They Say She Was Good -- for a Woman

      Regulars to this blog know of my appreciation and support for the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- an online journal that publishes poetry and fiction as well as articles that link the arts with mathematics.  Bravo to editors Gizem Karaali and Mark Huber -- a new issue (Vol. 7, Issue 2) has come online today.
     I am honored to announce that my article, "They Say She Was Good -- for a Woman," -- a collection of poems and musings about women in mathematics (and featuring a poem about Emmy Noether) -- is part of the current issue.  

     Other key items in this issue of JHM that I have already found time to enjoy include a visual poem of  geometry and numbers by Sara Katz, a collection of poems about "infinity" by Pam Lewis, a review of poetry anthologies by Robin Chapman, a call (deadline, 11/1/17) for "mathematical" Haiku; a call (deadline 1/1/2018) for papers on mathematics and motherhood.  Go to the Table of Contents and enjoy it ALL.

Celebrate MATH-POETRY at JMM (1-5-17) in Atlanta

     Repeating what has become an annual tradition, the Joint Mathematics Meetings of 2017 in Atlanta will include a poetry reading. 

Thursday January 5, 2017, 5:30 p.m.-7:00 p.m.
Regency Ballroom VII, Ballroom Level, Hyatt Regency

Here is info about the reading and how to participate:     Poetry + Math, organized by Gizem Karaali, Pomona College; Lawrence M. Lesser, University of Texas at El Paso; and Douglas Norton, Villanova University; Thursday, January 5, 5:30–7:00 pm.  All who are interested in mathematical poetry and/or mathematical art are invited. Though we do not discourage last-minute decisions to participate, we invite and encourage poets to submit poetry (no more than three poems, no longer than five minutes) and a bio in advance—and, as a result, be listed on our printed program. Inquiries and submissions (by December 15, 2016) may be made to Gizem Karaali (gizem.karaali@pomona.edu). Sponsors for this event are the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics and SIGMAA ARTS.  A complete program for the Mathematics Meetings is available here.

Numbers and Faces - poem, anthology

 "Numbers and Faces" is the title of a poem by W. H. Auden that ends with these lines:
            True, between faces almost any number
            Might come in handy, and One is always real;
            But which could any face call good, for calling
            Infinity a number does not make it one.

The complete poem is posted here.

     "Numbers and Faces" is also the title of a small anthology of poems, published in 2001 and containing Auden's poem, that I collected and edited for the Humanistic Mathematics Network.  The anthology has been out of print for many years but a file with its mathy poems is available online here. 
     The Humanistic Mathematics Network (started around 1987 by Alvin White) had a Newsletter and then a Journal but these paper publications faded away around 2004.  The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics emerged in 2011 to fill the void.  Recently I have learned from JHM editor Gizem Karaali, that an online archive of the prior publications is available here.  (Using the search box, I was able to find several of my own years-ago articles, including one from 1994 entitled "Mathematics in Literature and Poetry.")

POETRY -- in the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

     Pomona College mathematician Gizem Karaali, one of the editors of the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, is also a poet.  And the journal conscientiously features links between mathematics and the literary arts.  
     The current issue (online since late July) features my review of Madhur Anand's vibrant new collection, A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (Penguin Random House, 2015) and these poems:  

       "The Greatest Integer Function" by Alanna Rae, 

              "Quantitative Literacy" by Thomas L. Moore,  

                      "Menger Sponge"  by E. Laura Golberg, 

                             "Calculus Problems" by Joshua N. Cooper, and

                                    "An Exercise on Limits" by Manya Raman-Sundström.

JMM Seattle, 1-7-16 -- Poetry+Math+Art

 Read your mathy poems in Seattle!

An invitation to participate -- in January!  Read on!

 ANNOUNCING Poetry + Art + Math

 January 7, 2016, Thursday, 5:30 pm–7:00 pm.

Room 608, Washington State Convention Center, Seattle 

     At the Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) organized by Gizem Karaali, Pomona College; 

Lawrence M. Lesser, University of Texas at El Paso; and Douglas Norton, Villanova University. 

Poetry Reading 1-11-15 at JMM in San Antonio

You are invited to a poetry reading 
sponsored by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

at the 2015 Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM)

Gonzalez Convention Center   Room 205  San Antonio, Texas
Sunday, January 11, 2015, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m. 

     All poets who write of mathematics and all who are interested in mathematical poetry are invited. Join the gathering to share poems and to enjoy the company of like-minded poetic-math people!  The reading is sponsored by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics  and will be hosted by Gizem Karaali and Larry Lesser.    
     Although last-minute decisions to participate are possible -- you may simply show up and sign up to read -- we invite and encourage poets to submit poetry (≤ 3 poems, ≤ 5 minutes) and a bio in advance, and, as a result, be listed on our printed program. Inquiries and submissions (by December 1, 2014) may be made to Gizem Karaali (gizem.karaali@pomona.edu).

Poetry in Math Journals

         The Mathematical Intelligencer (publisher of the poem by Gizem Karaali given below) and the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (an online, open-access journal edited by Mark Huber and Gizem Karaali) are periodicals that include math-related poetry in each issue.  For example, in the most recent issue of JHM, we have these titles:

Articles:
     Joining the mathematician's delirium to the poet's logic'': Mathematical Literature and Literary Mathematics     by Rita Capezzi and Christine Kinsey
     How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Ways for Syllabic Variation in Certain Poetic Forms     by Mike Pinter

Poems:

     Computational Compulsions     by Martin Cohen

     Jeffery's Equation     by Sandra J. Stein

     The Math of Achilles     by Geoffrey A. Landis

And here, from Gizem Karaali, is a poetic view of the process of mathematical discovery:  the blank white page, the muddy flow of thoughts, the clarity that eventually (sometimes) blooms:

Poetry-with-math, Jan 17, Baltimore

Please join us!

 A Reading of Poetry with Mathematics

  Friday,  January 17, 2014   4:30 - 6:30 PM
 Room 308  Baltimore Convention Center 

At the national Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore, the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics is sponsoring a poetry reading.  Following participation by these poets,who have submitted work in advance, there will be an open reading in which interested audience members will be invited to share their math-related poems.  Participating poets include: Gizem Karaali, Katharine Merow, Karen Morgan Ivy, Mary-Sherman Willis, Alex Walsh, Ted Theodosopoulos, Stephanie Strickland, Myra Sklarew, JoAnne Growney, E. Laura Golberg, Sandra DeLozier Coleman, Rosanna Iembo, and Irene Iaccarino (musician).

Sunrise gives

each  of  us

a shadow.

Poetry-with-math in Baltimore -- 17 Jan 2014

At the Joint Mathematics Meetings in Baltimore (January 15-18, 2014), the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics (under the leadership of editors Mark Huber and Gizem Karaali) will sponsor a poetry reading.  Mark your calendar now! (And be sure to scroll down past the reading announcement to poems from last year's JHM reading in San Diego by poets Katie Manning and Karen Morgan Ivy.)

 Friday,  January 17, 2014. 4:30 - 6:30 PM

 Room 308  Baltimore Convention Center  

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)

Seeking math-poets -- JMM, SanDiego 1-11-13

Call for Readers:
     The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics will host a reading of poetry-with-mathematics at the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings (JMM) on Friday, January 11, 5 - 7 PM in Room 3, Upper Level, San Diego Convention Center.  If you wish to attend the reading and participate, please send,  by December 1, 2012 (via e-mail, to Gizem Karaali (gizem.karaali@pomona.edu)) up to 3 poems that involve mathematics (in content or structure, or both) -- no more than 3 pages -- and a 25 word bio.

Is your favorite poet a mathematician?

     The Joint Mathematics Meetings in Boston last week gave a fine opportunity for me to connect with both mathematicians and poets, old friends and new ones. And to enjoy a celebration of the connections between poetry and mathematics. In the January 6 poetry reading sponsored by the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, there was much fine poetry. Several of the poems were by Carol Dorf -- whose work was read by Elizabeth Langosy, executive editor of the online literary magazine, TalkingWriting.  Good reads in the Jan/Feb 2012 issue of TalkingWriting include both Dorf's introduction to some featured math-connected poems -- entitled "Why Poets Sometimes Think in Numbers" -- and Langosy's  impressions of the math-poetry reading.    

Poetry heard at JMM

In Boston on Friday evening, January 6, at the 2012 Joint Mathematics Meetings, these folks gathered and read -- for a delighted audience in Room 312 of Hynes Convention Center -- some poems of mathematics.
     Poets who submitted work in advance and were on the "Poetry with Mathematics" program included:
          Jacqueline Lapidus, Judith Johnson, Rosanna Iembo (accompanied by the violin of her daughter Irene Iaccarino), Charlotte Henderson, Carol Dorf (read by Elizabeth Langosy), Sandra Coleman, Marion Cohen, Tatiana Bonch (read by John Hiigli), Harry Baker (via video presented by reading organizer Gizem Karaali -- an editor of the online Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, which sponsored the the reading), and JoAnne Growney (also an organizer of the reading).
     Participants during an "open reading" included: 
          Mary Buchinger, Chris Caragianis, Rip Coleman, Seth Goldberg, Joshua Holden, Ann Perbohner, Pedro Poitevin, and Jason Samuels.

Four colors will do

     As I work with Gizem Karaali, an editor of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, to plan a reading of mathematical poetry at the JMM (Joint Mathematics Meetings) in Boston on 6 January 2012, my thoughts return to a poetry reading that I helped to organize at JMM in Baltimore in 1992. One of the participants was a friend and former colleague, Frank Bernhart, whose work is guided by the rhythm pattern of a well-known song.
     Bernhart is an expert on the Four-Color Theorem and his poem celebrates its history -- including consideration of its proof (in 1976) by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. (The theorem asserts that any map drawn on a flat surface or on a sphere requires only 4 colors to ensure that no regions sharing a boundary segment have the same color.)

Poetry at JMM -- in Boston 6-Jan-2012

Call for Submissions:
     The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics will host a reading of poetry-with-mathematics on Friday, January 6, 5-7 PM in Boston’s Hynes Convention Center at the annual Joint Mathematics Meetings. Reading organizers include JHM editors, Gizem Karaali and Mark Huber, and poetry-math blogger, JoAnne Growney.  Although the reading is open to all, without pre-selected readers, we will prepare a written program of poets who submit their work by our December 1 deadline. Both mathematician-poets and others who use mathematics in their poems are invited to submit.

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- V1, Issue 1

A new door has opened for those of us interested in the humanistic aspects of mathematics.  Under the able leadership of editors Mark Huber (Claremont McKenna College) and Gizem Karaali (Pomona College), the idea of the former Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal has been revived and Volume 1 Issue 1 of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics is now available online.  The inaugural issue contains several poems, including the following one by Caleb Emmons, "Seeing Pine Trees,"  in which Emmons characterizes the views of a poet and a mathematician as two halves of one whole. 

8 January 2011 -- Math-Poetry at JMM

Here's an invitation for math-poets -- at 5 PM on Saturday, January 8 at the 2011 Joint Mathematics Meetings in New Orleans there will be an open reading of poetry related to mathematics.  All are invited.  Interested persons are invited to contact Gizem Karaali of Pomona College for more information.