Week 8 Activities + Connections

Poetry has several connections to mathematics. A great example would be its rhythm highlighted with emphatic stressors on particular syllables in certain poetic forms. Other forms encourage syllable counts or rhyming schemes that follow a symmetrical or structured pattern. 

Viewing the Bridges 2025 roster. I read:

Jim Wolper and his caunchy poem called Harmonic Series. After learning the structure of the caunchy poem, I understood the repeated beginnings. What I still am confused about is the "(Omit # of lines beginning with "Too ____")", these numbers must have a significant meaning in terms of the harmonic series which I haven't googled.

Tammy Douglass-Westergard's Crossings inspired by Knotted Strapwork Strands in a Penrose-Type Girih Pattern” by Joseph I. Cline, Proceedings of Bridges 2025: Mathematics and the Arts, Pages 61–68.
Although I haven't read the paper, the content of the poem itself really resonated with me.

Kate Jones's Stomachion, the Quest is a four-stanza four-line poem with a rhyme scheme AABB per stanza. It was inspired by an ancient puzzle studied by Archimedes. The referenced puzzle in the poem was constructed by her and her colleagues. 

and Climate Extinction (2024) is a multi-stanza four-line poem with the same rhyme scheme as above inspired by Svante Arrhenius, a Swedish scientist whose work helped show carbon dioxide is responsible for global warming.

Alice Major's (2024) Three-Body Problem is a beautiful and sad poem about the instability of orbit of a three-body problem as an analogy for relationships.

I've really enjoyed the poems that contain not just a form with a mathematical structure that produces predictability (ie. comfort), but also contains topics of science or environmentalism. Science - along with mathematics - is another field that would traditionally not be connected to the world of the arts. 

The Fib

One of our tasks this week is to write mathematical poetry. Specifically, a "fib" (below) and a PH4 (below below).

According to Glaz (2021), "a Fib is a special case of Fibonacci poem, a poem of 6 lines whose syllable line count follows the first 6 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence: 1;1;2;3;5;8.

Without reading any examples, I want to try creating one to see if I understand the form, then check myself later. 

Growth.

Struggle.

The same?

Is one negative?

Why do we struggle to grow?

Or do we grow to eventually enjoy struggle?

OK. The poem above does not follow the structure as I mis-remembered the "syllable line count" as "word count". After reading some of the examples from the Poetry in the Glade: 2021 Fib Collection (2022), I made some with the thoughts that were floating in my head:

Thinking Mathematically

Start.

Read.

Entry.

Introduce.

Attack artfully.

Reasonably check solutions.

Double Standard

What

is 

anger?

Privilege.

A feeling men show.

Unequal judgement; women hide.

Choices

Last

course

choices.

Frustrating

and inconvenient.

yet another thing to juggle.

Juggling

Toss.

Toss.

Catch, catch.

To yourself.

Notation reveals:

A new pattern: 5-5-5-1!

Quick reflection of the process: 

I enjoyed creating them. I would rate them at the same level of enjoyability as developing Haiku. Although we have more lines, the first few one-syllable words can be playful either revealing the topic as a pseudo-title, or mislead the reader to generate an interesting conceptual twist at the end. To get a sense of the rhythm, I feel it is important to read each line with breaks even if the idea is broken up between a few lines. 

Plain Hunt 4 (PH4)

"A Plain Hunt is a basic bellringing permutation where the ringing of any particular bell tracks diagonally across the sequence over time 0 a permutation that maps onto a simple multi-strand braiding pattern. The Plain Hunt on 4 (PH4) takes four initial symbols (or bells, or threads, or words) and swaps spots for the two end pairs and then the middle pair recursively, resulting in 8 distinct permutational patterns before the four initial symbols return to their starting positions" (Gerofsky, 2020, p 274).

As part of my project with Kristie Truell, we have a 4! permutational pattern in swordplay that I would like to start as my first trial: 

Mandritto Fendente	Riverso Sottano	Riverso Fendente	Mandritto Sottano
Riverso Sottano	Mandritto Fendente	Mandritto Sottano	Riverso Fendente
Riverso Sottano	Mandritto Sottano	Mandritto Fendente	Riverso Fendente
Mandritto Sottano	Riverso Sottano	Riverso Fendente	Mandritto Fendente
Mandritto Sottano	Riverso Fendente	Riverso Sottano	Mandritto Fendente
Riverso Fendente	Mandritto Sottano	Mandritto Fendente	Riverso Sottano
Riverso Fendente	Mandritto Fendente	Mandritto Sottano	Riverso Sottano
Mandritto Fendente	Riverso Fendente	Riverso Sottano	Mandritto Sottano
Mandritto Fendente	Riverso Sottano	Riverso Fendente	Mandritto Sottano

Neat! It worked out :) I might try to do a visual representation as visual PH4 instead. 

After reading the poem examples from Dr. Gerofsky (2020), I really wanted to be playful with my word combinations. I first thought of separated words that put together mean something new or different like "light" and "street" then in a different order "street-light". Journey came to mind: "street-lights, peeeeeople, livin' just to find e-motion!" 

Then, I went onto Google and searched up an excellent resource for words/concepts like this... Wheel of Fortune. Category: Before and After. That led me to my teaching and personal interest: Space.
My four words are: International / Air / Space / Station.

ISS

International air, Space station.
Air-International, station space.
Air station in International space.
Station air, space: International.
Station space, air international.
Space station in International air.
Space international station air.
International space air station.
International air space, station.

Quick reflection:
As exciting as the initial discovery of the words were and how they could go together. My excitement quickly left in favour of a potential new discovery with other words that are not so planned out. Another interesting observation: after a while, the word space started to look (spelling) and sound wrong. I had to double check I was writing and saying it properly. 

Journey (to catch)

Searchlight, street-people!
Light search of People St.
Light people search the street.
People on Light Street search.
People streetlight search.
Street-people searchlight.
Street search for peoples' light.
Search street lightly people!
Search Light Street people!

Quick reflection: 
Although this was my initial gut instinct to try, I folded for something more methodical. Turns out, I should go with my gut! I really enjoyed how this one played out. There were three different streets to search down. Different kinds of people, and light was used as an adjective and adverb. It was really neat!!! I'm going to stop writing so I can ride this creative high for a little while longer. Another interesting observation: after a while, the word street started to look and sound wrong. It was like I had never actually heard the word before and the mouth movements were foreign. I asked myself "is that really what we named that empty space used to drive cars and travel on?"

Just for fun, I asked DALL-E 3 to generate an image based on my poem:

References:

Gerofsky, S. (2020). Two new combinatoric poetry forms: Braided bellringing PH4 poems & anagrammatic, Anglo Saxon-inspired poems. In E. Torrence, B. Torrence, C. H. Séquin, J. M. Sullivan, & R. Bosch (Eds.), Proceedings of Bridges 2020: Mathematics, Art, Music, Architecture, Education, Culture (pp. 273–280). Tessellations. https://archive.bridgesmathart.org/2020/bridges2020-273.pdf 

Glaz, S. (January 2022). "Poetry in the Glade: Bridges 2021 Fib Collection," Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, 12(1) pp. 467-500. DOI: 10.5642/jhummath.202201.35.