As a child I wrote poems but abandoned the craft until many years later when I was a math professor; at that later time some of my poems related to ideas pertinent to my classroom. For Number Theory classes "A Mathematician's Nightmare" gave a story to the unsolved Collatz conjecture; in Abstract Algebra "My Dance Is Mathematics" gave the mathematical history a human component.
My editor-colleague (Strange Attractors), Sarah Glaz, also has used poems for teaching -- for example, "The enigmatic number e." And Marion Cohen brings many poems of her own and others into her college seminar course, "Truth & Beauty: Mathematics in Literature." Add a west-coaster to these east-coast poet-teachers -- this time a California-based contributor: teacher, poet, and blogger (Math Mama Writes) Sue VanHattum. VanHattum (or "Math Mama") is a community college math teacher interested in all levels of math learning. Some of her own poems and selections from other mathy poets are available at the Wikispace, MathPoetry, that she started and maintains. Here is the poet's recent revision of a poem from that site, a poem about the invention (or discovery?) of imaginary numbers.
Imaginary Numbers Do the Trick by Sue VanHattum
Showing posts sorted by date for query marion cohen. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query marion cohen. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Monday, November 12, 2012
Finding fault with a sphere . . .
On November 9 I had the pleasure (hosted by Irina Mitrea and Maria Lorenz) of talking ("Thirteen Ways that Math and Poetry Connect") with the Math Club at Temple University and, on November 5, I visited Marion Cohen's "Mathematics in Literature" class at Arcadia University. THANKS for these good times.
This
Fib
poem
says THANK-YOU
to all those students
from Arcadia and Temple
who participated in "math-poetry" with me --
who held forth with sonnets, pantoums,
squares, snowballs, and Fibs --
poetry
that rests
on
math.
My Temple host, Irina Mitrea, and I share something else besides being women who love mathematics -- the Romanian poet, Nichita Stanescu (1933-83), is a favorite for both of us. My October 23 posting ("On the Life of Ptolemy") offered one of Sean Cotter's recently published translations of poems by Stanescu and below I include more Stanescu-via-Cotter -- namely, two of the ten sections of "An Argument with Euclid." These stanzas illustrate Stanescu at his best -- irreverently using mathematical terminology and expressing articulate anger at seen and unseen powers of oppression.
This
Fib
poem
says THANK-YOU
to all those students
from Arcadia and Temple
who participated in "math-poetry" with me --
who held forth with sonnets, pantoums,
squares, snowballs, and Fibs --
poetry
that rests
on
math.
My Temple host, Irina Mitrea, and I share something else besides being women who love mathematics -- the Romanian poet, Nichita Stanescu (1933-83), is a favorite for both of us. My October 23 posting ("On the Life of Ptolemy") offered one of Sean Cotter's recently published translations of poems by Stanescu and below I include more Stanescu-via-Cotter -- namely, two of the ten sections of "An Argument with Euclid." These stanzas illustrate Stanescu at his best -- irreverently using mathematical terminology and expressing articulate anger at seen and unseen powers of oppression.
Labels:
Arcadia,
argument,
cube,
economy,
Euclid,
freedom,
Irina Mitrea,
Maria Lorenz,
Marion Cohen,
maximum,
minimum,
Nichita Stanescu,
poetry,
postulate,
Sean Cotter,
space,
sphere,
square,
Temple,
women
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Visit BRIDGES -- for (art and) poetry
This growing-then-melting syllable-snowball poem is offered in recognition of mathematician-and-poet Sarah Glaz and as a reminder of the poetry reading Glaz is organizing -- to be held at the 2012 BRIDGES Math-Art conference at Towson University, July 25-29.
Labels:
algebra,
art,
Bridges Math-Art 2012,
JoAnne Growney,
poetry,
Sarah Glaz,
snowball,
Towson
Friday, April 27, 2012
Poetry with Math -- BRIDGES 2012, Limericks
During July 25-29, 2012, Towson University will be hosting BRIDGES 2012, a mathematics-and-the-arts interdisciplinary conference. This year's conference will feature a poetry day on Saturday, July 28. -- an event that is free and open to the public as are all "Family Day" conference activities after 2 PM. Mark your calendar. More information is available at the end of this post (scroll down) and at the BRIDGES website.
This weekend in Washington, DC (April 28 - 29, 2012)
enjoy "the largest celebration of science in the USA" --
visit the FREE USA Science and Engineering Festival --
featuring more than 3000 exhibits.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Poetry heard at JMM
In Boston on Friday evening, January 6, at the 2012 Joint Mathematics Meetings, these folks gathered and read -- for a delighted audience in Room 312 of Hynes Convention Center -- some poems of mathematics.
Poets who submitted work in advance and were on the "Poetry with Mathematics" program included:
Jacqueline Lapidus, Judith Johnson, Rosanna Iembo (accompanied by the violin of her daughter Irene Iaccarino), Charlotte Henderson, Carol Dorf (read by Elizabeth Langosy), Sandra Coleman, Marion Cohen, Tatiana Bonch (read by John Hiigli), Harry Baker (via video presented by reading organizer Gizem Karaali -- an editor of the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, which sponsored the the reading), and JoAnne Growney (also an organizer of the reading).
Participants during an "open reading" included:
Mary Buchinger, Chris Caragianis, Rip Coleman, Seth Goldberg, Joshua Holden, Ann Perbohner, Pedro Poitevin, and Jason Samuels.
Poets who submitted work in advance and were on the "Poetry with Mathematics" program included:
Jacqueline Lapidus, Judith Johnson, Rosanna Iembo (accompanied by the violin of her daughter Irene Iaccarino), Charlotte Henderson, Carol Dorf (read by Elizabeth Langosy), Sandra Coleman, Marion Cohen, Tatiana Bonch (read by John Hiigli), Harry Baker (via video presented by reading organizer Gizem Karaali -- an editor of the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, which sponsored the the reading), and JoAnne Growney (also an organizer of the reading).
Participants during an "open reading" included:
Mary Buchinger, Chris Caragianis, Rip Coleman, Seth Goldberg, Joshua Holden, Ann Perbohner, Pedro Poitevin, and Jason Samuels.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
This plane of earthly love
Poet Joan Mazza celebrates qualities mathematical:
To a Mathematician Lover by Joan Mazza
As we embark on this plane
of earthly love, I should explain,
my experiences with men
have doubled my troubles
and halved my pleasures,
divided my time into fractions
To a Mathematician Lover by Joan Mazza
As we embark on this plane
of earthly love, I should explain,
my experiences with men
have doubled my troubles
and halved my pleasures,
divided my time into fractions
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Excitement in mathematics classrooms
Poems from three women illustrate a range of emotional content in the mathematics classroom: Rita Dove's "Geometry" captures the excitement of a new mathematical discovery. Sue VanHattum's "Desire in a Math Class" tells of undercurrents of emotion beneath the surface in a formal classroom setting. Marion Deutsche Cohen's untitled poem [I stand up there and dance] offers a glimpse of what may go on in a teacher's mind as she performs for her class.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Poetry-and-Math -- Interdisciplinary Courses
On July 1 my posting considered math-poetry anthologies and began with a reference to Against Infinity, the discovery of which was a catalyst for my own inclusion of poetry in my mathematics classrooms. Other mathematicians and writers have gone further and developed interdisciplinary courses--such courses are the topic for this posting.
I begin with a small item from Against Infinity, this one a "Found Poem" by Elaine Romaine (found in the math textbook Calclulus on Manifolds by Michael Spivak):
I begin with a small item from Against Infinity, this one a "Found Poem" by Elaine Romaine (found in the math textbook Calclulus on Manifolds by Michael Spivak):
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Poems starring mathematicians - 2
Published a century later than William Benjamin Smith's "The Merman and the Seraph" (see April 14 posting) we have Crossing the Equal Sign (Plain View Press, 2007)--a poetry collection by Marion Deutsche Cohen. Cohen lives in Philadelphia and teaches mathematics at Arcadia University where she has used her literary interests to develop a new course, "Truth and Beauty: Mathematics in Literature." I have chosen several excerpts from Cohen's collection that offer internal snapshots of her sort of mathematician:
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