mathemaku

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 (hai)ku.

• IPA^(key): /ˌmæθəˈmækuː/

mathemaku (countable and uncountable, plural mathemaku)

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 175

     Each 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 title

     Mathemaku for Beethoven

   • 2005, Betsy Franco, Conversations with a Poet, page 210

     Poet/critic Bob Grumman…[is] best known as a poet for his hybrid of haiku and mathematics, the “mathemaku.”