How Poetry and Mathematics Intersect (Smithsonian Magazine)

 

“April is both National Poetry Month and Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month, so a few years ago science writer Stephen Ornes dubbed it Math Poetry Month. If the words ‘math’ and ‘poetry’ don’t intuitively make sense to you as a pair, poet and mathematician JoAnne Growney’s blog Intersections—Poetry with Mathematics is a perfect place to start expanding your math-poetic horizons. The blog includes a broad range of poems with mathematical themes or built using mathematical rules.
 
“Take ‘Geometry,’ by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove:
 
I prove a theorem and the house expands:
the windows jerk free to hover near the ceiling,
the ceiling floats away with a sigh.
 
“...Growney casts a wide net on her blog, which begins with the words: ‘Mathematical language can heighten the imagery of a poem; mathematical structure can deepen its effect.’ Some poems she features, like ‘Geometry,’ use mathematical themes or images; some are by mathematicians or math students. Growney has also gotten interested in the mathematics of poetic forms and poetic forms that employ mathematics.
 
“Of course, sonnets and haiku are famous for employing strict counts on lines and syllables. But she is also interested in newer forms, often inspired by the constrained writing exercises of the French Oulipo group, which was founded by mathematicians and poets.
 
“One such form is the ‘Fib,’ a type of poem based on the Fibonacci sequence in math. The Fibonacci sequence starts 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, and so on; each term (after the first two) is the sum of the two terms before it. In a Fib poem, the first line has one syllable, the second one syllable, the third two, the fourth three, and so on. Growney, a retired math professor who sometimes teaches writing workshops, says a limited form like the Fib can help beginning poets who are having trouble starting...
 
How Poetry and Math Intersect
 
“Both require economy and precision—and each perspective can enhance the other. Artists and poets have long been inspired by the mathematical patterns found in nature—for instance, the remarkable fact that a sunflower's seeds follow the Fibonacci sequence. But there are myriad other ways that the realms of poetry and mathematics can intersect...
 
“Growney grew up wanting to be a writer. ‘I read Little Women as a girl, and maybe it was partly the name connection, but I thought that I wanted to be a writer like Jo.’ She was also good at math, though, and ended up with a scholarship to study it in college. She stuck with it and earned her Ph.D. in 1970 at the University of Oklahoma. During her career as a math professor, her interest in writing continued. She took poetry classes at a nearby college when she could, discovered the math poetry anthology Against Infinity while doing a sabbatical project about mathematics and the arts, and started to see her feelings about mathematics echoed in poetry.
 
“Mathematics and poetry, Growney says, are both ‘formats that can convey multiple meanings.’ In mathematics, a single object or idea might take different forms. A quadratic equation, for example, can be understood in terms of its algebraic expression, perhaps y=x²+3x-7, or in terms of its graph, a parabola. Henri Poincaré, a French polymath who laid the foundations of two different fields of mathematics in the early 1900s, described mathematics as ‘the art of giving the same name to different things.’
 
“Likewise, poets create layers of meaning by utilizing words and images that have multiple interpretations and associations. Both mathematicians and poets strive for economy and precision, selecting exactly the words they need to convey their meaning.
 
“These features of mathematics and poetry can make them daunting and frustrating for students. ‘If a student sees only one meaning and the intent is to exploit another meaning, it seems manipulative or unfair,’ says Growney. But Growney’s approach to poetry can also inform our attitude towards unfamiliar mathematics. ‘A rule I use for poetry is you first of all read it through once without worrying about understanding,’ she says. ‘If there’s something you like about it, read it again. Give yourself ten readings before you say you don’t understand it.’
 
“As a professor, she used poetry in her mathematics classes to help students to connect emotionally to mathematics, learn a little bit about the history of what they were doing in class, and think of mathematics as a shared human experience. Now that she is retired, she is still active in the math poetry world, often participating in poetry events at the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings, the largest math conference in the U.S., and the Bridges conference on mathematics and the arts…
 
“When Growney started her math poetry blog, she thought she had about a year’s worth of material. Since then, far from dancing alone, she has made connections with poets and mathematicians around the world, finding more and more to share. Eight years and almost 900 posts later, she says, ‘I have more than I started with’” (Evelyn Lamb, Smithsonian Magazine).

 Euclid and Barbie by Glen Brown

                        Math class is tough
                                      --Barbie
 
Sure it doesn’t add up:
countless camping and skiing trips with Ken,
swimming and skating parties without danger,
dancing and shopping engagements
with Midge and Skipper
like an infinite summer vacation.
Nothing here hints at a dull math class
for integral Barbie and her complex playmates!
Even her curvaceous body
proves mathematically impossible.
She’s an isosceles bimbo
with the whole greater than the sum of her parts.
Just bend her at an obtuse angle,
press her into her pink Porsche
and watch her scud across miles of linoleum
or catapult down the stairs.
You’ll know that her appeal
is an equation of Euclidean beauty and speed.
She doesn’t need school.
She was created to multiply
fantasy by freedom in every young girl’s mind.
Why be upset when Barbie says,
Math class is tough?
You can always add for her –
the numberless accessories
to her version of the American dream.