To add two and two

     Today I call attention again (as in my post for 6 January, 2015) to the extensive  Science-Poetry collection edited by Norman Hugh Redington and Karen Rae Keck. Mathy (rather than bawdy) limericks are featured in the collection; for example, this one by an unknown author:

       There was an old man who said, "Do
       Tell me how I'm to add two and two?
            I'm not very sure
            That it doesn't make four --
       But I fear that is almost too few."  

Poems and primes

Friday morning, 1-17-2014, looking north from the Baltimore Convention Center

       This past week I enjoyed Thursday and Friday at the Joint Mathematics Meetings at the Convention Center in Baltimore, a time for connecting with some old friends and making some new ones.  I gave a presentation in one of the sessions on the Intersection of Mathematics and the Arts, sharing poems -- such as Sherman Stein's "Mathematician" -- that can help non-maths to understand more clearly the nature of mathematics.  The handout for my talk contained a list of more than thirty poems that can help to communicate the nature of mathematics and it is available for download here. 

2013 (and prior) -- titles, dates of posts

Scroll down to find dates and titles (with links) of posts in 2013.  At the bottom are links to posts through 2012 and 2011 -- and all the way back to March 2010 when this blog was begun.   This link leads to a PDF file that lists searchable topics and names of poets and mathematicians presented herein.

Dec 30  Error Message Haiku
Dec 26  The angel of numbers . . .
Dec 23  Ah, you are a mathematician
Dec 20  Measuring Winter 

Out of 100 -- in the Klondike Gold Rush

Adding to my recent post on 19 August I note that OEDILF is seeking submissions.   
Join the project:  submit limerick definitions of  (math)  terms for OEDILF consideration.

One of my favorite poets is the 1996 Nobelist Wislawa Szymborska (1923 - 2012, Poland); one of my favorites of her poems is "A Contribution to Statistics."  Szymborska's poem served as a model for a poem of mine shown below, about Gold Rush Days in Skagway, Alaska.  Written while I was poet-in-residence at Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park, (in Skagway), this poem draws on historical data from the park's library to paint a bleak picture of wealth and survival in those gold-mad days.  

Counting in the Klondike     by JoAnne Growney
   
                        after Wisława Szymborska

Of 100 who left Seattle for Skagway in 1898
40 made it to the gold fields
8 found gold.    

OEDILF - the Limerick Dictionary

     At this site  Editor-in-Chief Chris Strolin is coordinating development of OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form.  So far, definitions are available (and being submitted) for terms beginning with letter-pairs Aa - Fd -- and completion of the dictionary is predicted at the OEDILF website for 2043.
     I have mentioned OEDILF before -- on 5 December 2012 and 29 March 2010. And today I offer a draft limerick about "factors" -- I am at this point, however, dissatisfied with my use of the plural rather than simply "factor."  More work needed.

MathWoman Limericks

My desk dictionary describes a limerick as a nonsense poem; my own experience has found these five-line rhymes to be more often bawdy than nonsensical.  A mathematician and poet who has extended the limerick to verses about mathematics is Philadelphian and Arcadia professor, Marion Deutsche Cohen.  Downloads of mathy limericks are available at her website.  Scrolling down a bit on Cohen's page of downloads, leads to "Permission to Add" -- a collection of limericks based on mathematical ideas. Below I feature several limericks from Cohen's newest collection of limericks -- also available for download --  about women who are/were mathematicians. 

For example: 

Limericks and a Cardioid -- for Valentine's Day

     Oh, math-lover most divine,

     for you this mathy Valentine --

          found when I looked
          in a calculus book --  
     a cardioid is the heart-sign. 

Rhyme, beauty, and usefulness

     For many years poetry was transmitted orally and rhymes were vital because they are easily remembered.  In recent years, however, free verse and concrete/visual poems have become vital parts of what we think of as poetry.  Rhyme lost importance when printed poetry became readily available and memory was no longer needed to keep a poem available.  Now, in the 21st century, electronic devices make visual poetry also readily accessible (see, for example, UbuWeb) and poems may also be animated and interactive.

That's so random! (NPR, OEDILF, etc.)

     One of the challenges I face in friendly conversations is not to overreact to a "misuse" of the word random.  When I hear someone use that word to describe events that are peculiar or haphazard my heart-rate rises in protest.  It is as if I am in math class where every term has one, quantifiable definition -- my use of random describes a situation when a variety of things may happen and all of them are equally likely.  Like when a fair coin is tossed, or a die.  Or when a lottery ticket is selected.
     Recently my attitude was aired nationally. Sort of.  On Friday, November 30, NPR's Evening Edition featured a discussion of random.  Written by commentator Neda Ulaby, "That's So Random:  The Evolution of an Odd Word" mentions the 1995 film "Clueless," a comedian (Spencer Thompson), the Hacker's Dictionary  -- and also includes comments from the Oxford English Dictionary's editor, Jesse Sheidlower. I am rethinking my stubborn position.

What are the chances?

Ohioan Miles David Moore is an active participant in Washington, DC literary activities, including a reading series at Arlington's Iota Cafe.  The voice of his literary creation, Fatslug, adds jest and pathos to many readings.  In the poem below, Fatslug is victim of choice and chance:

Pipher -- Math experiments, Pi

     'Tis a favorite project of mine

     A new value of pi to assign.

          I would fix it at 3

          For it's simpler, you see,

     Than 3 point 1  4  1  5  9.

Poems with Numbers

      Hats off to the organizers and presenters at the 2012 Split This Rock Poetry Festival held in DC this past weekend.  Great poets, great programs, fantastically good company all around!!!

      Saturday at the festival,  Denny Shaw and I led a panel-workshop, "Counting On," in which we encouraged poets to use numbers to illuminate their poems of witness and protest.  Our samples of vivid effects of numbers included:  "At Arlington" by Wiley Clements, "The Idea of Ancestry" by Etheridge Knight, "Numbers for the Week" by Joan Mazza, “On Ibrahim Balaban’s Painting ‘The Prison Gates’” by Nazim Hikmet, “The Stalin Epigram” by Osip Mandlestam, “Bosnia, Bosnia” by June Jordan, “The Terrorist:  He’s Watching” by Wislawa Szymborska, and “Four Five Six” by Rosemary Winslow.

     Poetry from our workshop participants will be posted here when it is gathered.  We focused on humanitarian and political concerns -- and used our workshop writing times to try for  poems that use numbers in their imagery.  Here are two samples from me (both syllable-squares).

     Our jails hold

     5 times more 

     blacks than whites.

Two ways to compute 1/3

Here, from Betsy Devine and Joel E Cohen, is a "mathematical" limerick:  
     

An Integral Limerick

April: along with baseball we celebrate poetry and mathematics

Is it coincidence or design that

     April  is  National Poetry Month
            
           and

   April  is  Mathematics Awareness Month
          (This year's theme is  "mathematics and sports")

In my own reading, baseball is the sport for which I have found the most poetry.

"Mathematical" Limericks

A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
     Divided by seven
     Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.