#EquationPoem 3

Happy Poetry Month!

For National Poetry Month 2021, I’m posting an equation poem each day. Maybe with an image, maybe without. I needed something very accessible and doable this year! Maybe you feel the same way? I’d love for you to join me, and here are several options for sharing your own or your students’ equation poems:

  • in the comments below
  • on social media with #EquationPoem–and be sure to tag me, please! (@LauraPSalas on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook)
  • on the Padlet on my bookpage here

Here’s today’s equation poem. This is another one from our wanderings on Kent Island in Chesapeake Bay. There was this dark, distinct path tunneled into this field…

And if you love equation poems, check out my Snowman-Cold=Puddle: Spring Equations, published by Charlesbridge and with gorgeous art by Micha Archer.

Snowman - Cold = Puddle: Spring Equations

Happy poeming!

P.S. Click here if you want to see all of this month’s equation poems!

P.P.S. If you like these, you might also love This Plus That, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace, and Mathematickles, by Betsy Franco and Steve Salerno.

11 Responses

  1. I love the photo and your take on it, Who was here? Laura! Here is my poem for the 2nd and one for today!
    Early to rise + warm temps + birdsong X 4 = happy morning symphony
    And for today!
    (pink hyacinth + white lily) + (purple crocus + sunny daffodil) X 12 = spring bouquet

    (I am trying to channel spring through my poetry! Hope springs! At least in the mind or poem!)

    1. Janet, I love both of these beautiful equation poems! I definitely feel spring in your poems. Thank you.

      1. Thank you, Gail and Laura. I am giving this a go this month. I am being mindful but the “shorter form” while deceptively “easy” does take a bit less time. I am glad to you are championing this form, Laura. Did you invent it?????

        1. No, I didn’t. Wish I had! When I came up with the idea, I thought I was very clever. But then I realized I had seen similar things years before in both AKR’s THIS PLUS THAT and Betsy Franco’s MATHEMATICKLES. I was thinking of them more as ways to look at facts in a new light than as poems when I started, but eventually my editor and I agreed they qualified as poetry :>)

    1. Yeah, I didn’t go in. I was tempted, but the ground was very wet, and I knew I’d get muddier than I already was.

  2. Laura, I wonder if you found a large animal path. Maybe of a deer or a mountain lion or lynx stalking a deer through the tall grass. Do you have mountain lions or lynx out there? We only have bobcats here, but mountain lions have been my favorite big cat since I was around seven years old. Mystery is a great answer to this equation poem. I’m curious why you used a slash between tall grass & dark path instead of a plus sign? Is it because the dark path is within the tall grass? Thank you for your inspiration.

    mountain lion — deer = hunger
    mountain lion + deer = dinners

    1. This was in Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, and deer were supposedly the biggest mammals around in that area, so it was probably that. I used a slash to be a division sign. I couldn’t figure out how to make the division sign with two dots and a horizontal bar! None of the directions worked on my laptop (which doesn’t have a separate set of number-only keys). So I was trying to show that the meadow is literally divided by a dark path…Here at home in MN, cougars are extremely rare, usually just passing through. I’d love to see one in the wild someday! I like your poems! That’s the fun of these is you can take two things and explore their relationship to each other through different equation poems–love!

      1. LOL to no division sign. Thank you. Yes, mountain lions have been sighted passing through here in NY, too. Once on was tracked back through Canada to WI. I wonder if the same cougar passed through MN, too. I would also love to see one in the wild, but from a far distance. My oldest daughter, who is twenty three is moving to CO soon. She will be working for the Forest Service in the Rockie Mtns. I am worried about her seeing a cougar working in only a group of two people, even though I know she will be properly trained to deal with the big cats.

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