Poetry in motion
| 21 May, 2010 | Richard P. Grant |
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Science tells us how we got here; poetry tells us who we are
The Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize is sponsored by the University of Utah Press and the University of Utah Department of English, and is awarded annually. I happen to have, on my desk, a copy of last year’s winner: transistor rodeo by Jon Wilkins. I have every intention of reviewing it at some point, but what is pertinent today is that Jon Wilkins is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute, with a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard. He studies evolutionary theory.
Scientist-poets are not a new species, although they might indeed be quite rare. Famous examples include
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16 thoughts on “Poetry in motion”
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Richard Dawkins says that science is the poetry of reality. They are merely two ways to look at the world.
Richard Dawkins is orbiting increasingly boringly about the sound of his own evolutionarily evangelical ego. One more re-hash of “The Selfish Gene” or lecture tour or public comment on the non-existence of God and he is sure to go supernova.
You shouldn’t ignore the works of Walter Garstang who’s work on evolutionary, marine biology was published in ‘Larval Forms and Other Zoological Verses’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Garstang
I’m not sure that they are ‘merely’ two ways of looking at the world. They tell us different things, but they are indeed complementary. Poetry doesn’t do well when it comes to, for example, treating bacterial infections; equally, I wouldn’t do an experiment to show my girlfriend how much I love her.
Thanks for the headsup on Garstang. I might have to track down some more of his work.
Are we including song? One would have to mention Tom Lehrer’s hilarious and breathless setting of the priodic table to the tune of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major General”, which ends with the lines “These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hahvard/ And there may be many others but they haven’t been discovered”, reminding us of one of the differences between science and poetry: works of art are complete and timeless, but science is never either.
I’m sorry, but I also have to put in a plug for my favorite author, Loren Eiseley, whose “The Immense Journey”, while dated scientifically, still contains some of the most beautiful words ever put down on paper. Eiseley wrote in a prose format, but for example his reference to the mysterious (as it then was) force that “cups out the eyes’ dark shadows and spaces the notes of a meadowlark’s song in the interior of a mottled egg” surely qualifies as poetic.
Lehrer is of course wonderful. You might also like Flanders and Swann’s “1st and 2nd Law”:
Heat won’t pass from a cooler to a hotter
You can try it if you like but you far better notter
‘Cos the cold in the cooler will get hotter as a ruler
‘Cos the hotter body’s heat will pass to the cooler
Maybe not poetry, but sheer class nonetheless.
Science needs to be communicated and poetry is just one of many ways to do just that. The poetry of science or the science of poetry was celebrated by the Royal Society and London Underground recently using the popular “Poems on the underground” format. William Blake, Tennyson and Miroslav Holub were all included.
http://www.communicatescience.eu/2010/04/science-on-underground.html
Thanks for posting the link, Eoin.
i am pretty glad that you wrote this up!
as an engineer-designer-poet, i see no reason why these seemingly distinct modes of thinking won’t intersect. we are human.
at the base, i believe scientists are romantics. how do you explain such lofty and humanistic goals as “saving the world” and “curing disease” and “making life easier?” it only requires scientists that are into words and communication to find poetic insight.
both areas share the same goal, practice, and process of distilling complex things into simple forms.
i would agree with the remark that poets are more open to science than the vice at the wide popular level, but at a certain high level, you will find that scientists are curious about so much. and you can reference so much science writing/journalism for that.
though yeah, a lot of scientists are giant, tightly wound nerds.
Thanks for your interesting thoughts, wc. Out of interest, is your poetry published anywhere online?
by the way,
a lot of the new, very interesting electronic music right now is being produced by computer science heads.
and some of the most compelling visual art installations are being produced by computer interface specialists. http://www.randominternational.com
technology > creation & expression..
Not sure about the Goethe quote.
He, clearly, had never worked closely with animals,nor observed them closely.
Close observation I would think being a a sine qua non for both artists and scientists.
Even casual study of human behaviour would suggest that any verse opening with “Noble be man”
ought to be viewed with suspicion.
This smacks of propaganda rather than artistic or scientific observation.
I think that probably depends on the observer (and possibly speaks more about them than mankind). There are those who see selfishness, wars, greed and corruption, and who then dismiss humankind. Then there are those who see love, self-sacrifice, art, music, poetry
Enjoyed your thoughts on poetry and science. One of my favorite books is the Faber Book of Science,
which has wonderful examples of writing on science and some poems including work by Erasmus Darwin. Yes, grandfather of Charles.
You might be interested in the work we are doing with people living with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia. More info at http://www.alpoetry.com
We point to two research projects the first by Professor Philip Davis that
looks at the brains response to the grammatical technique of “functional shift,” Shakespeare
and the second a 2004 study that shows oscillations of heart rate and respiration synchronize during poetry recitation. We believe this increased synaptic activity and aerobic benefit are at the core
of the robust response we see in people with memory loss to poetry.
Below are links to the studies:
http://www.physorg.com/news85664210.html
http://ajpheart.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/287/2/H579
Here is a link to a study done last year on the Alzheimer’s Poetry Project:
http://www.alzpoetry.com/Research/
Hi Gary
thanks for that. Was your first link meant to be http://www.alzpoetry.com/ ?
Let’s not forget William Carlos Williams, the physician-poet who maintained his medical practice even after receiving wide recognition as a poet (most appreciatively by the Beat poets) in the 50s and early 60s. His most famous poem may have conjured the lab frig rather than the lab bench, but he did write about relativity and Marie Curie among other scientific topics. Still, this is one we all know by heart:
THIS IS JUST TO SAY
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold