“In the beauty of poems are the tuft and final applause of science.”
– Walt Whitman
In today’s university, there is little overlap between the students studying creative writing and those studying science. I know, because I studied both in undergrad (you can read my disparate theses on rattlesnake ecology and a manuscript of poetry here and here.
My biology and chemistry courses were filled with future med students and professors. Of my closest friends that studied science with me four years ago, one is now a dentist, one is in medical school, and a third is getting a PhD in cancer biology.
My creative writing courses, on the other hand, were comprised largely of English majors and those earning degrees in disciplines like gender studies, American studies, and global studies. Of the dozen folks in my year-long poetry thesis that I keep up with, many have completed an MFA, a few work for justice-oriented non-profits, one is in law school, and another is in a PhD program in Russian literature.
Different paths indeed!
I have arrived at a kind of merger between my two interests. I am in graduate school studying public engagement in science and spend my free-time freelancing as a science writer and editing for a science-focused literary magazine called “In Layman’s Terms.” But increasingly, I have realized the value that my training in both art and science have beyond just the means through which I have hybridized them; I have realized that they have discrete value, in the manner in which which they converse with one another across a philosophical boundary that is far narrower than one might expect.
This blog is meant to tap into that conversation. Are science and poetry so different? Are there any scientist poets? Any poet scientists? What can science communicators learn from the intentionality, syntax, and image construction of poets? What can scientists learn from the curiosity and creativity of artists? What extraordinary poetics live at the heart of the scientific world? What scientific tuft and final applause lie embedded in verse?
These are the questions I aim to answer within this blog.