Customer Reviews

Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics

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A friend of mine, with similar interests, wrote this review--worthy of sharing:

A new book, edited by a pair of college math professors, offers "poems of love and mathematics" that provide enjoyable reading to those of us more familiar with verse than with Venn diagrams.

Even though the kind nuns made me memorize the multiplication tables, I later became gagged by geometry, confused by chaos theory, and flummoxed by Fibonacci sums. Higher math, and its lesser cousins, never made sense, so I found an easy chair and a pile of poetry books that I used to fend off calculus, statistics, and other mysterious studies.

To my surprise, this anthology demonstrates that fans of math can also have fun with words. John McClellan wrote: "A lady of 80 named Gertie/ Had a boyfriend of 60 named Bertie./ She told him emphatically/ That viewed mathematically/ By modulo 50 she's 30." The poet was a lithographer with an interest in "recreational math," according to the useful Contributor's Notes.

Poems can also offer music to the ears. Sarah Glaz, co-editor, reports on "Late Afternoon in the Workshop on Commutative Rings" about being "Inebriated in Pienza and Montepulciano/Cortona Firenze and San Gimignano." Read it aloud and hear for yourself!

Other poems in this varied collection treat more serious subjects. In "My Dance is Mathematics," JoAnne Growney, co-editor, observes that "If a woman's dance is mathematics,/ She dances alone."

Rather than reading alone, owners of this book are likely to share discoveries ranging from King Solomon to Shel Silverstein, from Catullus to Lewis Carroll, and from Dante to Rita Dove. Curious students will also find short biographical sketches of the mathematicians mentioned in the poems. Many readers might dance alone, delighted at the variety, and grateful to the thoughtful and thorough editors.

Thanks, Denny!

I am not a mathematician nor a poet but I loved this book. It combines whimsy, funny poems with others that are more 'serious' or romantic. I enjoyed comparing poems written centuries ago with comtemporary ones. My favorite poems are 'God Loves a Curve' by Edward Chipman, 'Love Story' by Sarah Glaz and 'A Lady of 80' by John McClellan. The anthology is well organized by love categories and the index is easy to use. The Contributors' Notes also provide useful information on each of the poet included. I recommend this book to all lovers of poetry with a mathematical bent for the sensitivity and humor of the work chosen by the editors.

To mathematicians, the expressions of mathematics are poetic in nature and expressive of thought. Using only a few symbols, it is possible to express the movements of galaxies, stars, planets and the smallest spacecraft. The secrets of how the universe operates on the physical level are expressed in mathematics, understanding the equations causes you to simultaneously burst with pride and kneel down in humility. There is no greater joy to a mathematician than when you prove and understand a theorem for the first time.
These poems express some of these same aspects of pride, humility and emotional joy; only they are expressed in textual poetry that has a mathematical theme. Some are classic poems by the masters with little in the way of mathematics, for example there are works by Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg and William Carlos Williams. While items in that set of poems is always a joy to read that of course is not the main attractor found in this book. For that position is firmly held by the material that has a true mathematical theme, where writers intelligently and thoughtfully combine the explanatory beauty of mathematics with the emotional beauty of poetry.
As the song states, "Love is a many-splendored thing." In this book mathematics is splendored in many ways that demonstrate the breadth and depth of interest and joy that it presents to those who love it.

Published in "Journal of Recreational Mathematics" reprinted with permission.

this book has many good poems, and a few excellent ones. if you like poetry and/or mathematics you should obtain this book.

It is rare to have two highly trained, professional mathematicians follow their passion for poetry so skilfully. Glaz & Growney challenge the line between profession and avocation by weaving together some of the finest poems you will ever read that also play with mathematics, educate you to see numbers, lines, infinities in fresh light. Here you have Andrew Marvell paint lovers into a cramped "planisphere" and let them loose again as parallel lines never to meet... And Jakob Bernoulli (well translated from Latin) making a concise argument for how "the finite encloses an infinite series" allowing readers to see also how the soul dwells in minutia...And Ray Bobo's utterly playful "Give Me an Epsilon and I will Treat it Well."
Assembled with professional knowledge ad seasoned passion, this volume is a must for all lovers of poetry and math.

Numbers are absolute, love is not. "Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics" is a collection of poems from many poets about two subjects rarely brought together in the same subject - love and arithmetic. Well over one hundred poems, both classic and contemporary, discuss these two subjects and how they have more in common than one would think. "Strange Attractors" is a fresh and original book of poetry, highly recommended. "We Shall Find the Cube of the Rainbow." by Emily Dickinson: We shall find the cube of the Rainbow./Of that, there is no doubt./But the Arc of a Lover's conjecture/Eludes the finding out.

This is a well thought out and articulated collection. I'm not a big math person, but this combination works, and informs both disciplines. It has great poems by some of my favorite poets. The editors did a superb job.