full STEAM ahead! the STEAM-Powered Poetry Video Contest

Greetings, Poetry People!  Every now and then I one of my poems get to participate in a unique project. The latest of these is "Brownies: Baked-In Math," which was selected by Heidi Bee Roemer for her STEAM Powered Poetry list! That makes me an "Esteamed Poet" (hee hee), in great company with  Poetry Friday friends Robyn Hood Black and Linda Kulp Trout and many other accomplished poets.

This poem was originally written for a Lee Bennett Hopkins anthology, A DAY IN THE LIFE OF MATH, but he selected another of my poems for that book, which I still have hope will appear. Lee's esteemed fingerprints are on "Brownies" too. I'm excited to share all the great promo materials "the other Heidi" and her STEAM TEAM have developed. Here's a video overview.

The poems are written for a grade-school audience, have STEAM themes, and are available for older  students to turn into videos which they can submit to a contest, with cash prizes for the winners! Find links to the contest poems here: https://steampoweredpoetry.com/contest/poetry-packet-download/

And now, here's my poem!

Brownies: 

   Baked-In Math

We wait until the pan is cool.

It’s time to cut them into squares.

How many across? How many down?

Hungry brother says, “Who cares?

“Just make them big!” he says. I try.

Dividing in my mind, I see

a tic-tac-toe board in our pan:

I’m multiplying three by three.

Nine big brownies--oddly nine.

I visualize another scene:

four rows of four instead, each square

much smaller. That would be sixteen

little brownies in the pan—

TOO small, I’m thinking to myself.

What about three rows, four columns?

That would make the product twelve...

An even number in the pan,

not too big and not too small.

I cut twelve rectangles with care

and then…we eat them all!

Thanks to Heidi Bee and good luck to all you contest entrants--let's make this video 🎵MATHEMATICALLY DELICIOUS!🎵