Celebrate National Poetry Month – with Mathematical Poetry
April 28, 2009, 6:30 p.m.
Mathematical Association of America Carriage House
1781 Church Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036
In celebration of National Poetry Month, veteran computer specialist Karren Alenier and mathematician JoAnne Growney, both of whom are poets, will present an hour of poetry that involves mathematical imagery or structure. Residents of the Washington, DC area, Alenier and Growney often have collaborated on live poetry programs and both were published in the recent anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of Love and Mathematics (edited by Sarah Glaz and JoAnne Growney, A K Peters, Ltd., 2008). Selections from the anthology will be included in the April program – and discounted copies of this and other works by the participating poets will be available for purchase.
Alenier and Growney each will read from their own work and offer a variety of selections from the work of others – the program will range from concrete visual poetry to classics, humor to heartbreak, subtraction to chaos.
If anyone attending the program wishes to participate by reading a favorite mathematical poem, time can be allocated – contact JoAnne Growney (japoet@msn.com) with the poet's name – a reader may read his/her own work or a selection by another poet – and the title of the poem.
A
lifetime MAA member, poet Joanne Growney taught mathematics for more
than twenty years at Bloomsburg University. Active in both mathematics
and the arts, JoAnne enjoys cross-disciplinary collaboration and has
written of links between poetry and mathematics for various journals.
Her poetry collection, My Dance is Mathematics
(Paper Kite Press) appeared in 2006. She is one of the editors for the
2008 anthology, Strange Attractors: Poems of
Love and Mathematics. A view of her collaborative activities is
available at http://joannegrowney.com.
Karren
LaLonde Alenier, a former computer programmer, analyst, and manager for
the Federal government, has participated in many arts-meet-science
programs, including the Library of Congress conference “Science and
Literature” developed by physicist poet J. H. Beall and the former LoC
Consultant in Poetry William Meredith. She is the author of five
collections of poetry, including Looking for
Divine Transportation. In 2005, Gertrude
Stein Invents a Jump Early On, an opera by Alenier and composer
William Banfield, premiered in New York. In 2007, The Steiny Road to Operadom: The Making of American
Operas, was published. For more information, visit: http://alenier.blogspot.com.