During Poetry Month, A Joan Cannon Poem and Math and Metaphor: Flashes of Inspiration Require for Universes to be Disclosed

Humility  by Joan L. Cannon

Archetypes, mysteries, simple clues

that only fingers and toes, sticks and stones
and flashes of inspiration require
for universes to be disclosed …
symbols for functions and formulae
for proof; logic so easy for some —
why am I innumerate?

East is east and west is logic,
and it’s said never will they meet.
Yet in hieroglyphs and runes
and Mayan masks, carven calendars,
in the graceful limbs of Arabic,
those signs beyond the Word
beckon curiosity to span the voids.

Plus and minus, powers, infinity …
zero, prime, sequences, fractals …
Euclid to Escher, Foucault and Fibonacci,
Seuss to Einstein, abacus to gigabytes …
the world and wars and philosophy
are in their hands, while I can only
grope for a touch of understanding. 

 ©2010 Joan Cannon for SeniorWomen.com

Math and Metaphor: Using Poetry to Teach College Mathematics

Patrick Bahls
University of North Carolina, Asheville

Math is everywhere, and most people don’t even realize it. For the longest time I found math boring and confusing — just a bunch of numbers and symbols jumbled together, or word problems with juvenile purposes. (For example, would I really care about the rate water leaks from a bucket?) When I realized the concepts were actually relevant, and could be used to solve relevant problems, my feelings changed. Many of [my] poems definitely reflect my shift in attitude, and my realization that mathematics can be incredibly interesting.
— Katherine, Fall 2007 Calculus I student

Read the rest of the essay