Sunday, June 30, 2013

Miroslav Holub -- "what use is it?"

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     In earlier postings I have expressed my admiration for the Czech poet Miroslav Holub (1923-1998)  -- a research scientist who also wro...
Thursday, June 27, 2013

17-word Haiku

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     On 25 May 2013 this blog contained an announcement of NASA's Haiku-to-Mars contest.  The contest rules are here -- and July 1 is ...
1 comment:
Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Symmetric squares

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Sometimes we find meaning among disparate objects when they are juxtaposed. Here are nine words I have chosen because of the ways they are s...
Saturday, June 22, 2013

Why is SHE less known? . . .

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Sometimes matching words to a syllable-count helps to bring focus to my musings.  Here are two stanzas for which I used the Fibonacci number...
4 comments:
Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Balancing an Equation

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     I grew up on a farm and spent my middle life in a small town and now live in a city.  A sort of immigrant.  A farm girl who became a p...
Sunday, June 16, 2013

What is not possible?

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     It is impossible for a number to be greater than 2 if it is not greater than 1.  It is impossible to find a rational number whose squar...
Thursday, June 13, 2013

Count your things

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     In the development of human culture, mathematics began with counting.  And so it also begins with each child as she/he grows.      Som...
Monday, June 10, 2013

A sestina from Rudyard Kipling

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My father died many years ago, when I was still a young girl, and I have few possessions that were once his.  One is The First Jungle Book ,...
Friday, June 7, 2013

A Man-Made Universe and "found" poems

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 Some poems are found rather than crafted. It's such fun -- can happen to anyone --  to be reading along and find a poem.       T...
Tuesday, June 4, 2013

A poem from an airline call center

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     Poet Laura LeHew offers us " The New Math "-- a "found" poem that features conversations and calculations from cal...
Sunday, June 2, 2013

Geometry of distance

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     Some of the poems herein arrive as gifts from friends.  Today's poem came via e-mail from Susan (a Californian whom I have gotten t...
Thursday, May 30, 2013

Haiku with a number or two

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     Recently Irish poet and New Yorker poetry editor Paul Muldoon read at the Folger Shakespeare Library -- and, sadly, I missed the eve...
Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Related rates -- in fiction and poetry

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     During the Memorial Day weekend I had the opportunity to read Black Rice (WSI, 2013), a novella by Burmese-American poet, artist, acti...
2 comments:
Saturday, May 25, 2013

Haiku to Mars

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  Send a Haiku to Mars on the MAVEN! NASA has a contest (deadline July 1)   to select three Haiku to send to Mars:   NASA is offering...
Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Shifting patterns

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This poem by California poet and scientist Lucille Lang Day weaves a shifting display of images -- the flight patterns of birds made vivid ...
1 comment:
Saturday, May 18, 2013

Mathematics and Mexican Food

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Recently Rattle posted a wonderful mathy poem by Diana Rosen entitled "Mathematics and Molé." Here's the first stanza:    ...
Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Icosasphere

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Marianne Moore (1887-1972) has fun with the sounds of words -- including a number of math terms -- in her playful poem that celebrates inven...
Friday, May 10, 2013

Sustainability and Collapse

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     Last Tuesday evening mathematician Charles Hadlock offered an excellent lecture -- "Sustainability and Collapse" --  at the ...
Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Four -- square, colors, theorem, poem

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During my doctoral study days at the University of Oklahoma I knew several mathematicians who were working on graph theory problems -- and a...
Friday, May 3, 2013

Enough for everyone -- Russell Libby

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Are you looking for a poem on a particular math topic?  One search strategy is to go to the Poetry Foundation website (another is to click ...
Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Growing lines . . .

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  Maximizing Meaning (maybe) How many syllables will fit on this single line segment? ______________________________________________...
Saturday, April 27, 2013

Zero Power

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To neutralize the differing effects of any non-zero numbers -- to wipe out vast differences between numbers -- we may raise each of them to ...
Thursday, April 25, 2013

Geometry of a hawk's flight

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One of the poets featured in the current Poetic Likeness Exhibit -- featuring photographs and paintings and sculptures of poets along with...
Monday, April 22, 2013

Earth Day, 2013

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     OUR earth is finite.       Its resources are      finite. No clever      transformation can      convert the      finite to      infin...
Saturday, April 20, 2013

Counting the seconds . . .

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During these difficult days of fear and explosions -- in Boston and West, Texas and where next? -- I have turned to my copy of View with a G...
Friday, April 19, 2013

A poem for your pocket

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April is National Poetry Month. April is National Mathematics Awareness Month. Today, April 19, is Poem-in-Your-Pocket Day. Here is a...
Thursday, April 18, 2013

Truth and Beauty

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     In both mathematics and poetry, truth and beauty are linked.  The true is likely to be beautiful, the beautiful is considered likely to...
Sunday, April 14, 2013

Neglecting important numbers

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Not Getting It     by JoAnne Growney We want to be cool. We want cool rooms, drinks. With cool mindsets  we “forget” t...
Thursday, April 11, 2013

Light and laws, letters and numbers

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     We viewers of the world see it through a variety of lenses -- for some of us music shapes our view, for others it is color, for others ...
Monday, April 8, 2013

"Sustainable" in a poem

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As I have mentioned previously, April is National Poetry Month and also Mathematics Awareness Month -- and the mathematical focus is "...
Friday, April 5, 2013

Miroslav Holub -- interview, poems

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Frequent readers of this blog probably know that Miroslav Holub is one of my favorite poets.  And it was a great delight to get a recent e-...
Tuesday, April 2, 2013

April is . . .

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April is National Mathematics Awareness Month .  The theme is SUSTAINABILITY and some ideas for learning and doing may be found here (inclu...
Sunday, March 31, 2013

What are the odds -- of a kiss?

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Virginia poet Bernadette Geyer has a new (2013) poetry book, The Scabbard of Her Throat -- and I have been exploring these engaging poems ...
Thursday, March 28, 2013

Your Favorite Number

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In the Washington, DC area's Beltway Poetry Quarterly , edited by Kim Roberts , I recently found this lively number-poem by Pennsylvani...
Monday, March 25, 2013

Counting syllables -- and allowing abortions

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In a perfect world in which every pregnancy is wanted and every life supported with love, there would be no need for abortion.  As I work to...
Thursday, March 21, 2013

Marianne Moore -- counting syllables

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     Currently (until 28 April, 2013) at the National Portrait Gallery is an exhibit of video and audio portraits of a selection of American...
Monday, March 18, 2013

Power of a theorem

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My poetry-math colleague Sarah Glaz has sent me the following pantoum -- which she says was inspired by Ken Yee's pantoum posted in thi...
2 comments:
Thursday, March 14, 2013

Number gives things a body . . .

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Poet Stephanie Strickland majored in mathematics as an undergraduate and she uses mathematical imagery freely in her work  -- in a career t...
Sunday, March 10, 2013

Celebrate 3.14 with poems of Pi

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     Soon this year's version of the date 3.14 will arrive.  Pi-day!      At the 2012 Bridges Conference in Towson MD I had the oppor...
Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Many Worlds, in a Pantoum

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Permutations of lines and rhymes play with sound and meaning in ways that enhance both.  I particularly like the pantoum form. Hearing eac...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 3, 2013

A mathematician, a poet, a woman

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When I contacted University of Kansas mathematician Judith Roitman for permission to include her poem "Sixth Cosmogony" in this p...
3 comments:
Thursday, February 28, 2013

Places to go, ideas to see

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     Today I want to suggest interesting internet locations to visit.      This first link leads to an hour-long documentary on YouTube on...
1 comment:
Monday, February 25, 2013

One of the best -- and a woman

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Women in mathematics have not been much-written-about.  This blog has made  a few corrective efforts and more are needed. Perhaps change is ...
Friday, February 22, 2013

Counting for Freedom -- the Amistad trials

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     Josiah Willard Gibbs (Jr, 1839 – 1903) was an American scientist who made important theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, a...
Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Spheres and parallels

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On 23 January 2013 I posted a latitude-longitude poem "Zero-Zero" by Elizabeth Bodien and today I offer another of her poems of ...
Sunday, February 17, 2013

MathWoman Limericks

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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 n...
Thursday, February 14, 2013

One Billion Rising

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Below I repeat a syllable-square first posted on 18 August 2010 and included in  Red Has No Reason .  Today, Valentine's Day, stand up ...
Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Hilary Tham -- Counting a life

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     Several of my friends speak with reverent admiration of Hilary Tham (1946  -2005) ,  noted Washington, DC-area poet, teacher, and paint...
Saturday, February 9, 2013

Limericks and a Cardioid -- for Valentine's Day

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      Oh, math-lover most divine,      for you this mathy Valentine --           found when I looked           in a calculus book -- ...
Thursday, February 7, 2013

Odd numbers are common

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A few weeks ago, on Thursday January 17, Chicago poet Virginia Bell was one of the very fine poets who participated (along with me) at a re...
Monday, February 4, 2013

Problems of Translation

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     June Jordan's poem "Problems of Translation: Problems of Language" ( found at PoetryFoundation.org ) uses numbers and mea...
Friday, February 1, 2013

Tomorrow is (or is not) Groundhog Day

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     Last year my February 1 post anticipated Groundhog Day with a poem that mentioned the crop damage that groundhogs do by tunneling unde...
1 comment:
Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Rhyme, beauty, and usefulness

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     For many years poetry was transmitted orally and rhymes were vital because they are easily remembered.  In recent years, however, free ...
2 comments:
Saturday, January 26, 2013

Poetry at JMM -- groups, etc.

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     A math-poetry reading on January 11 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego -- organized by Gizem Karaali (an editor of the Jo...
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Latitude, longitude, and inauguration

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Elizabeth Bodien now lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania -- settling there after other lives in California, in Japan, in West Afr...
Thursday, January 17, 2013

A Baker's Dozen -- in Takoma Park

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This evening I had the privilege of being part of a poetry reading at the Takoma Park Community Center   -- one of four featured poets, I wa...
2 comments:
Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Counting grains of sand

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Recently I have found online translations of several poems by Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994) .  His poem "Sand" reminded...
2 comments:
Saturday, January 12, 2013

Because the mind circles an idea

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Besides eight books of poetry and a memoir, California poet Lucille Lang Day has co-authored a textbook, How to Encourage Girls in Math and...
Thursday, January 10, 2013

Tomorrow in San Diego -- Math Poetry Event

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If you are in San Diego tomorrow, I hope you will attend: A Reading of Poetry with Mathematics 5 – 7 PM    Friday, January 11, 2013 ...
Tuesday, January 8, 2013

New poems from old by substitution

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     Just as we get new numbers by substitution of new inputs into old formulas -- such as x² or sinx -- we may get new poems from old ones ...
Sunday, January 6, 2013

Cities of Mathematics

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Judith Johnson 's multi-part poem, "Cities of Mathematics and Desire" is geometric in its descriptive power; scenes are constr...
Friday, January 4, 2013

Geometry of a Gun

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Despite the recent news media chatter about a "fiscal cliff," the event that we can't (and mustn't) stop thinking about is...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year 2013

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One of the questions that may be asked about our new year is whether 2013 is composite or prime -- that is, whether it does or does not have...

2012 posts -- titles and links

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Scroll down to find titles and dates of posts in 2012 -- and, at the bottom, links to posts all the way back through 2011 to March 2010 when...
Sunday, December 30, 2012

A chance encounter

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     I invite you to celebrate the coming of the new year 2013 with a poem I like a lot.      Alberta poet Alice Major produces poems that...
Friday, December 28, 2012

Explorers

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Those who know mathematics but do not immerse in it daily often use its terms in contexts that surprise and delight.  I smiled with apprecia...
Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Support STREET SENSE

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Street Sense is "The DC Metro Area Street Newspaper" and it is available from vendors in the Washington, DC area -- vendors who a...
Monday, December 24, 2012

Star, shine bright!

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* on top give light freely forever abundant brilliant everywhere Be our light! For more visual poetry of Christmas, enjoy a visit t...
Friday, December 21, 2012

Skating (with math) on Christmas

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     Found at poets.org , a lovely poem of ice skating and mathematics and Christmas by Cynthia Zarin; the title is "Skating in Harlem,...