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 readingTag Archives: mathematical poetry
Discontinuity
This poem was originally published in Project Space Byi, a pavilion at The Wrong Biennale 2025.
From 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 readingA 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
The space within the nutshell
I was fortunate, when studying English Literature at A-Level, to have an inspirational teacher. Lynne Ruscoe was only a few years older than we were, full of energy and enthusiasm, with an engaging smile and a lively sense of humour. We read Chaucer and John Donne, John Keats and Gerald Manley Hopkins, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy, and – of course – Shakespeare. Hamlet was one of our set texts and I vividly remember the emotional impact the play had on me, especially these lines from Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be’ soliloquy:
Continue readingThe Seasons: Four Pascal’s Triangle Poems
I have always been drawn to the visual poetry of mathematics: the crisp clean curves of conic sections; the graceful graphs associated with trigonometric functions; the meditative intricacies of the Mandelbrot Set; even the simple, elongated elegance of the integral sign. I still recall the thrill I experienced as a teenager when I was first introduced to the triangular array of numbers known as Pascal’s Triangle. Mathematically, the array has applications in algebra, combinatorics and probability theory, but it is also intriguing as an object in itself, on account of the many patterns embedded in its structure.
Continue readingWhat poetry do we as poets read?
Last month Tesserae: A mosaic of poems by Zimbabwean women, was released into the world. Working on this book with Samantha Vazhure, founder and editor of Carnelian Heart Publishing, and the wonderful poets whose voices are featured within its pages, has been an immensely rewarding experience.
Continue readingRock, Paper, Scissors: Shape and Surface as Constraint
Messages from the past take many forms: ancient structures, buildings, and artefacts; burial sites; rituals and symbolism; stories, poems and songs shared through generations; sculptures, paintings, works of art.
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