In a recent post tylera5 commented that the last time he wrote poetry was in high school, and wasn’t expecting to have to write a poem for a programming course. I got the idea for a poetry assignment from a friend of mine who teaches a biological science course. She found that the challenge of condensing a technical topic into a 17 syllable Haiku really forces one to think critically about the subject and filter through all the information to shake out the key concept. And poems about tech topics are just fun to read!

I think the benefit is even increased for a programming course. As tylera5 mentioned, both poems had a structure, and he had to think a bit about how to put his thoughts into the structure dictated by the poetry form, whether it be the 5/7/5 syllable structure of a Haiku, or the AABBA rhyming scheme of a limerick.

Poetry is the expression of ideas and thoughts through structured language (and the structure can play a larger or lesser roll depending on the poet, and type of poetry). Programming also is the expression of ideas and thoughts through structured language. The domain of ideas is often more restricted (though not necessarily, this article and book could be the subject of a full post in its own right) and adherence to structure is more strict, but there is an art to both forms of expression.

Are there artistic and expressive tools in other STEM topics as well?