Week 8 Activities Reflection: Reading, listening to and creating mathematical poetry

I am not a regular poetry reader. To explore examples of mathematical poetry I read some sample poems from the Bridges 2026 Mathematical Poetry page: 

Parallel Universe by Lisa Lajeunesse, a modular poem, where each “tile” can be a standalone poem, and they can also be read together additively to gain a new poem. This would be an easy structure for students to emulate. 

Hill Country, Old Mercedes, and Parturition by Madhur Anand, a poem about selective breeding and the movement towards efficiency in recovery rates. While I see connections to science, I do not see a mathematical structure within the poem yet.     

I also listened to poets reading their works from the 2022 Bridges conference, including:

Parasitic Oscillations by Madhur Anand, an expression of her scientific paper titled, Beyond harmonic sounds: a simple model for birdsong production (2008). Words that make up the poem are pulled from the paper, and when read aloud form structured sound wave patterns.  

Stolen Children by Lisa Lajeunesse, which is about residential schools. The repeating phrases, based on how each line number uniquely factors as a product of prime numbers, are very powerful.

Decision Tree by Mike Naylor - is about the decision making process. It is based off the structure of a binary tree and was fun to read, like a choose your own adventure! But, I’m not sure I would have read it the way it was intended if I hadn’t heard his explanation of the structure. 

I also listened to Mike Naylor’s Bridges 2020 poetry reading of:

Run, Hero, Run!, Water’s Edge and Entirely Nothing. Like Decision Tree, these are quite visual in their design and readability. I think this makes them quite engaging and approachable for using in the math classroom, as the math connections are easy to see/find. 

I liked it when the poems had a description (either written or verbally explained with the readings) of the mathematical structure or connection. I also appreciated hearing the poets read their work out loud so I could experience the intended tone and rhythm. This made me wonder: how much of the poetry experience should be what the author intended and how much should be left for the reader to interpret through their own emotions and experiences? I guess this question can mirror one of teaching math: how much of the math should be explored and discovered by the students and how much should be directly taught? 

I appreciate the idea of poetry as an expression of the human experience and that math is part of the human experience too. In my reading this week, Karaali (2014) notes everyone “can contribute, as they too have experienced both mathematics and poetry, in very emotional ways, and now they have the chance to unleash these emotions and share with others.” (p. 44) Poetry seems accessible for all to create and consume as we all have human experiences to draw on. (It may be an accessible way for all to create and consume mathematics too - even those who are not “math people.”)     

With that in mind, I tried creating some mathematical poetry this week. My experience this week was the chaos of life, as parent conferencing aligned with my own schooling and home responsibilities. A lot of my thoughts were around balancing all that needed to fit in, so it is not surprising that the 4 words that came to me in my attempt at a braided bellringer PH4 poem (Gerofsky, 2020) were roles that needed fulfilling this week.

I gravitated to the visual braided pattern of this poem and it made me wonder how it would change in meaning, structure, impact if it took on more of a French braid aspect, where strands are scooped into the braid at each outer edge.

References: Anand, M. (2026). Hill country, Old Mercedes, and Parterition [Poem]. In Mathematical poetry at Bridges 2026. Bridges Organization. https://www2.math.uconn.edu/~glaz/Mathematical_Poetry_at_Bridges/Bridges_2026/The-program-and-the-poets-2026.html

Anand, M. (2022). Parasitic oscillations [Poetry reading]. In Bridges 2022 mathematical poetry readings. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBMMY3UMNbPlUz-2WS7AwvtmOiLTsRecY

Gerofsky, S. (2020). Two new combinatoric poetry forms: Braided bellringing PH4 poems & anagrammatic, Anglo Saxon-inspired poems. In Bridges Conference Proceedings: Bridges 2020: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Culture (pp. 273–280). Bridges Organization. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2020/bridges2020-273.pdf Karaali, G. (2014). Can zombies write mathematical poetry? Mathematical poetry as a model for humanistic mathematics. For the Learning of Mathematics, 34(2), 26–32.

Lajeunesse, L. (2026). Parallel universe [Poem]. In Mathematical poetry at Bridges 2026. Bridges Organization. https://www2.math.uconn.edu/~glaz/Mathematical_Poetry_at_Bridges/Bridges_2026/The-program-and-the-poets-2026.html

Lajeunesse, L. (2022). Stolen children [Poetry reading]. In Bridges 2022 mathematical poetry readings. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBMMY3UMNbPlUz-2WS7AwvtmOiLTsRecY

Naylor, M. (2022). Decision tree [Poetry reading]. In Bridges 2022 mathematical poetry readings. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBMMY3UMNbPlUz-2WS7AwvtmOiLTsRecY

Mike Naylor. (2020). Bridges 2020 poetry reading: Run, Hero, Run!; Water’s Edge; Entirely Nothing [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_CTB6sLnR4