Thursday, April 04, 2013

Heidi Bee Roemer - 3-D Geometry Geek

3-D Geometry Geek
by
Heidi Bee Roemer

Big boxes! Small boxes!
Sturdy and tough.
I love you space figures,
I can’t have enough.
Your bases and faces
I truly adore.
Big boxes! Small boxes!
May I have one more?

Big boxes! Small boxes!
Piled high in my room.
You wobble, you bobble.
You topple down— Boom!
Your bases are strong.
Space figures, you’re great!
Big boxes! Small boxes!
You’re cool! But, wait.

Pyramids, prisms, and cones,
how you rock!
Your faces and bases
I like quite a lot!
When I look at you
I see 3D perfection.
I want more figures—
a bigger collection!

What is a Space Figure?

An object like a tissue box is 3-Dimensional. It may also be called a space figure. The sides and the top of the box are sides, or faces. The edge is where the base and face connect. A tissue box has six faces and twelve edges. Try counting them for yourself!

©Heidi Bee Roemer. All rights reserved.

Yay, geometry! That's what I said when I saw that Heidi Bee Roemer sent me the above poem. Combine mathematical ideas and poetry together, and I start getting rather excited, ya see. And 3-D? Win!

Of course, it's not enough just to be a poem about a concept. No. It's still gotta be fun to read. The words and images have to speak and inform on their own, and if you read Heidi's poems, whether about math or seeds or whatever else, you'll find they always do.

Heidi is one of the poets whose work is in the Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, and you can click here to see a fantastic post about that book AND a video of Heidi performing her poem Food Fest. It's great to see her there, and I'm thrilled to have her here as part of 30 Poets/30 Days.

Yesterday, Andrew Fusek Peters brought us Blackbird. Tomorrow... Sonya Sones gives us all Hayfever! For more on 30 Poets/30 Days and ways to follow along, please click here.



6 comments:

Charles Waters said...

Math is usually not my strong suit but math poems are! Thank you for highlighting this inventive poet!!!

tanita✿davis said...

This poem reflects the glee of finding out for the first time that geometry is everywhere.

*goes to find tissue box*

Peggy Archer said...

Love your poem, Heidi! Although I did like algebra better :)

Suzanne Guinn; arkansaspilgrim.blogspot.com said...

Love the poem and the idea. Makes me think of the Dr. Seuss poems - although they are of a different format, but the unique concept is there!

Mary Lee said...

Passing this along to our math teachers who will be teaching volume next week!

Heidi Bee Roemer said...

Thanks for your kind words, blogger friends! I used to struggle with high school math; third grade math is more my style. I hope this poem will help students who find math difficult... maybe even make them smile a little.