Tag Archives: Fibonacci

Four Clerihews

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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

A ScrabbleFib

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I continue to find Scrabblegrams challenging to write, but fun. Here’s an attempt to write a Scrabblegram that is also a Fib poem. It was inspired by a delightful cross-disciplinary lesson plan linking sunflowers, origami and the Fibonacci sequence, which I chanced upon while browsing the internet.

 My thanks as ever to Dave Cohen for his generous encouragement of my Scrabblegram experiments. For more on Scrabblegrams, and to read some exceptionally fine examples of the form, visit Dave’s site: https://davesscrabblegrams.com

Sunflower origami image credit: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/508203139176751737/

Snails

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A

thin

slime trail

meanders

over the gravel

to my flowerbeds, where hostas

that I had tended so carefully have been reduced 

to tattered shreds. A robin perches among panicles of lilac as you approach

with buttered scones and coffee. Light slants through leaves, glistens the slime trail silver. Everything contributes to the dazzle of this day – even snails.




This Fibonacci poem was first published in The Fib Review Issue #41