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Does nothing exist?

June 5, 2020, 8:55 am
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     From Montreal mathematician, poet, and artist Alex Ionut, this highly imaginative poem, "The Empty Set Exists."  -- a poem stimulated by his study of the Euler spiral (clothoid) and a 3-D version that he calls "the spherical clothoid."  

       The empty set exists   by Alexandru Ionut

       To see her would be like touching death
       It's axiomatic, the foundation of any metric
       You love her because she's her

       Double entendre across the stanza
       But her hair, only spirals

       My love for her, pure vector
       Imaginary, hypercomplex
       Unmixed evil, I bow to Lord Kelvin
       Maxwell's demon, my Hamiltonian angel  
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Learning from Copernicus

June 8, 2020, 8:22 am
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     These days are challenging ones -- HOW can we live safely?  How can we live morally? How can we learn that none of us is the center of the universe?
     Today, read the poetic words of Paul Tran and consider these questions.

     Copernicus  by Paul Tran(from The New Yorker, link below)

     Who doesn’t know how
     doubt lifts the hem of its nightgown

     to reveal another inch of thigh
     before the face of faith?

     I once didn’t. I once thought I was
     my own geometry,
     my own geocentric planet
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Unconscious(?) bias

June 10, 2020, 8:16 am
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       Wherever she goes
       there is mathematics --
       but THEY don't call
       her a mathematician . . .  
                                       SHE
       is a girl
       or a woman,
       a teacher,
       a student 
                    or perhaps
       a scholar,
                    maybe 
       an aspiring poet . . .
  
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Everybody counts -- Axioms for diversity

June 15, 2020, 7:13 am
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Priciples of Accounting -- in verse!

June 17, 2020, 8:06 am
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      Quarantining has turned poetry readings into Zoom events -- and that brought Pennsylvania poet Barbara Crooker to my computer a couple of weeks ago via a reading sponsored by The Word Works..  A delight for me to reconnect with someone whom I knew from my years in Bloomsburg.  Barbara -- who is a very fine poet one whose work has often appeared on The Writer's Almanac  -- has given me permission to share the following mathy poem (found in her collection,Some Glad Morning, Pitt Poetry Series, 2019).

      Principles of Accounting      by Barbara Crooker

     Nearly summer, and the trees are banking on green,
     calculating their bonuses in numerators of leaves.
     Outside my window, the crows are ganging up
     on someone, thugs in their hoodies of night.
     I'm feeling the number of days begin to feel finite,
     no longer uncountable as blades of grass. 
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Counting on ... and on ... BLACK LIVES MATTER!

June 22, 2020, 6:59 am
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     In these days of learning to recognize the racism and racial injustice that has gone on in the United States for SO LONG I am reminded of a poem, "Learning to Count" by Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (1933-1983) (posted at this link back in 2011), a poem that captures the horror of barbarianism.

     Learning to count     by Nichita Stanescu                   
                        
     Hairy and sweaty sit                            
     the barbarian Hittites.       
     Learning to count they pull from corpses
     fingers, legs, arms, eyes.                                    
     Oh, divided ones,    
     how bloody              
     is the idea of having ideas!  
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Math-poetry in The Mathematical Intelligencer

June 24, 2020, 6:30 am
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     In a recent e-mail, this message:  "The Mathematical Intelligencer. Vol. 42 No. 2 is now available online."  Most Intelligencer articles require a subscription or a fee-payment but one that is freely available to all of us is the poem, "Pandemic Math:  X and Y Axes" by Wisconsin painter and poet Robin Chapman.  Here are its opening lines:

          I'm thinking of those graphs we anxiously scan each day
          carry news of infection's spread, asking if we
          will find death stalking our neighborhoods . . .

Chapman's complete poem is available here.  
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Considering opposites . . . and finding union . . .

June 29, 2020, 8:27 am
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     The categorization of different points of view as opposites can disappear as a unified system embraces both of them.  In mathematics, the counting numbers and their opposites become the integers,the rational and irrational numbers join to give the reals, the real and imaginary numbers yield the complex numbers.  In our global world with its biases and dangers and uncertainties, we will, I hope, evaluate our differences and unite our strengths to form a larger, stronger unity.
     A syllable-square poem by Carmela Martino (offered below) illustrates one of the unifications that can benefit our society: inclusion of the arts to enrich the sciences, from STEM forming STEAM.

Carmela Martino's poem first appeared here at TeachingAuthors.


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Opening our minds to New Views . . .

July 1, 2020, 7:21 am
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     One of the values of study of mathematics is that to make progress we must continually revise our ways of looking at things. (Yes, there can be numbers less than zero . . . Yes, there can be different sizes for infinite sets . . . )  And a challenge for our society today is to carefully reconsider our racism.   Recently the American Mathematical Society's Blog On Math Blogs has offered this thoughtful posting, "What does anti-racism in mathematics look like?"  
     From visual poet Karl Kempton (who celebrates a birthday today) I offer a visual-poetry reminder of multiple ways of viewing a situation -- illustrated by two views of dividing the number8.


For more ways of looking at 8 and other mathematical poems by Kempton, go here.
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Independence . . .

July 3, 2020, 7:39 am
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     Tomorrow, July 4, the US celebrates "Independence" Day and I am reflecting on the following quote by Albert Einstein (1879-1955):

     How can it be that mathematics, 
     being after all a product of human thought 
          . . . independent of experience, 
     is so admirably appropriate
     to the objects of reality?
(found here, along with lots of Einstein quotes) 
I am trying to decide to what degree I agree with Einstein's words.
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Life Lessons in Math and Rhyme

July 6, 2020, 6:48 am
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     One of my former colleagues at Pennsylvania's Bloomsburg University is statistician Reza Noubary.  This Iran-born mathematician has a love of poetry as well as mathematics and here are a few lines from his recent collection, Feelings and Dealings (Archway Publishing, 2020).

                    In a math book there is wisdom.
                    In a theorem there is a kingdom.
                    No solution can be made up or faked.
                    The reasoning buys you freedom.

There is a secret in every equation that provokes curiosity and passion.
To uncover it we need to see its beauty and realize
its worth to complete the mission.
The outcome is refreshing; it always results in long-term compassion.
It is satisfying as participants understand its
logic and its beautiful expression.

Thank you, Reza, for these words.
 
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Wonderful math-poetry . . . in lots of online places

July 8, 2020, 9:39 am
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      Carol Dorf, poetry editor of the online journal, TalkingWriting, has been sharing (during the pandemic) daily poems via e-mail -- and occasionally they are a bit mathematical.  For example, "Morning Song" by Sawako Nakayasu (found here at Poets.org) has this opening line . . . .

     Every time, these days, it seems, an equation gets forced.  . . .

At Poets.org, as at many poetry websites, there is an opportunity to search -- using, for example, "geometry" or "equation" -- and to find lots of poems with mathematical connections.

     Carol Dorf is a retired math teacher and a wonderful poet;  this link leads to poems from her published in this blog and this link leads to "Wild Equations,"   a collection of some the mathy poems found in TalkingWriting.

AND, one more item . . .  Recently I discovered that Issue 17 (Released November 1, 1917)  of The Cordite Poetry Review has the theme "Mathematics."  That issue is online here -- and I hope soon to find time to explore its riches.

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Math-Poetry for a virtual BRIDGES Conference

July 13, 2020, 7:54 am
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     Due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year's 2020 Bridges Math-Arts Conference will not be held.  One of the regular events at this international conference has been a poetry reading organized by mathematician and poet Sarah Glaz.  This year, Glaz has prodded math-poets to develop on-line videos of their poems and offers a wonderful program of poetry here at this link.  (Brief poet-bios and links to more info about each are also found at the preceding link.)

Participating poets, with links to their poetry videos are: 
Thank you, Sarah Glaz, for organizing and presenting all of this poetry!
We look forward to the forthcoming BRIDGES 2020 Poetry Anthology
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A thoughtful Fibonacci poem

July 15, 2020, 8:23 am
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Poetry contest winners --- π-ku

July 17, 2020, 10:33 am
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     The website Aperiodical.com is described as "a meeting-place for people who already know they like maths and would like to know more"  -- and one of its organizing forces is Katie Steckles.  Several weeks ago, Katie initiated a π-ku poetry contest -- looking for 3-line submissions that follow the digits of the π-approximation 3.14.

          For example,      Green grass and
                                blue
                                sky and sun's heat.
                                                                      In π-ku
                                                                      I
                                                                      shrink what I think.

The numbers 3, 1, and 4 also may -- instead of counting syllables -- count words.

                  Today in July
                  sunshine
                  pushes the temperature skyward.

To enjoy the winning results in the Aperiodical π-ku contest, go here.  
 
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Math-Arts Connections -- links to rich reading . . .

July 20, 2020, 6:57 am
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     The Table of Contents for the  latest issue of the Journal of Mathematics and the Arts offers titles for a rich array of "Artists Viewpoints" -- brief articles (assembled under the leadership of Guest Editor, Susan Happersett) in which artists who link mathematics with various genres talk about their views and processes.  (Access to these articles currently is FREE -- through 2020.)
     One of the 53 artists' viewpoints contained therein is mine, and here is a permanent link to that brief article ("Everything Connects") that links my mathematics and poetry.  Another math-poet whose work is featured is South Dakota mathematician Dan May, whose article "In the beginning all is null" features multiple-choice poetry.

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Finishing halfway . . .

July 22, 2020, 7:13 am
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     Recently I have enjoyed thinking about the poem "Bunny Slope" by Polish poet Tadeusz Dabrowski (found here in The Paris Review, Issue 219, Winter 2016) and offered below.
     When I write a poem, the first draft often is the longest -- I spill words onto the page and then attempt to edit out what does not need to be said.  When I read poetry, I like it when the poem does not "tell all" but offers a framework for my discovery.

Bunny Slope      by Tadeusz Dabrowski
                                   (translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones)

     When I’m writing a poem,
     there’s less and less of it.

     As I approach the mountains,
     they vanish behind a gentle hill,
     behind the bunny slope. 
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A favorite recursion . . .

July 24, 2020, 7:29 am
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      memories bring back

            memories bring back

                   memories bring back  

                          memories bring back

                                 memories . . .
          

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Prove it . . .

July 27, 2020, 7:40 am
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This post's title "Prove it" occurs several times within the poem,

DREAMers Mark Themselves     by Maricielo Ampudia Gutiérrez,

a poem (found here, followed by an author bio) that arrived in a recent e-mail from the socially-engaged poetry group, Split This Rock -- and I have been reflecting on its use of the term "prove it" as compared with mathematical usage.  The poem by Gutiérrez is included in a rich poetry database maintained by Split this Rock.
     One of the editors of the online journal Better Than Starbucks, Joseph E. Petta, has let me know of his liking for poems with links to mathematics and encourages submissions.  Petta's "Experimental & Form Poetry" section of the July August 2020 issue contains a thoughtful a thoughtful matrix poem,a word-prison:

Freedom        by Stuthi Iyer

Both of these poems offer ideas for thoughtful contemplation -- for math people and for others!
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Census . . . correct counting is not easy. . .

July 29, 2020, 7:25 am
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     One of the challenges of applying mathematics is doing it correctly.  Each of us has a limited view, often affected by biases such as racism and sexism. And Covid-19 concerns have further-limited our access to accurate information in situations such as counting election-ballots or counting all Americans for the 2020 census.  The following thoughtful poem, "Census," is not new; it was first published in 1981.  What does it show us about counting?

     Census     by Carol Muske-Dukes

     Here's how we were counted: 
     firstborn, nay-sayers, 
     veterans, slow-payers, 
     seditionists, convicts, 
     half-breeds, has-beens, 
     the nearly defined dead, 
     all the disenfranchised live.
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