#NaPoWriMo 2022 Day Fifteen

Trite Mathematical Poem

Math
Add
Numbers
One by one
Building a sequence
Can you see a poem emerge?
No one told me writing poetry could involve math
Fibonacci sequence reveals a natural beauty, but I grow weary counting
Have you lost interest in reading a poem that
Is merely counting syllables?
There is no rhyme scheme
Proving math
To be
Dull
Trite

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Finally, here’s our daily (optional) prompt. This one may seem counter-intuitive, but today I’d like to challenge you to write a poem about something you have absolutely no interest in. This isn’t quite the same, I think, as something you’re indifferent to. For example, I have absolutely no interest in investment strategy. Anytime anyone tries to tell me about it, I want to put my fingers in my ears and go “lalalalalala.” My brain tries to shut down! This is honestly kind of funny, and I think this prompt has value precisely because it invites you to investigate some of the “why” behind resolutely not giving two hoots about something.

Good Afternoon and welcome to day fifteen of Napowrimo where I use boring math to write a poem. I’m not exactly sure if it’s completely on prompt, but I did write a different poetry form even if it still involved counting syllables. Here is another Fibonacci poem I wrote six years ago. My brain does like to tune out the higher the syllable count climbs and the longer the poem becomes. I hope you enjoyed reading my poem about math and did not tune out too quickly.

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AzMerit Score

For months they’ve been telling us to be prepared for bad test scores on the first common core tests students took here in Arizona last spring. Okay so I won’t be disappointed if my girls’ scores are within the average for the test. Well today Gretchen’s results finally arrived.

Highly proficient in English

Switch to common core
AzMerit test scores came
Jaw dropping, great grade

Proficient in math

 

Yes, this mother is having a #proudparent moment especially on the English score: two +s (reading for information & reading for literature) and a check mark (at grade level) on the writing portion. Way to Go, Gretchen! Now if I could see Rachael’s scores…

White and Nerdy

It started last night at dinner, my youngest was talking about Five Nights at Freddy’s.  Apparently the prequel takes place way back in 1987 (way back!?)  Being the strange family we are I said; Extra credit to the first person who can tell me how old Mom was way back in 1987.  Both girls started calculating.  Rachael answered first with 15.  No wrong answer.  Gretchen was still busy adding and subtracting but it didn’t take Rachael long to answer 14.  Yes, but since my birthday isn’t until Monday for most of 87 I was… still not difficult, Rachael replied, 13.

Gretchen was upset her sister gave away the answer so she gave us a math game she discovered online a few days ago.  She had her sister pick a number, double it, add six, divide by two, subtract your original number.  The answer… 3.  Rachael tried it over and over with different numbers.  One time she got tricky and picked i; which did not end up being 3 but it was close, since the answer was i +3.  Yes, this poet has math inclined children. Where did I go wrong?

Then this morning I find the #haikuchallenge word today is addition.  I remembered back to NaPoWriMo when one Saturday morning I was accosted by math. Believe it or not, the identical twin was a math major.  I think she took away all my addition sense when the egg split. 😛

Addition problems
Frenetic arithmetic
Poet accosted

One egg splits in two
Daughters double overnight
Family addition

A Birthday haiku for my twin the haiku-a-holic.

My cousin, Michael, Me and Kati all November ’73 babies.

NaPoWriMo Day Twenty-six Curtal Sonnet

Ode to St. Hubert

Saturday morning struggle with rhyme
Look up sonnet accosted by math
Can numbers help me wax poetic
An octave has eight lines, but here I’m
Writing six to stay on curtailed path
Then divide by two quite frenetic

But wait, there’s another knot to fray
The final quatrain adds aesthetic
Instead of four lines it starts to stray
Adding a half to earn my wrath
with arithmetic

 

NaPoWriMo Prompt – Now for our prompt (optional, as always). Today’s prompt comes to us from Vince Gotera, who wrote his “family member” poem for Day 20 in the form of a curtal sonnet. As Vince explains, the curtal sonnet is shorter than the normal, fourteen line sonnet. Instead it has a first stanza of six lines, followed by a second stanza of four, and then closes with a half-line. The form was invented in the 1800s by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who used it in his famous poem “Pied Beauty”. So for today, I challenge you to give the curtal sonnet a whirl. It doesn’t need to rhyme — though it can if you like — and feel free to branch out beyond iambic pentameter. Happy writing!

I hope everyone read the prompt. I did not; the link for Pied Beauty caught my eye, and I clicked on it.  I think it was too early in the morning, because I couldn’t grasp the rhyme scheme so I googled curtal sonnet.  Let me tell you, it was definitely too early for THIS. I was an English major NOT a mathematician.  However, math has been a subject of note in this house of late.  My oldest will be a junior in high school next semester.  Because of her excellent grades, her school will pay for her to take four college courses each semester next year.  She wants to earn her AS with her high school diploma, but to do that she first had to place into MAT 151.  Upon retaking the placement test at the college, she scored a 56.  Well above the needed score for MAT 151 and apparently it’s become a competition to beat her score.  One of her classmates looked up the patron saint of mathematics for those interested in the title of my poem.  Praying to the saint wasn’t helpful.  He only scored a 53. Yes, he got above the needed score for the course he’ll be taking, but it didn’t beat my daughter’s score.

However none of this matters because after I figured out the rhyme scheme for the curtal sonnet, I read the rest of the prompt – It doesn’t need to rhyme.  Serves me right to get distracted by pretty, shiny links. 😉

NaPoWriMo Ae Freslighe

Rachael reaches climatic
feats figuring and teaches
her class concise didactic
math measures Rachael reaches

April 24,2013 the last poem I was able to share before gather went down last year. My oldest daughter, Rachael, doesn’t get birthday poems.  Her birthday is in May.  I’m usually still decompressing from all the poetry writing in April.  However, she is still fair game for poetry fodder in April.  This poem was written because she came home and told me how her math class said she was an excellent teacher.  Yesterday she came home excited again; she got the highest score on the school’s benchmark test in math. 😀

Way to go, Rachael!  She is doing so well in school, they will be paying for her to take 4 courses at the college both semesters her junior year.  She really wants to graduate high school with her AS degree.  It looks like this may be a possibility.  The prompt for the poem last year was to write an Ae Freslighe and to include a body part.  I submitted the above version, explaining the brain was the body part.  But later I thought it might be fun to play with the homophone.  After all it is math and you measure feet in math class.

Rachael reaches climatic
feets figuring and teaches
her class concise didactic
math measures Rachael reaches