Spheres and parallels

On 23 January 2013 I posted a latitude-longitude poem "Zero-Zero" by Elizabeth Bodien and today I offer another of her poems of celestial geometry, this one inspired by a painting by San Francisco artist Blazin.  Here, first, is Blazin's painting, followed by Bodien's poem -- both entitled "Midnight / Noon Along the Solar / Lunar Meridian." 

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: 

One Billion Rising

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 and support "One Billion Rising" -- end violence against women.  

          More than the rapist, fear
          the district attorney,
          smiling for the camera,
          saying that thirty-six
          sex crimes per year is a
          manageable number.

Since this is a poetry-with-math blog I will end with a mathy observation:  this is a poem of 36 syllables that includes the number 36, a perfect square.

Hilary Tham -- Counting a life

     Several of my friends speak with reverent admiration of Hilary Tham (1946  -2005),  noted Washington, DC-area poet, teacher, and painter (whom I never met, for she died a few weeks after I moved south from Pennsylvania).  Born in Malaysia, Tham came to this country as the bride of a man she had met as a Peace Corps volunteer.  In her book-length poem, Counting, Tham's poetic voice interprets her journey from Malaysia to New Jersey to Arlington, from Buddhism to Christianity to Judaism, from beginnings to explorations, from arrivals and departures to blessings.  Here, from Counting, is the opening poem. 

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. 

Odd numbers are common

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 reading in Takoma Park.  Bell (a former TP resident) paid tribute that evening to Anne Becker, one of her teachers, who also read -- and beautifully -- that evening.  (Many thanks are owed to Sara Daines and poet Martin FitzPatrick  who organize these monthly readings.) Although Bell did not read any mathy poems at the TP reading, I found this one in her new collection:

Odd Numbers     by Virginia Bell

Problems of Translation

     June Jordan's poem "Problems of Translation: Problems of Language" (found at PoetryFoundation.org) uses numbers and measurements from an atlas as her starting point for describing the difficulty of understanding between those of us separated by distance or language.
     I am writing this on the day after the Super Bowl, particularly conscious of the fact that I do not know the language of football.   And that many others do not know the language of mathematics.  Let us try hard to understand those things that are beyond language. 
     Here is the first section (of eight) from Jordan's poem:

Problems of Translation:  Problems of Language     by June Jordan

Tomorrow is (or is not) Groundhog Day

     Last year my February 1 post anticipated Groundhog Day with a poem that mentioned the crop damage that groundhogs do by tunneling under a field and nibbling the roots of crops.  Today's post was provoked by an "Urban Jungle" item concerning groundhogs in Tuesday's Washington Post. 
     When I was growing up (on a farm near Indiana, Pennsylvania) Punxutawney Phil was merely a local celebrity.  But the TODAY show and Bill Murray's 1993 film (showing at AFI in Silver Spring tomorrow evening) changed all that.  Here, in syllable-square stanzas -- based on the legend and recent climate change developments -- are several groundhog-day comments:

       Today's myth
       passes, the
       world moves on.

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.

Poetry at JMM -- groups, etc.

     A math-poetry reading on January 11 at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in San Diego -- organized by Gizem Karaali (an editor of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics) and Sue VanHattum (blogger at Math Mama Writes) -- has been featured in Evelyn Lamb's Scientific American blog.  

Next year's JMM will be in Baltimore, MD during January 15-18, 2014.  

There will be a poetry reading -- details will be posted here when they're available.

     Sandra DeLozier Coleman is a retired mathematics professor who has for many years written poems that relate to math.  Her poem (presented below) about the definition of a mathematical group was featured in the Scientific American blog.  When DeLozier read the poem in San Diego, her introduction to it included these words: "I’m poking a bit of fun at the futility of expecting a mathematician to explain a math concept, as familiar to him as his name, in language even a first week student will understand. Here the voice is of an Abstract Algebra professor who is attempting to explain what makes a set a group in rigorous rhyme!"