5 June 2004. I may be doing a workshop on mathematical poetry for schoolchildren at the local writers' center, so was asked to provide a sample mathemaku for advertising the event. My "Mathemaku 4a," part of a set of four celebrating the four seasons, was an obvious choice. It's quite accessible, and has gotten into an anthology of poetry for children edited by Maria Damon and Betsy Franco (who has since then has a charming children's book of her own long division poems published, Mathematickles--with a nice mention of me as the one whose poems inspired hers in it.

I felt my original "Mathemaku 4a" too simple, though, so quite a while ago re-did it. Yesterday, still unsatisfied with it, I re-did it, again. The three versions follow, in order of their creation:

The "sprin" was supposed to be a not-quite-complete spring, but I came to think it not clever enough--kinda dumb, in fact. The remainder was from one of the earliest poems, a phrase I thought a keeper when I wrote it, and still do. I'm not sure what happened to the poem it was with. My new "sub-dividend product" (I don't know what else to call it) isn't inspired, but I like it, and it should not make the poem too difficult. It certainly isn't very Floridian, though.