One of the best -- and a woman

Women in mathematics have not been much-written-about.  This blog has made  a few corrective efforts and more are needed. Perhaps change is beginning -- for March is Women's History Month and the 2013 theme is:

 Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination:
Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Penn State University philosophy professor and poet Emily Grosholz uses mathematics not-infrequently in her work (for example, this posting of mine) and she has written (as I have) about discrimination suffered by mathematician Amalie "Emmy" Noether -- described by the NYTimes in a March 2012 article as "the most significant mathematician you've never heard of."  My own poem about Noether was  a poem of self-discovery in which I wrote of discrimination against her and began to see aspects of my own situation more clearly.  That poem, "My Dance Is Mathematics," appears in this blog's opening post --  on 23 March 2012.

Here, Emmy Noether is featured in Grosholz's poem, "Mind":

Counting for Freedom -- the Amistad trials

     Josiah Willard Gibbs (Jr, 1839 – 1903) was an American scientist who made important theoretical contributions to physics, chemistry, and mathematics.  His father, Josiah Willard Gibbs, Sr (1790 - 1861) was an American linguist and theologian, who served as professor of sacred literature at Yale University.  Although the son is well-known in scientific circles, it is the father who interests us here -- he is the subject of a poem by New York poet Stephanie Strickland.
     The senior Gibbs was an active abolitionist and he played an important role in the Amistad trials of 1839–40. By visiting the African passengers in jail, he was able to learn to count to ten in their language, and he then searched until he located a sailor, James Covey, who recognized the words --the language was Mende -- and was able to serve as an interpreter for the Africans during their subsequent trial for mutiny. 

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!" 

Latitude, longitude, and inauguration

Elizabeth Bodien now lives in a rural area in eastern Pennsylvania -- settling there after other lives in California, in Japan, in West Africa.  Here is a narrative poem using the geographic numbers of latitude and longitude drawn from the years that she was a childbirth instructor in West Africa.

Zero-Zero     by Elizabeth Bodien

A Baker's Dozen -- in Takoma Park

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 was the "mathematical" one and read several poems that involved counting -- counting in their subject matter or in their structural design.  Here is a villanelle that I composed for the occasion.

A Baker’s Dozen     by JoAnne Growney

Counting likes to start with number one.
A luscious mate to pair with one makes two –-
and three can be a triangle of fun.

Counting grains of sand

Recently I have found online translations of several poems by Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen (1907-1994).  His poem "Sand" reminded me of a recent conversation with a friend about the word "infinite."  This friend said that he would use "all the grains of sand on the earth" as an example of an infinite collection.  Though I disagreed, I also have found it is not at all uncommon for people to use "infinite" -- as my friend did -- as if it means "larger than I could possibly count."  In Jacobsen's poem, the number of grains of sand is finite but also unbounded.   Do you agree?  

Because the mind circles an idea

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 Science -- a book of activities for teachers and parents to encourage students from kindergarten through eighth grade.  Her close connection to mathematics and science is evident in the following poem.

Because     by Lucille Lang Day

My heart will beat two billion times
because Krishna plays his flute in the forest
because the planets trace elliptical orbits
because Krishna's skin is blue
because a moon will fly in a straight line forever
unless a planet snares it
the way a woman attracts a man with her gaze 

Tomorrow in San Diego -- Math Poetry Event

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

Room 3, Upper Level, San Diego Convention Center  San Diego, CA
sponsored by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

at the Joint Mathematics Meetings

Poetry reading organizers are Mark Huber, Gizem Karaali, and Sue VanHattum

An article by Charlotte Henderson about last year's reading in Boston
may be found here, 

with selected poems from that reading at this link.

If I were able to attend, I would beg the other poets there to write and publish poems about women mathematicians.  And I would read this example (a revision of a poem first posted in June 2012).

With Reason:  A Portrait      by JoAnne Growney

          Sophia Kovalevsky *    (1850-1891)

New poems from old by substitution

     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 into which we substitute new words. For example, take a poem and, for each of the nouns in the poem, substitute for it the noun that occurs 7 positions later in a given dictionary. This N+7 rule is one of the inventions of the French group of writers and mathematicians known as the Oulipo.  (For more information, see postings from 25 March 2010, 23 August 2010, 15 November 2010 and 3 January 2011.) 

Cities of Mathematics

Judith Johnson's multi-part poem, "Cities of Mathematics and Desire" is geometric in its descriptive power; scenes are constructed and mapped with the careful attention of a mathematical proof.  At a math-poetry reading a year ago today (January 6, 2012) at the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston, Johnson read part 4 of this poem -- and it is included here in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics.   Read on for part 2 of this 9-part poem:

2.  Of the Power of Chess to Feed the Starved     by Judith Johnson

Geometry of a Gun

Despite the recent news media chatter about a "fiscal cliff," the event that we can't (and mustn't) stop thinking about is the December 14 massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. This draws me to a poem by Joan Mazza (whose poem "Digits" was featured earlier this week on New Year's Day); this new poem deals with the geometry of eggs and of bullets. Please think of gun control.

     Geometry Lesson       by Joan Mazza 

Happy New Year 2013

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 factors other than 1 and the number itself.  A shortcut useful here is this test for divisibility by 3 (offered as a 5x5 square):

        An integer is
        divisible by
        3 if and only
        if the sum of its 
        digits is also.

And so, since 2 + 0 + 1 + 3 = 6 (which is divisible by 3), then 2013 is divisible by 3.  Indeed, the prime factorization is 2013 = 3 x 11 x 61.

My email on this New Year's morning contained a gift -- "Digits" -- a poem that compares numbers with nature, from Virginia poet and dream specialist Joan Mazza;  she has given me permission to post it here. 

     Digits     by Joan Mazza 

2012 posts -- titles and links

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 this blog was begun.   This link leads to a PDF file that lists searchable topics and names of poets and mathematicians presented herein.

Dec 30  A chance encounter
Dec 28  Explorers
Dec 25  Support STREET SENSE
Dec 24  Star, shine bright!
Dec 21  Skating (with math) on Christmas