Publisher's Synopsis
About the author: Marian Christie is originally from Harare, Zimbabwe, and travelled widely before moving to her present home in Kent. She has master's degrees in mathematics and in creative writing. Her poetry frequently interweaves mathematical imagery with everyday experience, at times explicitly, at times more obliquely. Marian's chapbook Fractal Poems (Penteract Press) is a sequence of poems inspired by fractal forms. Praise for the Author "With eloquence and precision, Marian Christie illuminates contemporary mathematical poetry, showing us how the oneiric patterns of verse intertwine with the numeric patterns of the universe." Anthony Etherin; author of Stray Arts (and Other Inventions) and publisher for Penteract Press. "Poetry written within mathematically-derived constraints has a mysterious power to breach our psychic defences. Christie's elegant prose explains the mystery." Phil Vernon, poet (Poetry After Auschwitz). "With engaging explanations and varied examples, Marian Christie introduces intriguing ways that mathematical patterns help writers to create powerful poetry." JoAnne Growney, poet, mathematics professor emerita, grandparent. Introduction If, as a poet, you have used rhyme or metrical patterns, written a sonnet, sestina, or villanelle, or experimented with formal constraints, you have applied mathematical concepts in your writing. If, as a mathematician, you have sought elegance of expression and clarity of layout, or developed a simplified model as an analogy for a more complex system, you have drawn on poetic skills. Both poets and mathematicians explore the intersection of creativity and discipline. Connections between poetry and mathematics extend across centuries and cultures. A number sequence that appears in Sanskrit prosody generations before the time of Christ inspired a poetic form in Los Angeles in 2006. The structure of an inscription discovered in the ruins of Pompeii has echoes in present-day formally constrained poetry. Word permutations feature in the songs of mediaeval troubadours from France and in the work of experimental poets in mid-20th century London.
