I count
each step, each breath,
each pull, or lift, or hold;
I count
in sets of two
or four, of five or eight or ten.
Quantifying movement,
we measure
the time contained in the distance
or the distance contained in the time.
Quantifying expression,
we count letters, syllables, words,
each sound, each metronomic beat –
rhythm bound
by number patterning.
We record
the flash periodicity of fireflies,
ocean tides as they surge and ebb,
the pulse from spinning neutron stars.
Our life’s measure
is the beating of our hearts …
a finite sequence of unknown length.
Author Archives: Marian Christie
Musings
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Exercise has always been a part of my life. I learned to swim before I could walk, played tennis and netball at school, and at university took up rowing and squash. Now, decades later, I still enjoy an occasional game of squash and I maintain my fitness with regular sessions on an indoor rowing machine.
Continue readingAsymptotic Times
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Perhaps it is my southern hemisphere background, but I find it hard not to feel gloomy in the cold, dark, dreary months of northern winter.
Continue readingDiscontinuity
This poem was originally published in Project Space Byi, a pavilion at The Wrong Biennale 2025.
A Paean to Penteract Press
In early spring a book arrived that I had been eagerly anticipating. Atomic Masquerade by Clara Etherin did not disappoint. Witty, exuberant, layered and innovative, this visual poetry collection is full of delights, from brooding palimpsest portrayals of Dracula and Frankenstein to the vivid pair of asemic sonnets “Heaven & Hell” – written in collaboration with AI – with which the book concludes.
Continue readingFrom Fibs to Fractals: exploring mathematical forms in poetry
A few years ago I was contacted out of the blue by Michelle Moloney King, the founder of Beir Bua Press. She had read some of my blog posts on mathematical forms in poetry, and offered to publish them as a book. The result was From Fibs to Fractals: exploring mathematical forms in poetry, which was released in autumn 2021, with stunning cover art by Moloney King herself.
Following the closure of Beir Bua Press in 2023 the book is no longer available in print, so I am now making it freely available in downloadable form. I’ve posted the Introduction below, followed by pdf versions of each of the chapters (including an additional chapter on geometrical forms). Enjoy!
Continue readingThe Poetry of Equations
A few months ago, I had a meltdown. Societal and political discourse – not only where I live, but everywhere – has become so troubled, so vitriolic, so angry, so polarised and so polarising that I became overwhelmed by words. It felt, and still feels, as though everyone is shouting but no one is listening. No one takes the time to ask thoughtful, constructive questions, to examine assumptions or consider nuances. Humility and compassion seem to be absent.
Continue readingIllustration of the Theorem of Pythagoras for a 3-4-5 Triangle
Notes:
32 + 42 = 52.
This poem demonstrates the theorem of Pythagoras for a triangle with sides of lengths 3, 4 and 5 units respectively. The poem consists purely of monosyllabic words with either 3, 4 or 5 letters. There are three stanzas, corresponding to the sides of the triangle. The first stanza has three lines of three words each (32 = 9 words in total), the second stanza has four lines with four words each (42= 16 words in total) and the third stanza has five lines of five words each (52 = 25 words in total).
Each word in the 3- and 4-line stanzas occurs only once. The 5-line stanza consists of all the words that make up the other two stanzas.
This poem is from my collection Triangles (Penteract Press, 2023).
A Little Light Relief
Poetry can be bleak. Grief, despair, loss, heartbreak and pain are timeless and universal themes that continue to be explored by contemporary writers, in poems that resonate with unflinching emotional intensity. To write, or to read, such poetry can be cathartic and healing.
Continue readingFour Clerihews
The four clerihews below are all inspired by famous mathematicians.
Pythagoras
alas
had no clue what to do
with the square root of two.
Fibonacci
was feeling scratchy
because rabbits in his field
continued to breed… and breed… and breed and breed… and breed and breed and breed….
John Napier
made a tiny error
calculating logarithms. Thankfully, the advent
of computing renders log tables redundant.
Wacław Sierpiński
was convinced he
could make holes in the carpet
but his wife blew a gasket.
The clerihews featuring Pythagoras and Wacław Sierpiński were originally published in:
“Mathematical Graffiti: Bridges 2023 Clerihew Collection,” Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, Volume 14 Issue 2 (July 2024), pages 602-611. Available at: https://scholarship.claremont.edu/jhm/vol14/iss2/22