The Sciku Project was lucky enough to chat with Mary Soon Lee about her collection Elemental Haiku and in the second part of the interview we discuss revisiting the poems and the process of converting Elemental Haiku into a book (you can check out the first part of the interview here).
The book is being published two years after you originally published the poems in Science. How did it come about?
Mary Soon Lee: A while after the haiku had been published in Science, Lisa Rodgers, my agent (JABberwocky Literary Agency) submitted them to editors at places such as Penguin, Random House, and Simon & Schuster. Without Lisa, I wouldn’t have had any idea where to send a project like this. Several of the editors expressed interest, and I spoke to them on the phone. Then Lisa and I discussed the resulting offers, and I decided to work with Lisa Westmoreland at Ten Speed Press. (Yes, both my agent and my editor are called Lisa, and so is the book’s designer, Lisa Bieser.)
I like the design of the book, the presentation and additions enhance the poems without overwhelming them. How closely did you work with Lisa Bieser and Iris Gottlieb?
Mary: I am also very happy with the design of the book. Lisa Westmoreland was the one who recommended that I add explanatory notes to accompany the haiku. As for the illustrations and layout, Lisa Bieser suggested possible artists, and I picked Iris Gottlieb as my favorite — I love Iris’s work! Then I came up with an initial list of possible illustrations to accompany the haiku. After that, the rest of the design effort fell to Lisa and Iris.
You mentioned that Lisa Westmoreland suggested the explanatory notes for each haiku, how did you find the process of writing these? I’m guessing your love of concision helped to keep these brief, although I imagine for some of them there was a temptation to provide more background?
Mary: Writing the explanatory notes felt much closer to “real” work than writing poetry or stories. I tried to double-check the facts I’d used about each element, and then to find a clear but brief way to present the information. I didn’t want the length of the notes to overwhelm the haiku. So I didn’t attempt to summarize every interesting point about an element, only those touched on in the corresponding haiku.
What was it like revisiting the poems for the book – were there any that surprised you?
Mary: I still remembered the haiku well enough that they didn’t surprise me, though, for older work, it can be almost surreal to re-read what I’ve written and to see it as another person might see it. I also revised about a dozen of the haiku, in some cases making very slight changes, in others writing entirely new versions. In a few instances, both the original haiku and the new version are included in the book.
With the elements in the book that have more than one haiku it feels as if the original version published in Science is a bit lighter than the newer version, often more about the word itself. Was there a deliberate attempt to ensure that all the haiku were in some way informative?
Mary: My book editor, Lisa Westmoreland, was the one who, wisely, suggested writing more serious versions of the most frivolous haiku. While I harbor some fondness for the original versions (particularly the one for yttrium), I think it was good to add less flippant versions. N.B. After decades living in America, I still sometimes use British spellings by mistake, and that’s doubtless why two of the original haiku referenced the variant spellings for aluminum/aluminium and sulfur/sulphur.
The original poem for yttrium made me laugh, I’m glad it was included as well as the new poem. Two of my favourites are nitrogen and sodium which as poems are very different but I think capture the essence of the whole project. They’re relatively early in the table and I wondered if I particularly like them because I’m more familiar with the elements themselves. Did you find your approach changed or that the poems were harder to write as you got further towards the end of the periodic table where less is known about the elements?
Mary: I worried the poems would become hard to write as I neared the end of the periodic table, but in the end it wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared. While I had fewer pre-existing ideas and while there was less information to draw on, those restrictions meant I spent less time flailing around, wondering what to focus on. The information that does exist is fascinating: the effort to synthesize new elements and to learn what we can of their chemistry.
Do you have a favourite element, poem or illustration – are they the same? I believe fluorine (F, 9) was a favourite when you first published in Science, has this changed?
Mary: My favorites shift, but answering for my current mood: I have soft spots for the haiku for helium, potassium, germanium, iridium, radium, and ununennium. I wouldn’t want to upset the elements by naming any favorites among those! Among Iris Gottlieb’s illustrations, I love the ones for helium and mendelevium, plus the space-related images (tellurium, neptunium, curium).
I like that you’ve included a selected bibliography at the end of the book – reading through Elemental Haiku reminded me how fascinating chemistry can be and there are a couple of books on there that I definitely want to read. What is the most interesting thing that you learned during the process of writing the poems and explanations?
Mary: I’m not sure that there is one specific thing, but in general the process reminded me that science is a marvellous endeavor, perhaps the best undertaking of humanity. I liked learning a little more about the history of chemistry and about specific scientists, such as Dmitri Mendeleev and Marie Curie. I was struck by how fundamental units are defined and re-defined. One unit, the kilogram, was redefined while I was editing the book! I also found myself drawn to anything that touched on space, such as the nucleosynthesis of the elements, and how the discovery of technetium in the spectra of red giants meant that it must have been synthesized inside those stars.
I can see how it would be hard to pin point a single fact, it’s easy to forget that the elements are fundamentally everything! Thank you for taking the time to talk with The Sciku Project.
Check out Part Three of our interview where we discuss Mary’s writing, upcoming work and Star Trek! In the mean time, if you’ve missed them you can check out The Sciku Project’s review of Elemental Haiku and Part One of our interview.
You can find out more about (and order) Elemental Haiku here. Images and text reprinted with permission from Elemental Haiku: Poems to Honor the Periodic Table Three Lines at a Time by Mary Soon Lee copyright © 2019. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.