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Best Famous Math Poems

Here is a collection of the all-time best famous Math poems. This is a select list of the best famous Math poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Math poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of math poems.

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Written by Joseph Brodsky | Create an image from this poem

I Sit By The Window

 I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.

I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
the Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.
I sit by the window. The dishes are done.
I was happy here. But I won't be again.

I wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,
and love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-
o Euclid thought the vanishing point became
wasn't math--it was the nothingness of Time.
I sit by the window. And while I sit
my youth comes back. Sometimes I'd smile. Or spit.

I said that the leaf may destory the bud;
what's fertile falls in fallow soil--a dud;
that on the flat field, the unshadowed plain
nature spills the seeds of trees in vain.
I sit by the window. Hands lock my knees.
My heavy shadow's my squat company.

My song was out of tune, my voice was cracked,
but at least no chorus can ever sing it back.
That talk like this reaps no reward bewilders
no one--no one's legs rest on my sholders.
I sit by the window in the dark. Like an express,
the waves behind the wavelike curtain crash.

A loyal subject of these second-rate years,
I proudly admit that my finest ideas
are second-rate, and may the future take them
as trophies of my struggle against suffocation.
I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out
which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.


Written by Audre Lorde | Create an image from this poem

Hanging Fire

 I am fourteen
and my skin has betrayed me
the boy I cannot live without 
still sucks his tumb 
in secret
how come my knees are 
always so ashy
what if I die
before the morning comes
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

I have to learn how to dance
in time for the next party 
my room is too small for me
suppose I de before graduation
they will sing sad melodies
but finally
tell the truth aout me
There is nothing I want to do 
and too much
that has to be done
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.

Nobody even stops to think
about my side of it
I should have been on Math Team
my marks were better than his
why do I have to be
the one 
wearing braces
I have nothing to wear tomorrow
will I live long enough
to grow up
and momma's in the bedroom
with the door closed.
Written by Maggie Estep | Create an image from this poem

Scab Maids On Speed

 My first job was when I was about 15. I had met
a girl named Hope who became my best friend. Hope and I were flunking math
class so we became speed freaks. This honed our algebra skills and we quickly
became whiz kids. For about 5 minutes. Then, our brains started to fry
and we were just teenage speed freaks.

Then, we decided to to seek gainful employment.

We got hired on as part time maids at the Holiday Inn while a maid strike
was happening. We were scab maids on speed and we were coming to clean
your room.

We were subsequently fired for pilfering a Holiday Inn guest's quaalude
stash which we did only because we never thought someone would have the
nerve to call the front desk and say; THE MAIDS STOLE MY LUUDES MAN. But
someone did - or so we surmised - because we were fired. 

I supppose maybe we were fired because we never actually CLEANED but rather
just turned on the vacuum so it SOUNDED like we were cleaning as we picked
the pubic hairs off the sheets and out of the tub then passed out on the
bed and caught up on the sleep we'd missed from being up all night speeding.


When we got fired, we became waitresses at an International House of Pancakes.


We were much happier there.
Written by Robert Graves | Create an image from this poem

Letter to S.S. from Mametz Wood

 I never dreamed we’d meet that day 
In our old haunts down Fricourt way, 
Plotting such marvellous journeys there 
For jolly old “Apr?s-la-guerre.” 

Well, when it’s over, first we’ll meet 
At Gweithdy Bach, my country seat 
In Wales, a curious little shop 
With two rooms and a roof on top, 
A sort of Morlancourt-ish billet 
That never needs a crowd to fill it.
But oh, the country round about! 
The sort of view that makes you shout 
For want of any better way 
Of praising God: there’s a blue bay 
Shining in front, and on the right
Snowden and Hebog capped with white, 
And lots of other jolly peaks 
That you could wonder at for weeks, 
With jag and spur and hump and cleft. 
There’s a grey castle on the left,
And back in the high Hinterland 
You’ll see the grave of Shawn Knarlbrand, 
Who slew the savage Buffaloon 
By the Nant-col one night in June, 
And won his surname from the horn
Of this prodigious unicorn. 
Beyond, where the two Rhinogs tower, 
Rhinog Fach and Rhinog Fawr, 
Close there after a four years’ chase 
From Thessaly and the woods of Thrace,
The beaten Dog-cat stood at bay 
And growled and fought and passed away. 
You’ll see where mountain conies grapple 
With prayer and creed in their rock chapel 
Which Ben and Claire once built for them;
They call it S?ar Bethlehem. 
You’ll see where in old Roman days, 
Before Revivals changed our ways, 
The Virgin ’scaped the Devil’s grab, 
Printing her foot on a stone slab
With five clear toe-marks; and you’ll find 
The fiendish thumbprint close behind. 
You’ll see where Math, Mathonwy’s son, 
Spoke with the wizard Gwydion 
And bad him from South Wales set out
To steal that creature with the snout, 
That new-discovered grunting beast 
Divinely flavoured for the feast. 
No traveller yet has hit upon 
A wilder land than Meirion,
For desolate hills and tumbling stones, 
Bogland and melody and old bones. 
Fairies and ghosts are here galore, 
And poetry most splendid, more 
Than can be written with the pen
Or understood by common men. 

In Gweithdy Bach we’ll rest awhile, 
We’ll dress our wounds and learn to smile 
With easier lips; we’ll stretch our legs, 
And live on bilberry tart and eggs,
And store up solar energy, 
Basking in sunshine by the sea, 
Until we feel a match once more 
For anything but another war. 

So then we’ll kiss our families,
And sail across the seas 
(The God of Song protecting us) 
To the great hills of Caucasus. 
Robert will learn the local bat 
For billeting and things like that,
If Siegfried learns the piccolo 
To charm the people as we go. 

The jolly peasants clad in furs 
Will greet the Welch-ski officers 
With open arms, and ere we pass
Will make us vocal with Kavasse. 
In old Bagdad we’ll call a halt 
At the S?shuns’ ancestral vault; 
We’ll catch the Persian rose-flowers’ scent, 
And understand what Omar meant.
Bitlis and Mush will know our faces, 
Tiflis and Tomsk, and all such places. 
Perhaps eventually we’ll get 
Among the Tartars of Thibet. 
Hobnobbing with the Chungs and Mings,
And doing wild, tremendous things 
In free adventure, quest and fight, 
And God! what poetry we’ll write!
Written by Charles Webb | Create an image from this poem

The Wife of the Mind

 Sharecroppers' child, she was more schooled
In slaughtering pigs and coaxing corn out of
The ground than in the laws of Math, the rules
Of Grammar. Seventeen, she fell in love
With the senior quarterback, and nearly
Married him, but—the wedding just a week
Away—drove her trousseau back to Penney's,
Then drove on past sagging fences, flooding creeks,
And country bars to huge Washington State,
Where, feeling like a hick, she studied French to compensate.

She graduated middle-of-her-class,
Managed a Senior Center while she flailed
Away at an M.A., from the morass
Of which a poet/rock-singer from Yale
Plucked her. He loved her practicality;
She adored his brilliance. Sex was great.
They married in a civil ceremony.
He played around, for which she berated
Herself, telling friends things were "hunky-dory."
Resentment grew... oh, you said "life"? That's another story.



Book: Reflection on the Important Things