Caroline Jennings is a mathematician. Her B.S. in Applied Mathematics is from the University of Arkansas, as is her B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing. Now working in Boulder, Colorado, she's using both degrees. Her most recent book of poetry, Stop and Smell the Fractals (and Everything in Between), allows both of her disciplines to merge on the page. During a recent Zoom conversation, Jennings spoke with Kyle Kellams.
Caroline Jennings: It's a poetry book heavily inspired by math — lots of little vocab buzzwords throughout. But a question I always get asked is: is it inaccessible for people who maybe weren't math majors? Definitely not. You can definitely read it, regardless of your background knowledge.
During a recent Zoom conversation Caroline Jennings thought about her double major.
Jennings: Initially, to me, they felt like two separate things. I would have my math classes and then I'd branch off and do my creative writing classes. I thought, OK, so this is kind of a break from the two. But I think as I went on, the similarities started to show themselves, which is kind of what inspired a lot of my work, especially in undergrad. It becomes really clear when you get into more formal elements of poetry and you're counting syllables and you're figuring out patterns. And that's when you start to see, oh, there really is a lot of math in poetry if you want there to be.
Kellams: Is the discipline the same? If you are thinking about mathematics, can there be a similarity to thinking about getting the right words and syllables together for a poem?
Jennings: Yeah, I think so. When you're approaching a math proof or a problem you're trying to solve, you're thinking through: how do I get to the answer I'm looking for? What's the question? And what's the process for that? I think sometimes when approaching poetry, at least for me, it's a case of what am I trying to say and how do I find the way to say it? And sometimes the answer is, use this form, this pattern, put this word here. It's just kind of like a puzzle in either case.
Kellams: This from someone who loves poetry, can't write it — and who was really flummoxed at an early age by mathematics, probably didn't try hard enough. I think of a poem like yours, "Car Ride," which seems intensely personal. I think it covers a subject we've all dealt with — where you're in the car with someone and maybe you're not at the moment the happiest with them, and you're trying to concentrate on something else. That seems so personal. And I think some of us think of math as analytical. When you're writing a poem like "Car Ride," what are you going through?
Jennings: That's a good question. Yes, it does come from a personal experience that I think most people have had — where you're in the car having an argument and you can't escape because you're in the car. So maybe you're looking out the window, kind of watching the trees and processing your thoughts. Sometimes when I'm in those situations, I do get kind of analytical: what's the problem here? What's the formula to solve it? That's kind of my way of processing it. And I think that's not an uncommon way to go about problems — just overanalyzing, probably — even if you're good at math or you're not, that kind of thought process feels similar to me.
Kellams: Then I think of the poem about the music of your newest nephew, where you have this small child up next to you and it takes you back to something from your childhood — a pleasant memory. It sounds like both memories are somewhat pleasant that we're meeting in this poem.
Jennings: Yeah, that's a good topic to bring up. I think sometimes with writers it feels easier to talk about the hard stuff, because people tend to ruminate on the difficult things. And I think that's just how life is. But that poem was part of a concerted effort to dwell on positive things. My nephew was born, and just looking at this little adorable baby and thinking, wow, how amazing is this? That was really enjoyable for me to write about. That's a good example of maybe putting words to positive things and trying to dwell on those.
Kellams: Let me ask you about managing two majors. Is that as challenging as it sounds?
Jennings: Some. Yes. Sometimes in a math class they might say, "Oh, I know a lot of you are in this other class, so I'm not scheduling a test on that day because I know you have one there." Didn't get a lot of that overlap. There might be a final in my analysis class the same day I have five poems due. I think it was a lot of time management and just taking breaks from one or the other when I needed to. But I do think it helped that they did overlap my senior year with developing my honors thesis of writing poetry about math. It kind of created a crossover — maybe the poetry wasn't that far away from the math courses I was taking as a poet.
Kellams: Do you connect with other poets digitally or face to face?
Jennings: As often as I can. I have a separate poetry Instagram just for that. It seems like social media really is the way to connect with people on these things. When I was in Arkansas — I've moved to Colorado since then — there were several groups I would try to keep involved in. There's one called Bee Balm Arkansas. That's a great group. And Pearl's Books has a writer's night, so that's something I tried to get involved in. Here in Colorado, I'm still trying to find my group. But I do have a friend I meet with virtually every other week just to go over poems, talk about what we're reading, talk about what we're working on. I think that sense of community is helpful because you can get really caught in your own voice.
Caroline Jennings' most recent book of poetry is Stop and Smell the Fractals (and Everything in Between). Her B.S. in Applied Mathematics and her B.A. in English with a concentration in Creative Writing are both from the University of Arkansas. Our conversation took place via Zoom this month.
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