Coordinated by Sarah Glaz, Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of Connecticut and poet, the Bridges poetry readings feature poetry with strong links to mathematics, a great variety of
topics, and a wide range of poetic styles. This year's poetry reading offers the work of a diverse and exciting group of poets. This is the first fully in-person Bridges poetry reading since the start of the
pandemic. The program will begin with twelve prominent poets reading selections from their work, followed by an open mic and late additions reading period where Bridges 2023 participants will read
their own mathematical poems. The poetry reading is part of the Bridges 2023 conference's Family Day, which is free and open to the public. Details about the venue and the program will be posted here
as we get closer to the conference's date. The Bridges 2023 Poetry Reading website offers, along with biographical information, links to either videos or printable sample poems by each of the participating
poets. In addition, we plan the publication of the Bridges 2023 Poetry Anthology, which will include poetry by both present and past Bridges invited poets. Information on past Bridges Poetry Readings and
Bridges Poetry Anthologies appears on the Bridges organization site and at: Mathematical Poetry at Bridges.
I am happy to share with you the lovely cento composed by JoAnne Growney,
consisting of a line of poetry from each of the invited poet's sample poem given on this page.
How harmoniously our voices blend together! Thank you, JoAnne!
Bridges 2023 Cento at: Intersections -- Poetry with Mathematics
Poetry lovers, here is a treat for you!
The July 2024 issue of the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics features a poetry folder curated by E R Lutken consisting of clerihews composed by Bridges poets.
For your enjoyment, read the poems at this link:
Mathematical Graffiti: Bridges 2023 Clerihew Collection
About the Coordinator and the Invited Poets
Sarah
Glaz's
poetry collection, Ode to Numbers (Antrim
House, 2017) was a finalist for both Next Generation
Indie Book Awards and Book Excellence Awards. Sarah is
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of
Connecticut specializing in the mathematical area of
Commutative Ring Theory. Her poetry, poetry
translations, collaborative work with visual artists,
and articles on the connections between mathematics
and poetry appeared in a variety of literary and
mathematical journals, edited volumes, and
anthologies. Sarah serves as Associate Editor for the
Journal of Mathematics and the Arts, for which
she guest-edited the special issue Poetry and
Mathematics. She co-edited the
poetry anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of
Love and Mathematics (CRC Press, 2008), and
as the coordinator of the poetry readings at the
annual Bridges conferences, she
edits the Bridges Poetry Anthologies. Website: http://www.math.uconn.edu/~glaz Sample poem: Ptolemy's Almagest: Book I |
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Marion Deutsche Cohen is known for writing poetry and memoirs on three topics: spousal chronic illness, late pregnancy loss, and math. She authored 33 books. Her newest poetry collection is Negative Aspects (dancing girl press), and her latest prose collection is Not Erma Bombeck: Diary of a Feminist 70s Mother (Alien Buddha Press). Forthcoming are: Disturbing Shapes and Reasons and Remedies for Insomnia. She is also the author of two controversial memoirs about "well-spousery," a trilogy diary of full-term-pregnancy loss, and Crossing the Equal Sign, about the experience of and her passion for math. This year, her work has been included in six anthologies. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Drexel University's Honors College. Other poetic inspirations are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, grown children and step-children, and six grandchildren.
Sample poem:
So glad
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Carol
Dorf is fascinated with the boundaries between
disciplines, particularly mathematics and poetry. She
was founding poetry editor of Talking
Writing where she wrote about issues in
contemporary poetry, and edited several issues on
mathematical poetry, science poetry, and technology
poetry. For many years, she taught high school
mathematics, and has led poetry workshops as a
California-Poet-in-the-Schools, at Berkeley City
College, and other art venues. She brought her loves
together by introducing poetry into the mathematics
classroom and by teaching poetry writing to
mathematics teachers. She has three chapbooks
available, Some Years Ask (Moria
Press), Theory Headed Dragon (Finishing
Line Press), and Given (Origami Poems
Project). Her poetry appears in Yes
Poetry, Great Weather For Media, The
Mom Egg, Sin Fronteras, E-ratio, About Place, Glint,
Slipstream, The Journal of Humanistic Mathematics,
Scientific American, and Maintenant.
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Susan Gerofsky is
an Associate Professor of Mathematics Education and
Environmental Education at the University of British
Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her interdisciplinary
research is in embodied, multisensory, multimodal
mathematics education through the arts, movement,
gesture and voice. She works in curriculum studies,
environmental garden-based education, the language and
genres of mathematics education, and media theory.
Dr. Gerofsky is academic advisor and
co-founder of the UBC Orchard Garden, a student-led
campus learning garden. She is active as a poet,
playwright, musician and filmmaker, and also works
with dance and fiber arts. You'll often find her
cycling around town with a baritone horn or an
accordion. Susan
contributed to the award-winning book, Poetic
Inquiry: Enchantment of Place (Vernon Press, 2017) and has a verse
play, Kepler:
A Renaissance Folk Play, published in The
Mathematical Intelligencer (2018).
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Sample poem: Model
Theory |
Marco Lucchesi, Professor of Comparative Literature at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, is a Brazilian poet, novelist, essayist and translator. Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Letters (ABL) in 2011, Marco served as its president from 2018 to 2021. He is the former editor-in-chief of the ABL journal, Revista Brasileira, and the National Library of Brazil poetry magazine, Poesia Sempre. His publications include over twenty-five award winning books and numerous works of translation, among others Novos Poemas Reunidos [New Collected Poems], Hinos Matematicos [Mathematical Hymns], and translations of Rumi, Khlebnikov, Rilke, Pasternak and Vico. His work has been widely anthologized and translated into more than ten languages. His literary honors include the Jabuti Prize, the Romanian Latin Prize, the Ministry of Italian Culture Prize, and Alceu Amoroso Lima, a lifetime achievement award in poetry.
Sample poem: Hilbert
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E.
R.
Lutken's collection Manifold: poetry of
mathematics (3: A Taos Press, 2021) won the New
Mexico First Book Award 2022. By training, Emily
Lutken is a family physician. She graduated from Duke
University, and U.T. Southwestern Medical School.
After residency, she worked in urban emergency rooms,
then with International Medical Corps teaching and
caring for refugees, and for the majority of her
career on the Navajo Nation. After retiring from
medicine, she taught middle and high school science
and mathematics in rural Colorado for six more years,
and developed an interest in cross-curricular
activities with the humanities. Now she spends time
writing poetry, and fishing in the swamps of Louisiana
and mountain streams of New Mexico. Her poems often
involve science and mathematics, and have appeared in
a variety of journals and anthologies.
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Alice Major's 12th collection of poetry, Knife
on Snow, is coming out with Turnstone Press
in spring, 2023. Her book of essays, Intersecting
Sets: A Poet Looks at Science, has
been awarded the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for
non-fiction. Among her writing awards are the 2017
Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta Distinguished Artist
Award and an honorary doctorate from the University
of Alberta. Her interest in mathematics began at the age
of twelve, when she was introduced to non-Euclidean
geometry in one of Martin Gardner's
books. Ever since, like Percy Bysshe Shelley,
she turns to math and science "to replenish my store of
metaphor." She has been president of the League of
Canadian Poets, first poet laureate for her home city of
Edmonton (Canada), and is the founder of the Edmonton
Poetry Festival.
Website: https://www.alicemajor.com Sample poem: Ten days past the equinox
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Kaz Maslanka received a BFA in Sculpture from
Wichita State University, where he also studied music,
mathematics and physics. He has been involved in the
arts for over 50 years and has been pioneering
mathematical visual poetry since the early 1980's. He
maintains a strong international presence on his blog
"Mathematical Poetry" and with exhibitions of his work.
Among Kaz's awards and recognitions is a nomination for
a Pushcart prize in poetry, and the appearance of a poem
in the 2020 'Page A Day' calendar published by the AMS.
He lives in San Diego, California, and serves as curator
for the San Diego based "Sonic Arts Studio," a group of
composers and musicians devoted to microtonal music. He
also served on the advisory board of the Bronowski Art
and Science Forum in Del Mar, California.
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Amy
Uyematsu, who taught high-school math for 32
years, is a sansei (third-generation Japanese
American) from Los Angeles. Amy's poems consider the
intersection of politics, mathematics, spirituality,
and the natural world. She has published six poetry
volumes: 30 Miles from J-Town and Nights
of Fire, Nights of Rain (Story Line Press,
1992, 1998), Stone Bow Prayer (Copper
Canyon Press, 2005), The Yellow Door and Basic
Vocabulary (Red Hen Press, 2015,
2016), and That Blue Trickster Time (What
Books Press, 2022). Amy is the recipient of the 1992
Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize. Her work is
featured in many venues, including "Poetry Outloud," a
national program promoting poetry in American high
schools. Prior to teaching mathematics, Amy was active
in Asian American Studies at UCLA, and in 1971 she
co-edited the anthology Roots: An Asian
American Reader.
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Amy Uyematsu passed away this June. A wonderful
mathematical poet and a lovely person, Amy had been
part of the
An
obituary in Rafu
Shimpo,
and
A
memorial in Intersections
-- Poetry with Mathematics
We will miss you, Amy!
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Susana Sulic
Paris, France
http://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?menu=&id=5981
Racheli
Yovel
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel
https://sites.google.com/view/rachelyovel/home
Rosa Zwier
Melbourne, Australia
https://rosazwier.com/
S. Brackett Robertson
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
http://stonetelling.com/issue12-apr2015/robertson-bathyscape.html
Sample
poem: Mageochory
Robert
Dawson
Saint
Mary's
University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
https://www.smu.ca/math-cs/dawson.html
Sample
poem:
Antiparticular