Students
Proof
This sonnet by Emilynne Newsom ’25 won the college-level category of the 2025 American Mathematical Society Math Poetry contest, which celebrates creativity at the intersection of math and poetry.
There is a practice you will see in math.
It is a way of showing what is true.
In steady step-by-step it lays a path
from what you know to what you seek to prove.
A finding takes a lot of getting lost
in circles that we cannot comprehend,
but even patter ns knotted up and crossed
can find a line that leads us to its end.
There is an order to the way of things.
Perhaps it is an order we can find.
The math is in the universe—it sings
in such a way that we can harmonize.
And when our logic comes out sound and clear
we hear it in the ring of truth—we’re here.