Friday, September 11, 2015

Songs of mathematics . . .

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     Larry Lesser is a songwriter who uses lyrics for teaching as well as entertainment.  A varied sample of his creations for doing this a...
Tuesday, September 8, 2015

It starts with counting . . .

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Mathematical imagery is one of the many features I enjoy in the work of Canadian environmental scientist and poet Madhur Anand .  Here is a ...
Thursday, September 3, 2015

Mathematical Modeling

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My friend and colleague, University of Connecticut mathematician Sarah Glaz , is an accomplished poet and is active in coordinating math-poe...
Monday, August 31, 2015

The answer is NO

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This past weekend I have much enjoyed reading Mathematics:  a novel   by Jacques Roubaud   (Dalkey Archive Press, reprint 2010, translated f...
Thursday, August 27, 2015

Hate Math -- 21 Reasons (NOT) . . .

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Two four-letter words that I want NEVER to be used TOGETHER are hate and math .  A lively contradiction to my wish is provided by the follo...
Sunday, August 23, 2015

Three (or fewer) choices

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Here is a link to an anthology of English translations of work by Chilean poet and mathematician, Nicanor Parra .   Some rank Nicanor Segun...
Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Caught in an infinite loop . . ..

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Philadelphian Marion Cohen has been a mathematician since girlhood and a poet almost that long.  Besides her mathematics and writing, she t...
Friday, August 14, 2015

Primes and a paradox

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       Canadian poet Alice Major has loved and admired science and mathematics since girlhood and this background brings to her mathy poems...
2 comments:
Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Reservation Mathematics

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Both a talented writer and an articulate conveyor of the culture of American Indians, Sherman Alexie is a Spokane / Coeur d’Alene Indian f...
2 comments:
Monday, August 10, 2015

Found on Facebook

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A numerical poem, recently found on Facebook -- at this link :  
Thursday, August 6, 2015

Buffalo 66

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     Nearly twenty years ago, in the formative years of River Poets (in Bloomsburg, PA), Jim Murray from Shamokin, then a student at Bloom...
Monday, August 3, 2015

MatHEmatics / MatSHEmatics

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     Last week at the 2015 BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference in Baltimore I gave a short talk on using poetry to celebrate and inspire math girl...
Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Algebra (sort of) in a short story

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  Tomorrow I head to Baltimore for the BRIDGES Math-Arts Conference. Explore the conference program at this link .  Would love to see you...
2 comments:
Saturday, July 25, 2015

Math and Poetry and Climate

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Canadian poet Madhur Anand is also an Environmental Scientist; her love of nature and concerns for preserving a habitable climate pervade h...
Tuesday, July 21, 2015

The culture for women in math and the sciences

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Perhaps the phrase "ordinary" women scientists is an oxymoron -- but it should not be.  Women should be free to populate the full...
Sunday, July 19, 2015

Terror/Mathematics

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Several friends have sent me links to the poem " Terror/Mathematics " by Zeina Hashem Beck -- written after the beheading of 21 Ch...
Thursday, July 16, 2015

Celebrating Ada Lovelace

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Recently I have purchased the anthology, Raising Lilly Ledbetter:  Women Poets Occupying the Workplace (edited by Caroline Wright, M.L. Lyo...
Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Visual-mathematical poetry

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      The poems that I write and most of the poems that I include in this blog use mathematical patterns to structure their lines and stanza...
1 comment:
Saturday, July 11, 2015

Math fun with song lyrics

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Song-writer Bill Calhoun is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics, Computer Science and Statistics at Pennsylvania's Bloom...
Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Things to Count On

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Tomorrow is my mother's birthday.  Born in 1912, she has been gone for several years now -- and tomorrow my sons and I will travel to In...
Monday, July 6, 2015

Counting Years -- in p'Bitek's Song of Lawino

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Okot p'Bitek (1931-1982) was a Ugandan poet; one of his central concerns was that African literature should be built on African rather ...
Friday, July 3, 2015

A Voice Meant to be Spoken

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     Last month the Library of Congress named a new poet laureate, Juan Felipe Herrera , a Californian and Mexican-American whose work often...
Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Sex, Maths, and the Brain

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I found this poetry in an abstract (with a link posted at "Women in Maths" on Facebook ) for a lecture by Professor Gina Rippon e...
Monday, June 29, 2015

Celebrating angles and rainbows . . .

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                              C          E        L        E        B   M A R R I A G E        A     A        T     Y     ...
Saturday, June 27, 2015

The power of eleven

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One of my recent poetry acquisition treasures is Measure for Measure:  An Anthology of Poetic Meters , edited by Annie Finch and Alexandra O...
Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Found poetry -- Mary Cartwright

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Recently I have been reading about mathematician Mary Cartwright (1900-1998) and working to develop a poem about her -- relying on a fine a...
Monday, June 22, 2015

Uncertainty . . .

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     Sometimes we find things of great value when we are looking for something else -- in fact, Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges has sai...
Sunday, June 21, 2015

Seeing the NEWS in square stanzas

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Reading today's Washington Post, a surprising statistic:                Sharks don't kill                as   many               ...
Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Judith Grabiner and Howard Nemerov

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     Last evening at the Distinguished Lecture Series sponsored by the MAA it was my privilege to hear an outstanding presentation by Judit...
Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Imagine a Fractal

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California poet Carol Dorf is also a math teacher and is poetry editor of the online journal TalkingWriting .  In the most recent issue of...
Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Square stanzas for Women in Maths

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Women in Maths -- it all adds up.      Go here for "It All Adds Up" -- a story in plus Magazine by Rachel Thomas ...
Friday, June 5, 2015

A portrait of TB in numbers

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Poet Sarah Browning recently directed me to "Tuberculosis in Numbers," a fine poem by M. Brett Gaffney that appears in the latest...
Tuesday, June 2, 2015

17 syllables -- and other art

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What is he talking about?  What does he mean? The thought-provoking riddle posed by these 17 syllables (presented here as 3 square stanzas)...
Friday, May 29, 2015

Add and subtract to get . . . a minimalist poem

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Thinking today of poet Bob Grumman (1941-2015) with special gratitude for the way he expanded my poetic horizons.  For example, he introduc...
Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Galileo in Florence

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Poetry found in the words of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642): "Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands cont...
4 comments:
Wednesday, May 20, 2015

In the Tuscan sun

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View the statue in Pisa of Fibonacci, mathematician in the sun.  
Thursday, May 14, 2015

Sonnets from The Voyage of the Beagle

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 The sonnet is a song of the body as well as of the mind: 14 breaths     5 heartbeats each breath A few weeks ago I had the opportuni...
Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Folk music -- counting syllables

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Learn about and support Women in Mathematics .   One place to do that is here .  Using 4x4 and 2x2 syllable-squares, I emphasize the ...
Sunday, May 10, 2015

Stars and men revolve in a cycle . . .

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In a book-discussion group in which I participate, we are reading some of the short fiction of Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) and that readi...
Friday, May 8, 2015

Include Arts in STEM -- and have STEAM !

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Welcome to this blog where we support STEAM ! Visit YouTube for   math -student, performance- poet Harry Baker's  "A love...
Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Balancing Opposites -- Tagore's Epigrams

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Many important mathematical ideas occur as pairs of opposites:          -2 and +2 (additive inverses) , 5 and 1/5 (multiplicative inverses)...
Sunday, May 3, 2015

Lines of breathless length

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Brief reflections on definitions of LINE . . .           Breathless length      by JoAnne Growney           A LINE, said Euclid, lies ev...
1 comment:
Wednesday, April 29, 2015

A poem for your pocket

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Years ago, when "Poem in Your Pocket Day" (April 30) was first celebrated, we did not have cellphones to carry poems with us easil...
2 comments:
Saturday, April 25, 2015

Geometry of baseball

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Many poems are written of baseball; a few of them involve mathematics --  see the posting for April 9, 2010 for math-related baseball poems...
Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Earth Day -- April 22, 2015

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Consider today the thoughtful words of this sonnet by Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950):      Read history: so learn your place in Time...
Sunday, April 19, 2015

April celebrates Math and Poetry

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     April is National Poetry Month and Mathematics Awareness Month . Yesterday I was able to attend several of the popular and crowded eve...
Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Remembering Abraham Lincoln

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Today -- April 14, 2015 -- marks the 150th birthday of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865) and April 15 is the dat...
Saturday, April 11, 2015

Time is no straight line . . .

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Swedish poet and Nobel Laureate Tomas Transtromer (1931-2015) died last month. At his website I found this poem that reflects on the arith...
Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Man Ray's "Human Equations"

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     Art lovers in Washington, DC have the opportunity (until 5/10/15) to see, on exhibit at The Phillips Collection , "Man Ray -- Huma...
1 comment:
Friday, April 3, 2015

Mathematics and poetry -- are the same ! ! !

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Last week the Art Works Blog posted an interview with mathematician, poet, and translator, Enriqueta Carrington .  You will want to follow ...
2 comments:
Tuesday, March 31, 2015

April is . . . a time for math and poetry . . .

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     Once upon a time      I counted to the tenth prime      and found a word to rhyme. Tomorrow is not only April Fool's Day -- it...
1 comment:
Sunday, March 29, 2015

Science Verse

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Recently coincidence has brought to me two collections of poems about  science -- first, the 2014 issue of The Nassau Review , a gift from e...
Thursday, March 26, 2015

The problem of time

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Californian Brenda Hillman is a poet whose work I like and admire.  In "Time Problem" she weaves prime numbers into a deft descri...
Monday, March 23, 2015

March 23 -- Emmy Noether's birthday

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Today, March 23, 2015, Google celebrates the 133rd birthday of mathematician Emmy Noether .  In support of the celebration here is a link ...
Sunday, March 22, 2015

March 21 -- World Poetry Day

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Yesterday poetry was celebrated around the world -- the Guardian reported the event with mention of Cafés around the world that offered a ...
Thursday, March 19, 2015

Multiplied by Rain

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     There are many mathematical terms that are used in daily life -- not only multiplied and divided and negative but also closure and ...