Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics

The following poem -- "Fayetteville Junior High" by Delaware poet Fleda Brown -- uses mathematical terms in entertainingly describing a romance between two teachers: Read more »

Celebrated as both a musician and a mathematician was Tom Lehrer (Thomas Andrew Lehrer -- 1928-2025).

A very important source of poetry with links to mathematics is the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics -- an online journal -- edited by Mark Huber (Claremont McKenna College) and Gizem Karaali (Pomona College), and found at this link.

Found in Scientific American: Poetry was humanity's first language technology.

As you may know aready, British folks uss "maths" as a shortened version of "mathematics" -- while those of us in the U.S. use "math".

From the March 1994 issue of Poetry, this thoughtful poem by Pennsylvania poet and professor Robert Bernard Hass:

With line-lengths whose syllable-counts follow the Fibonacci numbers, a writer has the opportunity to develop a gradually expanding thought.

In today's news I learned of the recent death of award-winning author Wendell Berry (1934–2026).

Exploring Facebook recenty I came across Motive for Metaphor -- a site with this introduction: Motive for Metaphor offers poetical expressions for sharing & is inspired by a Wallace Stevens poem of the same name (available here)..

For me, writing is part of my thinking process -- my fingers join my brain in formulating thoughts.

An interesting, somewhat poetic quote: Found (along with lots more) at Quote Investigator website: Quote Origin: Mathematics Is the Simple Bit.

Recently I found -- and have been musing over -- this poetic quote by poet Carl Sandburg (1878-1967): Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky --- or the answer is wrong and you…

This article "Everybody is a Math Person . . ." by writer and teacher Larry Ferlazzo explores the nature of math anxiety and also the meanings of the terms: "math person" and "poetry person."

This week I have been enjoying family vacation time but this evening I have a moment to share a mathy poem that I found recently on Facebook -- "THE WORLD I LIVE IN" -- lines by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver (1935-2019), Lots of information about…

Recently I came across this website -- 30 Memorable Mathematics Poems - Tiny Poetry -- and I enjoyed browsing its poems.

Gregory Coxson, recently retired faculty member at the US Naval Academy's Electrical and Computer Engineering Department -- and a long-time friend, enjoys discovering and sharing mathy poems -- some of them his own, Recently he sent me the following Fib.

Here are the opening stanzas of a thoughtful poem by mathematician-writer Marian Christie: Christie's complete poem is available here on her website and previous inclusions of her work in this blog may be found at this link.

Raymond Nat Turner is the poet-in-residence for Black Agenda Report (a website of news, commentary, and analysis from the black left) -- and I have found and been moved by his mathy poem of protest entitled "Short word problems: do the math" l I offer its…

Enjoy a 1-minute video celebrating the MATH and POETRY of Omar Khayyam This Mathematician Solved Impossible Equations While Writing Poetry -- YouTube This blog posting -- from long ago in 2011 -- also features Khayyam.

Each year an international BRIDGES Conference celebrates the connections between mathematics and the arts -- featuring connections with music, literature, visual art, theater . . .

I have been saddened to learn of the death, early in May, of philosopher, writer, and professor at Penn State University -- and a frequent contributor to this blog -- Emily Rolfe Grosholz.

A website that I enjoy visiting and one that many current math teachers could enjoy visiting often is Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math – Helping families to learn and enjoy math together.

This month, America celebrates its Juneteenth, commemorating the day the last group of enslaved African Americans was informed they were free.

Combining math and parenting . ..

Sent to me by poet Jacqueline Lapidus, I have this slightly mathy poem: The Screaming Toddler Ratio The volume of the voice is in inverse proportion to the size of the speaker/screamer.

I found this poem online here at poets.org.

A few weeks ago (during National Poetry Month) I came upon an opinion piece by Danny Heitman in the The Washington POST with this title: "I read poetry for work.

We different humans have different abilities . . .

Each year the month of April is celebrated as National Poetry Month -- and upcoming April 29, 2026 is this year's Poem in Your Pocket Day.

Only a bit of math ... but an important concern ... needing a solution: This link leads to more mathy poems in this blog by Langston Hughes (1901-1967).

Today I have discovered the wonderful list of winning poems from this years Math-Poetry Contest sponsored by the American Mathematical Society.

April is National Poetry Month AND National Mathematics and Statistics Awareness Month -- and here in this blog we continue to celebrate poetry-math connections.