
How Poetry and Math Intersect - Hooke
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-poetry-and-math-intersect-180968869/?no-ist
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qntty
This reminds me of this quote by William James in a review of a book of essays
by the mathematician and philosopher William Kingdon Clifford:

 _But even the distant reader must allow that Clifford 's mental personality
belonged to the highest possible type to say no more. The union of the
mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness,
this surely is the ideal. And if in these modern days we are to look for any
prophet or saviour who shall influence our feelings towards the universe as
the founders and renewers of past religions have influenced the minds of our
fathers, that prophet, if he ever come, must, like Clifford, be no mere
sentimental worshipper of science, but an expert in her ways. And he must have
what Clifford had in so extraordinary a degree—that lavishly generous
confidence in the worthiness of average human nature to be told all truth, the
lack of which in Goethe made him an inspiration to the few but a cold riddle
to the many._

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soulnothing
I write regularly, and I call it poetry. I write 3 to 4 nights a week while
I'm out.

I've also participated in slams and open mics. There is some poetry I'm just
like meh on. It's like I don't like country it's just not my tune.

I didnt really get into it till I saw a guy perform at a slam. The inflection
of his voice, body posture, it was close to rapping in a way. There was just a
palpable fire. But I won't read others poetry, ill gladly listen. Poetry is
best seeing the missing element the author left off the page.

I feel my writing is very cold. Being an aspie my emotions are very distant.
So my writing comes off cold and logical. Instead of math i rely heavily on
mythology Greek, Nordic, Roman, and enochian. Then will also drop to Latin at
times.

Listening to people perform. It's often in a similar bar, and phrasing. Which
makes sense they've crafted a tool set. Then are crafting new ideas with it.

~~~
kian
If you don't mind my asking, where did you see this person perform, and what
topics of poetry did they speak upon that inspired you to begin writing?

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foxhedgehog

      KING CLAUDIUS
    
      Thanks, dear my lord.
    
      Exit POLONIUS
    
      O(0), my offence(0) is rank it smells to heaven;
      It hath the primal(1) eldest curse upon't,
      A brother's murder. Pray can I not(0),
      Though inclination be as sharp as will:
      My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
      And, like a man to(2) double(2) business bound,
      I stand in pause where I shall first(1) begin,
      And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
      Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
      Is there not(0) rain enough in the sweet heavens
      To(2) wash it white as snow? Whereto(2) serves mercy
      But to(2) confront the visage of offence(0)?
      And what's in prayer but this two-fold(2) force(4),
      To(2) be forestalled(4) ere we come to(2) fall,
      Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
      My fault is past. But, O(0), what form of prayer
      Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
      That cannot(0) be; since I am still possess'd
      Of those effects for which I did the murder,
      My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
      May one(1) be pardon'd and retain the offence(0)?
      In the corrupted currents of this world
      Offence's(0) gilded hand may shove by justice,
      And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
      Buys out the law: but 'tis not(0) so above;
      There is no(0) shuffling, there the action lies
      In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
      Even to(2) the teeth and forehead(4) of our faults,
      To(2) give in evidence. What then? what rests?
      Try what repentance can: what can it not(0)?
      Yet what can it when one(1) can not(0) repent?
      O(0) wretched state! O(0) bosom black as death!
      O(0) limed soul, that, struggling to(2) be free,
      Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
      Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
      Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
      All may be well.

~~~
foxhedgehog
Also, "too, too solid flesh," "double, double, toil and trouble," etc. etc.

------
no_identd
Disappointed to see no reference to this brilliant paper/book proposal:

[http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/proposal.pdf](http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/proposal.pdf)
Rachel Wells Hall - The Sound of Numbers: A Tour of Mathematical Music
Theory/Math for Poets and Drummers [2008]

Slides:

[http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/Rhythms/Poets/arcadia.pdf](http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/Rhythms/Poets/arcadia.pdf)

More:

[http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/Rhythms/](http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/Rhythms/)

Even more:

[http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/](http://people.sju.edu/~rhall/)

------
komali2
I have never understood the attraction of poetry, and I spent 4 years getting
a degree in Creative Writing.

I've talked to my peers about this, tried to "get it." It's something wrong
with _me_ , I'm not trying to come across as if I'm the only one seeing
through the emperor's clothing here. But, this first poem in the article for
example (by the way, copy-pasting from this website is a fucking nightmare)

>I prove a theorem and the house expands: the windows jerk free to hover near
the ceiling, the ceiling floats away with a sigh.

I can appreciate a clever use of vocabulary, the choice of breathing words
like "expand, hover, float, sigh" centered around the fulcrum of "jerk."
Academically I get why it's a good poem. But I feel _nothing_ towards it, it
doesn't seem special to me, to the point that it seems even unnecessary.

Maybe someone else is here that used to be as cynical and boring as me and
somehow has since "gotten" this art form that people have been playing around
with for a couple thousand years, and is willing to share how they did it?

EDIT: I'm remembering specific incidents now, like of sitting around on a
grassy hill on campus, smoking pot, while my peers read their favorite poems
to eachother, everyone's nodding their heads, but I'm just _not fucking
getting it!_

>As a professor, she used poetry in her mathematics classes to help students
to connect emotionally to mathematics...

how???

~~~
nc99
Your comment really resonates with me. I feel the same way towards poetry. I
have a background in music so I understand rhythm and I can appreciate good
word choice and other poetic devices.

But I don't feel anything from poetry.

I've described it as like being tone-deaf but to poetry. The majority of poems
make me feel nothing, and the ones where I do feel something is more because
of the story than because it's in the form of a poem. I think that for the
poems I do feel an emotional response to, I could experience the same
emotional response without the form of the poem as long as the same story was
there.

One of the few poems I felt an emotional response towards was Shel
Silverstein's "Masks" that I read as a kid. It was a short poem and I think I
responded to it because of the story it told, and not necessarily because of
the form.

I wonder if you feel similarly. Do you feel something towards poems that tell
a compelling story or do you never feel any emotional response to anything
written in the form of a poem?

~~~
lurquer
Never bother with a poem that is less than 100 years old.

If you really want to be 'moved', don't bother with any poem less than 200
years old.

The poems that remain after 300 years are even better... Unfortunately, you
start running into problems in that more work is put into deciphering the
archaic English than enjoying the ideas expressed.

The point is, 99.9% of modern poetry sucks. It's not you.

~~~
lucozade
> 99.9% of modern poetry sucks

I don't believe that that's what's going on here. The majority of _all_ poetry
sucks. As does the majority of all music, novels, paintings etc.

But the ones that don't suck persist. That's why it seems that older poetry is
better, because we've forgotten/ignored the dross.

This tendency has been exacerbated in some fields by the split between art for
marketing purposes and art for commercial purposes. But that hasn't really
affected poetry, most of it's poor because most poets aren't very good.

~~~
lurquer
You are exactly right. I left your observation unstated as I felt it obvious.

I was involved in a project to create an anthology of poems. I spent much time
reviewing previous anthologies, published in the 1800s, of 'contemporary'
poems... that is, the books contained the best poems written during the period
the book was published.

And, the verdict? The overwhelming bulk of the poems were terrible.

