Summary
This interview explores the life of JoAnne Growney, a mathematician who is also a poet, and shows how these two parts of her identity deeply connect. Growney grew up on a farm, became a mathematics professor, and later returned seriously to poetry after many years focused on career and family. She explains that mathematics shapes how she thinks and writes—especially her love of precision, structure, and words with double meanings like “perfect.” For example, “perfect” can mean flawless in everyday language, but in mathematics it refers to special numbers like 6 or 28, whose divisors add up exactly to the number itself. She also talks about the importance of revision in poetry (“poems are made by erasing”), her blog Intersections – Poetry with Mathematics, and her commitment to supporting women in mathematics. Throughout the interview, she repeats the idea that “everything connects,” suggesting that mathematics and poetry are not opposites, but different and complementary ways of understanding the world.
Stop 1: “Everything connects.”
What stayed with me most is Growney’s belief that everything connects. She doesn’t force math into poetry; it naturally appears because it is part of how she sees the world. That makes me reflect on how our own backgrounds quietly shape our creative work. Even when we think we are writing about something personal or emotional, our training and habits of thinking are still present underneath. It makes me wonder what patterns or “vocabulary” I carry into my own thinking without realizing it.
Stop 2: “Poems are made by erasing.”
Her comment about revision felt powerful and very honest. The idea that good poems require removing words—not adding more—reminds me of mathematical proofs, where clarity comes from simplification. I relate to the struggle of being attached to certain sentences but knowing they must go. This idea makes writing feel less mysterious and more like careful crafting. It also shows that mathematics and poetry both value clarity, even if they express it differently.
Discussion Question
Do you think mathematics makes poetry more precise and powerful, or could it risk limiting emotional expression? Why?
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Summary This interview explores the life of JoAnne Growney, a mathematician who is also a poet, and shows how these two parts of her identit...
Hi Amy, thanks for your summary and reflections! You raise a really interesting question - both math and poetry carry certain constraints to them based on their structure, but often creativity emerges from those constraints. Overall I think mathematics can make poetry precise and powerful, especially in a mathematics/mathematics education context or when emotions are being expressed through the constraints, structure, or creative aspects of mathematics.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy, Thank you for sharing this thoughtful summary. The idea of “double meaning” was particularly striking to me. In the Urdu poetic tradition, it's considered elegant, and I’m sure there are comparable elements in many other linguistic traditions as well. So I was especially intrigued by how our author incorporates a mathematical layer of meaning to their work, and I look forward to reading some of that.
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