan and her work in tis blog. And below, one of my favorites of her poems, "Algebra" -- which I also posted at this link back in November, 2013.
Algebra by Linda Pastan
I used to solve equations easily.
If train A left Sioux Falls
at nine o'clock, traveling
at a fixed rate,
I knew when it would meet train B.
Now I wonder if the trains will crash;
or else I picture naked limbs
through Pullman windows, each
a small vignette of longing.
Numerical or alphabetical constraints often are used by writers to add shape and impact to their writing -- and such was the case in a recent speech by Hakeem Jeffries, New York Congressman and Democratic leader of the House of Representatives as he spoke on January 7 ; Jeffries' speech went through the alphabet -- poetically directing his colleagues toward American Values instead of Autocracy, Benevolence over Bigotry . . . . all the way to Zealous Representation over Zero Sum Confrontation. A wonderful illustration of the value of constraints in shaping ideas!
Create an abecedarian poem of your own:
perhaps for a Valentine --
or to celebrate the coming of spring!
Here is a link to previous instances of abecedarian in this blog -- and below is a sample, my abecedarian portrait of a mathematician.
I was the oldest, the "responsible" one -- when I wanted to sleep in, my mother said, "Your father -- and our farm -- are counting on you." Here is a bit of my poetic reaction:
COUNTING ON
One
Two two
Three three three
Four four four four
Five five five five five
That's how it was growing --
growing up
on the farm
milking cows
gathering eggs
scattering grains of corn
for hens --
counting counting counting . . .
counting on.
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