Ellipsonnet

By Bora Zivkovic | September 24, 2012 | 1

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Image of the Week #61, September 24th, 2012:

From: M@h*(pOet)?ica–Louis Zukofsky’s Integral by Bob Grumman at Guest Blog.

Source: Geo-Metric Verse (1948) by Gerald L. Kaufman

Most people would probably put poetry and math at opposite ends of a spectrum, but author Gerald L. Kaufman was dedicated to marrying the two. In his book titled Geo-Metric Verse from 1948, he has 64 poems integrating mathematics and verse, which he amusingly admits is “written mostly for fanatics.” Guest blogger Bob Grumman muses over the Ellipsonnet and several other mathematical poems in his post “M@h*(pOet)?ica – Louis Zukofsky’s Integral”

About the Author: Bora Zivkovic is the Blog Editor at Scientific American, chronobiologist, biology teacher, organizer of ScienceOnline conferences and editor of Open Laboratory anthologies of best science writing on the Web. Follow on Twitter @boraz.

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The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

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1. sugrem 9:35 am 09/26/2012

I love the Ellipsonnet! Clever, witty, and the author is apparently well-versed in Milton and Dante; but now he should do a sonnet in Shakespearean or English form: 3 quatrains over a couplet. And maybe he could do it in the form of an equation such as: 3(4) + 2 = 8 + 6 with the lines of verse in each sonnet restating the themes of the other. Or maybe he’s already done so.
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