Mathematical Poetry at Bridges 2023

  A reading in the afternoon
 
  Sunday, July 30, Time: 3:30 - 5:30 pm
  Location: Halifax Central Library, Lindsay Children's Room (2nd floor)
5440 Spring Garden Road
   Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Map of Bridges 2023 locations   and   a more detailed venue map
 

                                 The Program                                                   

                                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


About the Coordinator and the Invited Poets
Sarah Glaz


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   

Madhur Anand 



Madhur Anand's debut memoir This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart (Strange Light/Penguin Random House Canada, 2020) won the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Her debut collection of poems A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes (2015) was a finalist for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, named one of 10 all-time trailblazing poetry collections by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), and received a starred review in Publisher's Weekly. Her second collection of poems Parasitic Oscillations (2022) was published to international acclaim and named the top-pick for Spring poetry by the CBC. Both poetry collections were published with McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House Canada. She is a professor of ecology and sustainability at the University of Guelph, where she was appointed the inaugural Director of the Guelph Institute for Environmental Research.




      
  
   Website: https://49thshelf.com/Blog/2020/08/10/The-Chat-with-GG-s-Literature-Award-Winner-Madhur-Anand
  
   Sample poem: Sensible Parallels

Tatiana Bonch


Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya was born in former Soviet Union and studied physics at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and philology at Moscow State Humanitarian University, where she earned a Ph.D. in Russian experimental poetry. Tatiana is author of fourteen books in Russian, including Introduction to the Literature of Formal Restrictions and Labyrinths of Combinatorial Literature, and co-editor of the anthology, Freedom of Restriction. Her poetry in English appeared in: Can I tell you a secret?, Across the Russian Wor(l)d, Bridges, London Grip, POEM, Rochford Street Review, and Journal of Humanistic Mathematics. She is a member of the editorial committee of Articulation and the board of PEN Moscow, and was guest-editor of a Symmetry literary issue. Tatiana organized the Mathematics and Arts seminar, the GolosA Festival of Combinatorial Poetry, and the Symmetry Festival Literary Session. 



   


   
   Website: 
http://antipodes.org.au/en.aboutTatianaBonch.html   
   Sample poem:  Hypatia, the last Alexandrian mathematician

Marion Cohen


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. 





   
    Website:
https://marioncohen.net/

    Sample poem:  So glad

Carol Dorf

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. 




   

    Website:
http://talkingwriting.com/why-poets-sometimes-think-in-numbers/   
    Sample poem: Psalm for the numerous on crossing the Re(e)d Sea 

 Susan Gerofsky

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).

                                                                     



   
 
    Website:  https://edcp.educ.ubc.ca/susan-gerofsky/
    Sample poem:
Diagonal Eyes Enter Leaving

Lisa Lajeunesse         


Lisa Lajeunesse is a professor of Mathematics at Capilano University in North Vancouver. As an undergraduate, she studied mathematics and music. Before embarking on graduate studies in mathematics, she worked for ten years with Telesat Canada on the launch and control of Canada's communication satellites. At Capilano University, she has developed and taught courses on the connections between mathematics and the arts to reach out to non-science students, and to express her lifelong passion for creative writing, music and other art forms. During a sabbatical in 2016/2017 she wrote a textbook for these courses, which prompted her to attend Bridges for the first time. Since then, she has adapted popular logic puzzles to encode poetry so that the solving of each puzzle unlocks a poem. A sample of Lisa's poetry may be found her website.



    

   
    
    


     Website:
https://lisalajeunessepoetry.wordpress.com/

     Sample poem: Model Theory