24 June 2004. Today I was going to report on the World's First Mathematical Poetry Workshop. I guess I still will although it didn't happen. Carol, the lady who arranged it, said she had e.mails from several parents who said their kids would be there, but the only kid what showed was, Jahna, Carol's daughter. It wasn't all loss: Jahna read me two mathematical poems! One was by her father, one by her--a nice one about serenity and a river and Nature that indicated an understanding of the form. I meant to get a copy of it but forgot to.

Probably because she comes from a literary family, Jahna (who will be going into sixth grade in August), has been a poet for years, often reading her work at local poetry events. She's definitely talented. But, so far as I know, she never did an "experimental poem" till the mathematical one.

She told me something amusing about an illumagery workshop she's in. A members exhibit I've mentioned here, I think, is still up at the visual arts center where the workshop is being given. As part of one of Jahna's sessions, the teacher gave a tour of the exhibit. During the tour, the teacher pointed to one of my pieces and asked the class what kind of picture it was. "I knew it was a mathematical poem," Jahna said, "but I told her what she wanted to hear: abstract."