Mathemaku

Pronunciation

Origin

Coined by Bob Grumman, who invented the genre, and first attested in 1988; formed as a blend of either mathema(tics) or mathema(tical) with (h)a(i)ku.

Full definition of mathemaku

Noun

1. (rare) A genre of pseudohaiku which combines a very short poetic structure with elegant mathematical expression; also, an example of this genre.
• 1988, Bob Grumman, Mathemaku II, main title
• 1996, Joyce Nakamura, Contemporary Authors: Autobiographical Series XXV, page 175Each mathemaku’s math was central to it, not just an ad hoc ingredient in a some section of it. ¶ I was quite pleased with what I’d accomplished, but for some reason was only able to add a single unfinished mathemaku to my mathe-poetic oeuvre over the next twenty years or so.
• 1999, The New Orleans Review XXV, page 47, section titleMathemaku for Beethoven
• 2005, Betsy Franco, Conversations with a Poet, page 210Poet/critic Bob Grumman…is best known as a poet for his hybrid of haiku and mathematics, the “mathemaku.”