Friday, December 31, 2010

The year ends -- and we go on . . .

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Immortal Helix      by Archibald MacLeish    (1892-1982) HEREUNDER Jacob Schmidt who, man and bones, Has been his hundred times around th...
Thursday, December 30, 2010

Mathematicians are NOT entitled to arrogance

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Godfrey Harold “G. H.” Hardy (1877 – 1947) was an English mathematician known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analys...
1 comment:
Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Teaching Numbers

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Californian Gary Soto   writes for both children and adults and much of his work suits both groups.  Here from A Fire in My Hands (Houghton...
Sunday, December 26, 2010

Where are the Women?

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Here is a small  square poem about a paradox that's been on my mind recently.                Little Women                In school,...
4 comments:
Tuesday, December 21, 2010

A Square for the Season

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          Now,  near the Solstice,           we turn on  bright lights           and  give gifts.  Oh, Sun,           please shorten our ...
Monday, December 20, 2010

"M" is for Mathematics and . . .

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Today's poem by Miroslav Holub  (1923-98) is square , having 5 lines of 5 letters each; it describes the letter M by using what is ...
Saturday, December 18, 2010

An Elegy from Argentina

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Mathematicians are mourning the too-soon death of  Cora Sadosky (1940-2010) on December 3.  Born in Argentina, Sadosky earned her doctoral ...
Thursday, December 16, 2010

Can we trust numbers?

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Poet Lucia Perillo was honored Monday evening, December 13 at the Library of Congress -- as her collection Inseminating the Elephant won t...
Wednesday, December 15, 2010

New poems from old -- by substitution

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Poet Lee Ann Brown was the featured poet at the November, 2010 Conference on Constrained Poetry  at UNC Ashville; this conference celebrate...
Monday, December 13, 2010

Satire Against Reason . . .

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     John Wilmot (1647-1680), 2nd Earl of Rochester , was a friend of King Charles II, and author of much satirical and bawdy poetry. Even t...
Saturday, December 11, 2010

Cryptography -- an MAA lecture and a poem

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     Living near the Silver Spring metro station, on the border of Washington, DC, makes travel to the offices of the Mathematical Associati...
Thursday, December 9, 2010

8 January 2011 -- Math-Poetry at JMM

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Here's an invitation for math-poets -- at 5 PM on Saturday, January 8 at the 2011 Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans there will ...
Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Poems starring mathematicians -- 7

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Activist mathematician Chandler Davis  -- an editor of The Mathematical Intelligencer , career mathematician at the University of Toronto, ...
Monday, December 6, 2010

Are all mathematicians equal?

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My first posting for this blog (on March 23, 2010 ) featured one of my earliest poems, a tribute to mathematician Emmy Noether (1882 -1935)...
3 comments:
Saturday, December 4, 2010

Horizon line

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Poet James Galvin often uses mathematical imagery in his poems.    Art Class       by James Galvin       Let us begin with a simple lin...
Thursday, December 2, 2010

Will I really NEED algebra after school?

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For those of us who create and teach mathematics, algebra is one of our much-used language skills.  We cannot imagine lives in which we do n...
Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Minimal poem from Saroyan

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This poem appears in Complete Minimal Poems by Aram Saroyan ( Ugly Duckling Presse , 2007).  Another of Saroyan's minimal poems was...
1 comment:
Sunday, November 28, 2010

Poetry with base 10

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In his collection, Rational Numbers ( Truman State , 2000) Harvey Hix presents "Orders of Magnitude" -- a collection of 100 sta...
Wednesday, November 24, 2010

A square riddle -- by Sylvia Plath

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Metaphors      by Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) I'm a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two...
Monday, November 22, 2010

Butterfly Effects

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An equation or system of equations is said to be "ill-conditioned" if a small change in input data can produce a very large change...
2 comments:
Saturday, November 20, 2010

More from Guillevic

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     My October 13 post  presented three small poems by the French poet Guillevic (1909-97).  Strongly drawn to his work, I have purchased ...
1 comment:
Friday, November 19, 2010

Syllable-Sestina -- a square permutation poem

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Some poetry is " free verse " but many poems are crafted by following some sort of form or constraint--they might be sonnets or ba...
Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Celebrate Constraints -- Happy Birthday, OULIPO

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Patrick Bahls and Richard Chess of the University of North Carolina at Ashville have organized a " Conference on Constrained Poetry ...
Monday, November 15, 2010

Special square stanzas

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My   recent posting  ( November 14 )  of a symmetric stanza by Lewis Carroll illustrates one variety of  "square" poem -- in which...
Sunday, November 14, 2010

Symmetric stanza

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Although the following stanza by mathematician-author  Lewis Carroll  first appears to be a merely melodramatic example of Victorian verse, ...
Thursday, November 11, 2010

Theorem-proof / Cut-up / poems

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     For mathematicians, reading a well-crafted proof that turns toward its conclusion with elegance and perhaps surprise -- this mirrors a...
1 comment:
Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Minimal Poem

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This poem appears in Complete Minimal Poems by Aram Saroyan ( Ugly Duckling Presse , 2007).
Monday, November 8, 2010

One type of "mathematical" poetry

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When I began (in the 1980s) collecting examples of "mathematical poetry," I sought lines of verse that included some mathematical ...
1 comment:
Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Troubles with math, expressed poetically

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     Should I admit that I sometimes feel a bit of resentment toward people who are insistently articulate about their difficulties with mat...
2 comments:
Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Creation from "nothing"

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     Christian Otto Josef Wolfgang Morgenstern (1871-1914) was a German writer whose poetry often involved paradox or nonsense and whose wi...
Sunday, October 31, 2010

The Fib -- a form that gathers strength

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The "Fib" is a poetry form in which the numbers of syllables per line follow the pattern of the Fibonacci numbers.  (See also Apri...
Friday, October 29, 2010

Ghost stories in algebra -- Happy Halloween!

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Born in Yugoslavia, Charles Simic emigrated at age 15 to Chicago; widely known and respected as a poet and teacher (at the University of Ne...
1 comment:
Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Continuing Climate Concerns

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     Split This Rock , an activist confederation of poets concerned with vital human issues, has directed attention to environmental concern...
Tuesday, October 26, 2010

A Lemma by Constance Reid

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Constance Reid (1918-2010), died on October 14.  Sister of a mathematician (Julia Robinson), Reid wrote first about life in World War II fa...
1 comment:
Monday, October 25, 2010

Writing poetry like mathematics

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In an article about the Chilean mathematician and poet Nicanor Parra , Paul M Pearson says , :  "Parra almost wrote poetry like he woul...
2 comments:
Saturday, October 23, 2010

"The Equation" by Owen Sheers

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This posting is brief to encourage you to have time to read  Owen Sheers ' fine poem several times and let it settle in and be part of y...
Thursday, October 21, 2010

I miss you, Martin Gardner

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Martin Gardner (1914-2010), featured also in my June 6 posting , would have been 96 years old today--October 21, 2010.  All over the world ...
1 comment:
Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Giraffe -- novel (& prose poem) by May Swenson

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Poet and playright May Swenson (1913-89) was born in Utah to Mormon parents and grew up in a home in which Swedish was the primary language...
1 comment:
Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Length of a Coastline

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In the nineties, fifteen or so years ago, when I began posting mathematical poems on the Internet, two of my earliest connections were Ken S...
1 comment:
Friday, October 15, 2010

Voices in a Geometry Classroom

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I have been invited to return next week ( October 20 at 7 PM ) to Bloomsburg University, where I taught mathematics for lots of years, for a...
2 comments:
Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Varieties of triangles -- by Guillevic

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My introduction to French poet Guillevic (1909-97) came from UK poet Tim Love who found three of his triangle poems translated into Italia...
1 comment:
Monday, October 11, 2010

Varieties of palindromes in poetry

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My posting for October 6  mentioned palindromes. Today we continue with the topic, including illustrations of the various ways they may infl...
Saturday, October 9, 2010

"The Seventh" by Attila Jozsef

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Attila József (1905-1937)  is one of the most important Hungarian poets of the 20th century.       The Seventh    by Attila József      ...
Thursday, October 7, 2010

Squares of Climate Concern

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The square  (with as many lines as syllables per line) is a poetry-form that has existed   for centuries  and is now enjoying a revival.  He...
Wednesday, October 6, 2010

"Poetry, in other words, is mathematics"

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From Tim Love , British poet and member of the Computer Systems Group in the Engineering Department at Cambridge University, I received thi...
2 comments:
Monday, October 4, 2010

"The Reckoning" by M. Sorescu (Romania,1936-96)

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Works by poet and playwright   Marin Sorescu (1936-1996) continue to be popular with Romanian readers--and he is one of the most-frequently...
1 comment:
Sunday, October 3, 2010

Art, poetry, and mathematics -- and Rafael Alberti

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On September 23 I was privileged to hear Annalisa Crannell , mathematics professor at Lancaster's Franklin and Marshall College, speak o...
Friday, October 1, 2010

Nursing--and other vital applications of counting

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     Although counting is one of the basic activities of mathematics, its importance also extends to the highest mathematical levels.  We co...
Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Is mathematics discovered -- or invented?

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The issue of whether mathematics is invented or discovered is posed often.  Less frequently, queries as to where poetry falls in these cate...
Monday, September 27, 2010

Ideal Geometry -- complex politics

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Christopher Morley (1890-1957) was an American poet, novelist, and publisher who was the son of a poet and musician (Lilian Janet Bird) and...
Friday, September 24, 2010

Reflections on the Transfinite

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      Georg Cantor (1845-1918), a German mathematician, first dared to think the counter-intuitive notion that not all infinite sets have t...
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Goldbach's conjecture -- easily stated but unsolved

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This blog's July 20 posting featured work from poets who have spouses or siblings who are mathematicians.  Today, introducing the work ...
2 comments:
Monday, September 20, 2010

The Magic of Numbers -- Kenneth Koch

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I first became acquainted with  Kenneth Koch (1925-2002)   through his small and hugely valuable paperback of teaching strategies, Wishes, L...
Saturday, September 18, 2010

Visual Poetry -- from Karl Kempton

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Poet Karl Kempton offers readers a great variety of visual poetry -- often including elements of mathematics. Kaz Maslanka's Mathemati...
Thursday, September 16, 2010

Prisoner's Dilemma -- and permutations

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In game theory's original, single-play, Prisoner's Dilemma problem, two prisoners each are given the choice between silence and bet...
Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Ghosts of Departed Quantities

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     Years ago in calculus class I excitedly learned that an infinite number of terms may have a finite sum.  Manipulation of infinities see...
Sunday, September 12, 2010

Word Play with the Hypotenuse

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Here we have a playful treatment of the language of the Pythagorean Theorem in "Talking Big" by John Bricuth . 
Thursday, September 9, 2010

Grasping at TIME

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Different persons experience time differently -- as illustrated by the few lines included below (part II of  "Time" from my new co...
1 comment:
Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Against Intuition

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One of my favorite poets (mentioned previously for her poem, "Pi" in my  September 6 posting ) is the Polish Nobelist (1996) Wisla...
Monday, September 6, 2010

More of Pi in Poetry

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Recording artist Kate Bush has written a song entitled “Pi” which includes some of π's digits in the lyrics . Likewise, Polish Nobelist ...
Thursday, September 2, 2010

Rhymes help to remember the digits of Pi

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Calculated at the website,  WolframAlpha , here are the first fifty-nine digits of the irrational number π (ratio of a circle's circumfe...
2 comments:
Monday, August 30, 2010

What is the point? -- consider Euclid

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A two-line poem by Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda (1904-73), found in my bilingual edition of Extravagaria , reminded me of the poetic nature ...
Thursday, August 26, 2010

"Two Pair" by Howard Nemerov

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This poem by Howard Nemrov (1920-1991) uses scientific terminology in ways that seem especially deft:    Two Pair    More money's l...
Monday, August 23, 2010

The Irrational Sonnet -- An Oulipian form

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An irrational sonnet has 14 lines, just as the traditional sonnet, but differs in its stanza-division and rhyme:  there are five stanzas--co...
Thursday, August 19, 2010

From Miroslav Holub -- a reflection on accuracy

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In applications of mathematics, as in other scientific research, it is important to distinguish between the precision of measurements (how ...
Wednesday, August 18, 2010

From "Red Has No Reason" -- a poem about the nature of mathematics

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My new poetry book, Red Has No Reason , is now available (from Plain View Press or  amazon.com ).  Several of the poems mention math--and o...
Monday, August 16, 2010

Poetry and applied mathematics

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Back in the 1980's when I began taking examples of poetry into my mathematics classrooms at Bloomsburg University , I think that I justi...
Saturday, August 14, 2010

Zero-sum game -- in a poem by Okigbo

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Game theory (with origins in the 1930s) was initially developed to analyze competitive decisions in which one individual does better at anot...
Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Excitement in mathematics classrooms

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Poems from three women illustrate a range of emotional content in the mathematics classroom:  Rita Dove's "Geometry" captures ...
1 comment:
Sunday, August 8, 2010

A poem of calculus (of ants on a worm)

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Philip Wexler  plays with the terminology of calculus in this poem:        The Calculus of Ants on a Worm      Swarming tiny      bodie...
Thursday, August 5, 2010

Snowballs -- growing/shrinking lines

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Today's post explores poetic structures called snowballs  developed by the Oulipo (see also March 25 posting ) and known to many throug...
Saturday, July 31, 2010

What nobody else has thought

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     Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893-1986) was a Hungarian Biochemist who discovered Vitamin C and won the 1937 Nobel Prize for Medicine.  Szent...
Thursday, July 29, 2010

A wedding song -- shaped by mathematics

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This posting includes a stanza from of "A Wedding on Earth" by Annie Finch .  In the poet's words: the poem has 11 stanzas wit...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Poets who Count

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For some poets, counting is part of the language of the poem. For others, counting determines the structure. Here are two poems of the forme...
1 comment:
Monday, July 26, 2010

Trouble with Math in School

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      Sad and lonely experiences seem to produce more poems than joyful ones.  And so it is easier to find a poem about a trouble in a math ...
Saturday, July 24, 2010

The infinitude of ecstacy -- a la Israel Lewis

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Israel Lewis is the pen name of a polymath who earned his living as a scientist and is a writer in his retirement.  His webpage offers a ...
Thursday, July 22, 2010

Mathematics in poetry by Nichita Stanescu

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     Though formerly a math professor, my recent teaching has involved poetry--and I have been fortunate to spend several summer months at S...
Tuesday, July 20, 2010

In the same family -- a poet and a mathematician

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When a poet and a mathematician are members of the same family, understandings result.  Ohio poet Cathryn Essinger is a twin of a mathemati...
Sunday, July 18, 2010

David Blackwell (1919 - 2010) -- and Game Theory

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     David Blackwell, the first black scholar to be admitted to the National Academy of Sciences, a probabilist and statistician, died early...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Ray Bobo's mathematical poem

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Ray Bobo , a retired Georgetown mathematics professor, has written a love poem with mathematical symbols.  And, for those of us who might be...
1 comment:
Monday, July 12, 2010

Poetry-application of The Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic

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Destructive effects of human greed and neglect on the earth's natural environment are echoed hauntingly in the repetitions within "...
Friday, July 9, 2010

Jordie Albiston -- structure behind the writing

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       I love sonnets and the one below by Jordie Albiston is a favorite of mine.      Albiston is an Australian poet with a sense of orc...
1 comment:
Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Poetry-and-Math -- Interdisciplinary Courses

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     On July 1 my posting considered math-poetry anthologies and began with a reference to Against Infinity , the discovery of which was a ...
Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Digital poetry -- Stephanie Strickland et al

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Stephanie Strickland writes with mastery of numbers, as we see in her poem below.  But numbers are only the beginning of her work.  A direc...
Thursday, July 1, 2010

Poetry with Mathematics -- Anthologies

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More than thirty years ago at a mathematics conference book exhibit I stumbled upon Against Infinity:  An Anthology of Contemporary Mathemat...
Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Mathematics, like poetry, is ART

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Doing mathematics is often misunderstood as primarily computation--an error that seems equivalent to seeing poetry writing as primarily a sp...
Monday, June 21, 2010

Poetry with mathematical symbols

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On the internet and elsewhere a variety of viewpoints are expressed about the criteria poetry should satisfy to be "mathematical."...
Friday, June 18, 2010

Three poems with the word "axiom"

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Poems that contain  "number" are numerous; those with "axiom" are less easily found.  Here are 3 of them -- by 19th cent...
Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Send your math-poems to QUARC

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Canadian journal seeks submissions from poets or fiction writers whose work makes use of metaphors from the sciences or engages scientific ...
Monday, June 14, 2010

Girls and Mathematics

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In Indiana, Pennsylvania, my senior high school advanced math teacher was Laura Church--a Barnard College graduate and a flamboyant silver-h...
Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Square comment on shoe styles

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     Recently I have returned to Silver Spring from a trip to Latvia , traveling with a friend who was born there.  My effort to find poetry...
3 comments: