Teaching and writing mathematics have drawn JoAnne Growney to write poems that use mathematical imagery in a variety of ways. Included here (below) are "Good Fortune," "Changing Colors" and "Geometry Demonstration." You may also link to "San Antonio, January, 1993" or "Can a Mathematician See Red?"
Another source of math-poetry links is an article, MATHEMATICS IN POETRY, published Ocober 2006 in JOMA. Also, you may find math-poetry by poets other than JoAnne at the link THEIR math poems--which includes titles and links to some of JoAnne's favorites of OTHER PEOPLE'S POEMS that use mathematical imagery --and Math forms poems--which includes math-poetry ideas related to poetic structure.
Good Fortune
is good numbers --
the length of a furrow,
the count of years,
the depth of a broken heart,
the cost of camouflage,
the volume of tears.
Changing Colors
Blue
yoyo --
awkwardly
stopping / starting,,
rising / plummeting,
seeking self-control. Please,
mother-friend-lover-child, don't
pull string. Let me collect myself.
I climb high above the treetops,
soar with the golden eagle,
linger on fleecy clouds.
My path encircles
other orbits --
powerful,
yellow
sun.
In CHANGING COLORS the numbers of syllables in consecutive lines
are consecutive positive integers. Here we have
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8--8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.
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Geometry Demonstration
Yesterday, some visitors
interrupted geometry class --
angry voices raged around the room,
unwilling to stay caged within my head
while I spoke enthusiastically
of axioms of incidence,
placements of parallels,
numbers of degrees
in the angles of rectangles.
Wake up. This is not difficult --
no hungry mouths to feed, no
bleeding wounds to heal. Adopt
a polygonal attitude. Examine
an assumption. Abandon the postulate
that says, don't ever question.
You were not born knowing.
Your mind won't get dirty
on a tangent of hyperbolic thought.
Open up.
Let one eye watch
the parallels
that meet.
Shift to a point
of perspectivity.
Draw those lines
that cross
at your heart.
My students ignored these stirring voices,
so I dismissed them and went on--
rightly coaxing obtuse angles
to square up
and respond.
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You also may link to "A Mathematician's Nightmare" or "My Dance is Mathematics" (a poem to honor algebraist Emmy Noether). These latter poems are included in a lovely little collection of mathematical poems, My Dance is Mathematics; a printing error caused the second printing to be recalled by Paper Kite Press, but paper copies are availble from JoAnne and the poems are online HERE.
