A Contribution to Statistics

Here's a great link that Becker brought to my attention

https://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com/2012/02/szymborska-1921-2012-on-statistics.html

Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)  won the 1996 Nobel Prize for literature; I am saddened by her death-- yesterday, February 1, at her home in Krakow. But one cannot help but rejoice for her poems.  Szymborska did not shy from use of mathematical ideas.  As in this sample:

  

A Contribution to Statistics   by Wislawa Szymborska

    Out of every hundred people

    those who always know better:

   -- fifty-two,    

   doubting every step

   -- nearly all the rest,

   glad to lend a hand

   if it doesn't take too long:

  -- as high as forty-nine,

   always good,

   because they can't be otherwise:

   -- four, well maybe five,

   able to admire without envy

   -- eighteen,

   living in constant fear

   of someone or something

   -- seventy-seven.

   capable of happiness:

   -- twenty-something tops,

   harmless singly,

   savage in crowds

   -- half at least,

   cruel

   when forced by circumstances:

   -- better not to know,

   even b allpark figures,

   wise after the fact

   -- just a couple more

   than wise before it,

   taking only things from life

   -- forty

   (I wish I were wrong),

   hunched in pain,

   no flashlight in the dark

   -- eighty-three

   sooner or later,

   worthy of compassion

   -- ninety-nine.

   mortal

   -- a hundred out of one hundred.

   Thus far this figure still remains unchanged.