In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hub at the University of Liverpool to run the ‘Research in Verse Poetry Competition’, open to staff and postgraduate research students across the university to submit poems about their research subject. The competition saw poems addressing all sorts of topics, ranging from gravity to slavery to life in the lab.
Dr Bhavin Siritanaratkul’s poem ‘An Evening in the Lab’ was praised by the judges as a notable entry:
An evening in the lab
Quiet corridors, empty desks
The light patter of rain
Graphs on my screen, a tangle of lines
A fog on my brain
Discarded reactions, black lumps of carbon
The products of my labour
Wrong trends, unequal sums
This week’s experiments, a failure
Replace elements, reroute gas lines
New patterns and ideas converge
Remake electrodes, repeat measurements
A hazy plan, outlines emerge
Darkened skies, unyielding rain
But gone was my sorrow
Lightened steps, a clear mind
Decision made, new experiments tomorrow!
Background
My research is in the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide, with the dream to use renewable electricity to convert carbon dioxide back to valuable fuels and chemicals. The poem was written while I was looking for a break in the evening when none of my experiments were working.
Dr Bhavin Siritanaratkul is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Liverpool with a focus on carbon dioxide reduction. You can connect with him on Twitter here: @BhavinSiri