In Autumn fields pale ghosts of myth search lost memories
by Sarah Das Gupta
Botanical name:
Asphodelus
Popular names:
Onion Weed, King’s Spear
Family:
Asphodelaceae
Origin:
Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East, Indian-sub continent
Flower:
Tall spike – white, yellow, pink
Habitat:
Well-drained soil, abundance of light
Until 1753, Asphodel was classified as part of the lily family. Carl Linneas then reclassified the plant. It is a herbaceous plant with a tall white or yellow spike.
The Ancient Greeks associated asphodel with death and the underworld. The poet, Homer, describes the Fields of Asphodel as ‘covering the great meadow and the haunt of the dead.’ To the Greeks the underworld included: Elysium, Tartarus and The Fields of Asphodel. The last was the abode of the average person who had done nothing good nor wicked. Asphodel may have become associated with death as having ‘strange, pallid, ghostly flowers.’ It was commonly found on graves and is particularly associated with Persephone who was abducted by Hades, ruler of the underworld. She is sometimes portrayed as wearing a crown of asphodel.
Many diverse writers from Homer and Milton to Faulkner and Poe have used the symbolism associated with the plant. Although it is suggested they may well have been referring to the Narcissus rather than the asphodel. Like many plants, asphodel is reputed to have healing qualities – dealing with snakebites or used against sorcery. It even plays a part in Harry Potter.
Its leaves are used to wrap Burrata cheese. Both the leaves and the cheese are at their best for four days. So don’t buy the cheese if the leaves are withered!
Sarah Das Gupta is a young 81 year old. Loves writing haiku and most forms of poetry. Is learning to walk after an accident. Main outside interests include equine sports. Lives near Cambridge, UK. Read other sciku by Sarah here.
I’ve told the origin story of The Sciku Project often enough that I’m not going to repeat myself here, except to say that the idea sprung from a particularly tedious commute one day and by the time I’d arrived home I had the whole thing roughly mapped out in my head.
Of course, I didn’t believe I was the first to come up with the idea of science haiku (‘sciku’) and lo and behold when I got home and started searching online one of the first things I stumbled across was a book of sciku written by over 150 students aged between 11 and 18 at The Camden School for Girls.
Published with the aim of raising funds to refurbish the school’s science laboratories, Sciku: The Wonder of Science in Haikugoes far beyond a mere school fundraising project.
It is, rather like its subject matter, pretty wonderous.
Friction
I walked down the street And slipped on a banana Reduced resistance
By Poppy Boswell
There are over 400 poems within its pages, covering the full breadth of scientific disciplines and interests. The poems are clever, playful, angry, funny, curious, thought-provoking, energetic and factual. There are poems that have genuinely made me laugh and there are poems that have made me feel the guilt of the old leaving the world in a worse state than when they inherited it. There’s a poem that entrances me on almost every one of the 150 pages.
Here’s an illustration of what I mean. To prepare for this review I re-read the book and folded page corners over every time I read a poem that I felt was especially worth highlighting. There are now more folded pages than unfolded. I could slot coins in the upper and lower corners of my copy and you’d never notice from it’s profile.
There’s just so much life in this book. Even the poems where you can feel the age of the writer coming through fizz with the energy of youth.
Last
Last fossil fuel burned, Last greenhouse gas relinquished, The last breath we take.
By Edom Yecalo-Tecle
I will say that a collection of more than 400 poems is a lot. They’re crammed on the pages; its not a book I find comfortable to read page after page of in a single sitting. Whilst I don’t believe haiku collections need to be one poem per page, it’s overwhelming in places with little space to breathe. I have a feeling that the editors, Simon Flynn, Karen Scott and twelve 13-14 year olds, wanted as many authors involved as possible, but the presentation sometimes makes individual poems feel rushed.
And not every sciku sticks a clean landing. None of them are awful but some are exactly what you might stereotypically expect a teenager or pre-teen to write. (All are far better than I could have written at that age, and most are better than I can write now.)
The majority are fantastic. Some are breath-taking.
I’ve been running The Sciku Project for almost 7 years now. As with any endeavour, there are peaks and troughs. It’s always an honour to be able to showcase the work of incredibly talented people and the majority of the time it’s a pleasure, but there are times when the publishing process itself feels more like a chore. In those rare moments when my enthusiasm wanes I reach for Sciku and am inspired by the passion and creativity of these incredible girls.
Bowel movement
The life processes, Most amusing – excretion. Through the rectum … plop1.
By Eden Maddix Odeniyi
This book was published 10 years ago in 2014. Everyone one of the authors will have finished school and gone on to other things. I wonder how many chose to go to university to study science. I wonder how many of them now work in science. I wonder how many carry with them a love of science and poetry as a result of this school project.
I hope writing these poems inspired the girls as much as reading them has inspired me.
1. This poem By Eden Maddix Odeniyi reminded me of Basho’s famous ‘Old Pond’ with its final line ‘mizu no oto’ which literally translates as ‘water sound’. Many English translations of Basho’s poem have written it as ‘the sound of water’ or even ‘splash’ but, for me, the sound of a frog jumping into a pond is more of a plopping sound than a splash.
With the release of his book Science Communication Through Poetry, Dr. Sam Illingworth, Associate Professor in Academic Practice at Edinburgh Napier University, presents a guide to all things science poetry. Read on for The Sciku Project’s review!
Reflections and wishes
I didn’t really know what I was doing when I started The Sciku Project. For most of my career I’d been the stereotypical scientist, focussing on the intricacies of my subject at the expense of other things. (I’ve mentioned before my frustration at a curtailed English literature and language education.) I was hooked on one form of poetry and I was passionate about using it to communicate science. But I was a bit clueless about how.
So I researched and read up and studied and learnt and designed and built and wrote and created until eventually, a little over 5 years ago, The Sciku Project was launched into the world.
At that point the real education began. Since then I’ve:
Read, written, edited, published and promoted hundreds of sciku.
Researched the advantages of using poetry for science communication (instead of only instinctively believing that it is beneficial).
Learnt how to effectively use social media and how to promote the site (even if I’m still a bit rubbish!).
Developed workshops and discovered approaches that get people excited and participating (as well as things that don’t!).
Explored, practiced and taught haiku structure and form beyond the three core traditions (17 syllables, cutting word and seasonal reference).
Discovered how to read and enjoy other forms of poetry, and seen first-hand how poetry of all forms can be effective at communicating science.
And that’s just the tip of the educational iceberg! I’ve come a long way and am proud of what I’ve learnt and achieved (whilst being the first to admit I could and should do and learn more).
I wonder how much further along would I be if I’d had Sam Illingworth’s latest book Science Communication Through Poetry to read back when The Sciku Project was nothing but an idea in my head?
Science Communication Through Poetry
Three things you should know before I go any further: (i) A copy of Science Communication Through Poetry was kindly provided by the publisher Springer Nature; (ii) I’ve worked with Sam a few times over the years, as a reviewer for Consilience (the science poetry journal that he founded) and on a workshop and poetry competition I organised in 2021; and (iii) The Sciku Project is referenced in the book itself, as is my 2017 Science article about the site’s inception.
With those disclaimers in mind, here’s what I think of Sam’s latest book:
Science Communication Through Poetry is the book I wish I’d had before I started The Sciku Project.
I’m not exaggerating. In Science Communication Through Poetry Sam lays out all of those things I’ve learned in my years of running The Sciku Project, and so much more to boot.
A bit of Fry and Learning
Science Communication Through Poetry is split into three broad sections. The first third of the book covers the what, why, where and how of science poetry: the benefits of writing science poetry, how to find and read poetry, how to write your own science poetry and how to share your poetry. (If I’d has this 5 years ago things would have been a lot easier!)
Dr. Sam Illingworth, Associate Professor in Academic Practice at Edinburgh Napier University, UK (source).
Poetry can be intimidating for the beginner. I’ve recently read Stephen Fry’s The Ode Less Travelled. It’s undeniably excellent and beautifully written, but it’s also heavy going if you aren’t already invested in understanding the underlying structures of a great many forms of poetry.
Wisely Sam avoids going into too much detail. Meters, feet and iambs are all very briefly introduced in the context of a few example forms of poetry without scaring the newcomer away. For someone just starting out on their poetry journey it’s perfect, enough to engage and interest without overwhelming. The Ode Less Travelled is suggested as further reading and I wish I’d read Science Communication Through Poetry first before diving headfirst in Fry’s poetry bible.
“Poetry is truth dwelling in beauty”
Robert Gilfillan’s statement about poetry and truth strikes at the heart of one of the fundamental roles of poetry: to convey knowledge and truth. Plato said something similar (“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history”), as did the French priest and poet Joseph Roux (“Poetry is truth in its Sunday clothes”).
But if poetry can illuminate truths, then can we use poetry to ask questions of scientific discourse and of science itself?
It’s this question that the middle portion of the book seeks to answer. The chapters cover two research methods using science poetry: Poetic Content Analysis (“analysing poetry written about a specific topic or theme”) and Poetic Transcription (“creating poetry from other qualitative data” such as interviews or survey responses).
The front cover of Issue 1 of Consilience, the science poetry and science art journal that Sam Illingworth founded in 2020 (source).
This was completely new for me. I’ve never used poetry as more than just a communication tool (and for my own pleasure!) but Sam shows why and how you can use poetry as a research method to “interrogate both science and scientific discourse”. I found it absolutely fascinating. Sam walks the reader through the steps, providing a worked through example of each research method.
After reading these chapters I want to try the research methods out myself and feel like, with the book alongside me at each stage of the way, I could actually do so. It’s an impressive achievement given I’ve only ever used quantitative statistics. (I’m a Generalized Linear Model fanboy, yet here I am excited by the prospect of trying qualitative analysis!)
It’s an example of the importance and power of taking an interdisciplinary approach, the core argument that lies behind everything the book advocates.
Don’t forget the biscuits!
The final third of the book is about how poetry can be used as a way of creating dialogue between scientists and non-scientists, through collaboration and workshops. There’s lots of very practical advice and suggestions, as well as worked through examples which provide a fantastic framework for those getting started.
I really admire Sam’s six-point manifesto for collaboration:
Begin at the start.
Grant agency.
Reward involvement
Be humble
Encourage evolution.
Listen.
The manifesto nicely complements Sam’s advice on not leaving participants or facilitators of workshops in a HUFF: be Humble, be Unaesthetic, be Flexible, be Fair. These stood out for me as great examples of the ethos that runs through the book. It’s clear Sam is passionate about his subject and that he cares deeply about sharing his enthusiasm with others, engaging and enabling them to experience that joy.
I also like how practical some of the advice is. This sentence on p145 genuinely made me chuckle:
“I also had to remember to bring the notebooks and biscuits to each session, both of which were critical for effective delivery of the workshops.”
We’re all human and sometimes the smallest things, such as bringing along biscuits to a workshop, can make all the difference in how an audience engages and participates. The advice Sam gives, from the big picture to the minor details, speak of his depth of experience and practical knowledge of engaging scientists and non-scientists with science and poetry.
This experience shines through in the many examples of fabulous things Sam’s done with science poetry, but I never felt that it comes across as bragging. Every stated achievement is balanced by an admittance of some other failure or area where something could have been improved. It comes back to the constant of his manifesto and HUFF: be humble.
Conclusions
Communicating science through the medium of poetry is still a relatively new practice. Sam Illingworth shows just how impactful it can be, leading the charge for this interdisciplinary approach. I believe Science Communication Through Poetry is a fantastic resource for both the novice and experienced science poet and communicator.
It’s accessible, engaging and constantly interesting, encouraging the reader to have a go themselves. Dotted throughout the book are exercises you can try out for yourself. I found the ones I tried thoroughly enjoyable. They pushed me to try forms of poetry beyond my normal comfort zone and to seriously consider ways in which I can take everything I’ve been doing with The Sciku Project to the next level.
I wish I’d had Science Communication Through Poetry to refer to over the last 5 years, I’d have returned to it again and again for advice and inspiration.
I’m very glad to have it for the next 5 years and beyond.
In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hubat 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.
First prize was won by Professor Michael Hauskeller for his poem ‘Digging for Truffles’:
Digging for Truffles
Do something important, we’re told, Be a Shakespeare, a Newton, a Plato. Only greatness can fill The vast empty spaces. The little lives are lost.
Cure cancer, make history, save the world, make it count. Don’t just laugh and love and live Like any other Ordinary person.
If you do, your life’s pointless, A dog’s life, a pig’s, barely human. Life’s worth living but for those Who shine bright and bold, Saved by the glory of their accomplishments.
You and I, though, we carry on, Quite content with not being special, Chasing balls in the fields and Quietly digging for truffles That will only last for a day.
Background
Objectivist accounts of meaning in life strongly suggest that nothing is worth doing or desiring that cannot be evaluated on a scale of better or worse, nor is it worth doing or desiring if it ranks low on that scale. It is assumed that a life can only be meaningful if it is good for something other than itself. Objectivist accounts thus accommodate our deep-seated fear of insignificance and our desire to receive some public affirmation of our existence and its value. As a corrective, I am developing a subjective account of meaning that is more democratic and inclusive. More information can be found here.
Prof Michael Hauskeller is Head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool, with an interest in the broader issues around ethics.
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.
Second prize was won by Dr Katy Roscoe for her poem ‘Progress’:
Progress
The scratching and scraping of steel on rock, In concert our muscles, they crunch and creak. Slow inch by inch we chisel out the dock, Ankles bound in irons, the hulls in teak.
Wiping sweat from my brow, I gaze afore: I’m dazzled – bright sun, blue sky, white lime. Ocean’s eternity returns ashore, An excess of brightness ¬– like hope – can blind.
Night falls, men drive us into beached ships, Dank air, sodden bodies, yellow fever. Vessels for human cargo turned crypts, If my body holds out, I will leave here.
Will I be able to retrieve the past, Or will that monolith be all that lasts?
Background
My research is about convicts who quarried stone to build the naval dockyard at Bermuda, an Atlantic archipelago. Around 9,000 British and Irish men, many poor and starving, were transported there from 1842-63. Prisoners slept in decommissioned ships (hulks) which were dirty and crowded. Over 1200 men died there from effects of hard labour and yellow fever. Some went temporarily blind (opthamalia) from sunlight reflecting off limestone. “Retrieve the past” is a quote from a convict’s letter (1857). He hoped to be released under a “Ticket-of-Leave” in Australia, where he could earn an honest living, rather than return home.
Dr Katherine (Katy) Roscoe is a historical criminologist at the University of Liverpool with research interests centred on global mobilities, unfree labour and racial inequalities, with a particular focus on mid-nineteenth century crime and punishment in Britain and its former empire. You can connect with her on Twitter here: @KatyARoscoe
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.
Third prize was won by Dr Lee Tsang for his poem ‘Apparent Horizons’:
Apparent Horizons
I am what I am and what I’m not. I’m the acts and non-acts of ‘might’ and ‘forgot’. More than that. I am the suns I never had.
I’m the light that moves both outwards and in. I am the Green Ray, a moment of fusion where Apparent Horizons play with time.
As you are to me I’m the passing cusp of hopes and fears for suns untamed.
I am the Light both extinguished and aflame.
Background
Dr Lee Tsang is a musician of dual heritage who takes on multiple roles in crossover works. His poem was written while reflecting on complex systems in his own practice, as demonstrated in Twisting Ways (2020, 2020/2021), the latest output from a longstanding partnership with Canadian jazz-classical pianist and composer David Braid. The poem contemplates philosophical and psychological issues relating to agency, identity, and fluid performance/compositional processes in light of Korsyn’s espousal of Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence for musical contexts. You can connect with Lee on Twitter here: @l_tsang
In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hubat 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
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 Alex Stockdale’s poem ‘Public Health’ was praised by the judges as a notable entry:
Public Health
In a long corridor wailing Bite The virus knuckles and grasps Enters cells At birth was I living with him His genome nestling in mine
Now fluid fills the belly Tumour fills my liver Hope left this station Staring out the window At a blue calm sky on a roaring hot day in Malawi
Too late they said Too hard Nothing more to say I don’t have much time left to live but I want you to know It could have been prevented
Background
This poem is about my research into liver disease in Blantyre, Malawi. We found that over 70% of liver cancer is caused by hepatitis B. Infection can be prevented by vaccination starting at birth and by antiviral treatment for pregnant women. Currently, vaccination starts at 6 weeks of age and my research is exploring whether this is sufficient to prevent transmission. This poem draws attention to the many people who present with late stage liver cancer in Malawi, for whom median prognosis is only 6 weeks at diagnosis, and for whom hepatitis B infection remains a preventable disease.
Dr Alexander Stockdale is a clinical researcher at the University of Liverpool with a focus on viral hepatitis and HIV in sub-Saharan Africa.
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 Janette Greenhalgh’s fascinating poem using a repeating haiku structure was a notable entry:
Mammoth document
Mammoth document Brim-full of words, so URGENT! Fight, flight, cup of tea?
URGENT document Mammoth in the room, storming Kettle shrieks volumes
Words, words, words and more Unwrap, repurpose, rebind With fight, flight and tea
Our research is mainly commissioned by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme on behalf of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Our core work is to provide a critique of evidence submissions to NICE from pharmaceutical companies for the clinical and cost effectiveness of new drugs. We have multi-disciplinary teams working on each report (clinical effectiveness reviewer, statistician, economic modeller, clinical expert). The timelines are very short – we have 8 weeks from receipt of the evidence to submitting our critique to NICE.
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 Kate Baker’s nostalgic haiku on the perils of academic career progression was a notable entry:
Yearning
Test tubes and pipettes? A life spent on email yearning for the bench
Background
It’s not so much my research as the transition from postdoc to principal investigator that inspired my poem.
Dr Kate Baker is a Senior Lecturer and leader of The Bakery – an applied microbial genomics laboratory at the University of Liverpool. You can connect with her on Twitter here: @ksbakes.
Introvert. Doubter. Take stock, uncover impacts. Rewards of sharing.
This post was meant to be about a collection of board game haiku and the way that tabletop games can be a form of science communication (you can find that article here). Instead I got a little side-tracked taking stock of just what running The Sciku Project has given me over the years.
I launched The Sciku Project back in June 2017 and looking back there are a lot of amazingly cool things that have come about over the intervening years:
I had an article about The Sciku Project published in Science, and the site was mentioned by Sam Illingworth in Nature.
I interviewed the wonderful poet Mary Soon Lee and was sent an advanced proof of her brilliant book Elemental Haiku.
I’ve run workshops and given talks on science poetry and writing sciku.
I attended a media and communication skills residential workshop run by the Royal Society.
I was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal about The Sciku Project and sciku in general (and promptly forgot a lot of what I learned at the media and communication workshop, hence there not being a lot about The Sciku Project in the finished article – I nervously blathered about nothing especially interesting! Lesson learned.)
I was invited to be a reviewer for the science poetry journal Consilience (me, a reviewer for a poetry journal? Ridiculous!)
I’ve made videos about getting started with sciku – I promise I’ll be sharing those in the near future.
Teena Carroll and Lora Newman asked me for advice (again, me?!?) as they set up the fabulous The Math Haiku Project.
I’ve met and engaged with a whole variety of amazing folk from around the world, all excited by scientific haiku and keen to write and share their own. Of everything I’ve just listed, this is the point I am most proud of. All those lovely people have taught me so much, I am in their debt.
There are also some more subtle impacts that have resulted from running The Sciku Project.
Firstly, I’m more interested in science communication than ever before, all the varied and fascinating ways in which researchers engage with the wider world, from haiku and other forms of poetry to comedy, videos, games and other methods that aim to create two-way conversations between scientists and non-scientists (and between scientists in different disciplines). In a world of fake news and recent breaks in trust of the experts, good science communication is more important than ever before.
A second impact of starting The Sciku Project is the effect it has had on my own confidence as an individual and as a writer. I’ve always written – fiction, non-fiction and verse – but I’d never really put myself out there before. I had never tried to get any of my writing published (scientific articles aside). I’d never even posted a Tweet. I’m naturally introverted and self-doubting, a potent and frequently restrictive combination.
In part, The Sciku Project started as a deliberate way to force my hand, to make me learn new skills and gain confidence in sharing my writing. I still don’t think it’s all that good but I have more acceptance that I’m not the best judge of such things. Now I have an awareness of what is ‘good enough’ to share (that’s not to say I subject visitors to The Sciku Project to poems that are half-baked, but if I waited until I felt a poem and its write up were perfect then I’d never post another word again).
I’ve put myself ‘out there’ and ‘out there’ has rewarded me in spades with kindness, encouragement and positivity. I now regularly post content on the internet with the full awareness that someone somewhere is likely to actually read it and, hopefully, enjoy it. In fact, talk about a boost in confidence – I’m now writing an update where I’m actually talking about me.
A year after founding The Sciku Project I took what felt like another huge step and applied to be a writer for a board game media outlet – I’d always enjoyed board games and had discovered that I rather enjoyed writing about them as well. Andy Matthews and the team at Meeple Mountain took me on and in the intervening time I’ve progressed from Guest Author to Contributing Author and now I’m an Associate Editor for the site. It’s not a paid position (my work as a research developer at the University of Liverpool puts food on the table) but, just like The Sciku Project, it’s paid me back in spades.
As I said at the top, I had originally sat down to write about science communication and board games, linking the two areas where I’ve been publishing my writing online. That idea got temporarily derailed by self-reflection so instead let me wrap up this ramble by saying:
Do you enjoy writing but have always held back?
Do you have an idea but think it’s too silly to work or that you aren’t capable enough?
Do you dream of writing and sharing your writing with the world?
Stop holding back. You are capable enough. Share your writing. Share the thing you love.
The process of sharing and putting yourself out there is just as rewarding as the response you get from sharing. It’s the old journey being more important than the destination idea. And if you want to dip your toes in the water and share a sciku or simply talk about the process of starting a science communication website or sharing your work then please do get in touch: contact@thescikuproject.com
Thank you to everyone who has visited The Sciku Project, contacted me to say how much they have enjoyed it, sent in their own sciku to be published, shared sciku and their enthusiasm on social media, and in anyway has interacted with myself or the site.
Running The Sciku Project is an absolute privilege and I will be forever grateful for the impact that all of you have had on my life. Long may we continue on this journey together!
Australian science poems oft explore life death theories space horses
By Michael J. Leach and Rachel Rayner
We recently conducted a novel study to describe the demographics and characteristics of contemporary Australian science poetry. Twelve contemporary Australian poetry or science writing anthologies were used to identify science poems matching a set definition built from our research. After finding 100 contemporary Australian science poems by 73 poets, we proceeded to collect and analyse data on poem characteristics as well as poet demographics.
The specific scientific topics addressed in the 100 science poems were visualised in a word cloud – an image that uses font size to show the relative frequency with which words appear in a dataset. This sciku presents some of the standout features from our word cloud of contemporary Australian science poetry topics.
Word cloud from ‘The demographics and characteristics of contemporary Australian science poetry’ by Michael J. Leach and Rachel Rayner, published in Axon: Creative Explorations, 2020.
Other results from the study showed the state of New South Wales produced the most science poets; however, the Australian Capital Territory had more poets per capita. Finally, contrary to usual publication statistics, there were more science poems written by female-identifying poets than male or non-binary individuals.
Full details of our study can be found in a peer-reviewed research paper:
Michael J. Leach (@m_jleach) is a poet and Senior Lecturer at Monash University. Michael’s poems have appeared in the Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, the Medical Journal of Australia, GRAVITON, and elsewhere.Check out an earlier sciku of Michael’s here.
Rachel Rayner (@RaeRay4) is a science communicator at experimental PR and communications company, AndironGroup. Rachel connects with audiences through various means – whether articles, educational activities, live shows, broadcasts or poetry.
If you enjoyed Michael and Rachel’s sciku then make sure you check out their longer poems in the first issue of Consilience here!
In the final part of our interview with Mary Soon Lee about Elemental Haiku (check out Parts One and Two), we discuss writing for various format, her current and future projects, and Star Trek!
I’ve read
that when you moved to the USA you weren’t able to get a work visa and started
writing TV scripts. What made you want to write for TV and then what prompted
the move towards fiction?
Mary Soon
Lee: I was a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I knew that
they were considering scripts from people without screenwriting credits. The
idea of getting to write a Star Trek episode was very appealing to me. I wrote
three scripts, and learned a great deal in the process, though none of them
sold. Beyond Star Trek, I wasn’t drawn to writing for television, so I switched
to prose. I don’t think I’ll want to write for television in the future, though
it’s not quite certain. In 2015-2016, I did write a handful of short pieces in
script format as part of a novel-length epic fantasy told in poems.
Next
Generation is the only Star Trek series that really clicked with me, are you
looking forward to the new Picard series?
Mary: I am
indeed looking forward to the Picard series. I re-watched both the original
series Star Trek and the Next Generation series with my daughter, and a lot
will depend on whether she likes the Picard series. (These days, I very rarely
watch television shows without one or more of my family. When left to entertain
myself, I read.)
Scripts and poetry both have a certain conciseness in their language, do you feel like writing those early scripts helped your poetry as well as your prose?
Mary: It
probably did help. I think that most writing, and indeed reading, helps you
become a better writer. At the time, I was most aware that the scripts helped
me with dialogue. N.B. Concision is one of the things that I love in poetry, a
quality that can be found in poems that lack rhyme or other formal devices.
You have degrees in mathematics and computer science, an MSc in astronautics and space engineering and spent time working as a programmer before becoming a writer. Do you miss the more technical career?
Mary: I enjoyed
programming in much the same way as I might enjoy solving a puzzle, but I don’t
miss it. On the other hand, I would have loved to contribute to science or the
space program, and in some small way writing science poetry approaches that.
I’m currently working on a collection of astronomy poems, as well as other
poetry and fiction.
Since
you’ve mentioned it I was going to ask about upcoming work. Let’s start with
the astronomy poems, can you tell me a little more about the collection?
Mary: I’ve been
working on the astronomy poems intermittently for over a year, writing a few at
a time. At the moment, all the titles begin with “How to.” For
example, there’s “How to Be a Star,” “How to Speak to
Pluto,” and “How to Fathom a Light-Year.” The poems vary widely
in style and tone. A few rhyme, most do not. They deal with the planets and
stars, black holes and people with a connection to space. To date, sixteen of
the poems have been published individually, but I would like to eventually
gather them all together in a book.
I’ve read
and enjoyed a couple of your ‘How To’ astronomy poems and did wonder if there
was a plan behind them. The periodic table has an obvious end point, how will
you know when you’ve reached the end of the project?
Mary: I’m not
sure! There are some topics I feel should be covered, such as having a poem for
each of the planets in the solar system. Beyond that, it’s far from clear. I’m
also undecided on whether to include any astronomy poems that don’t fit the
format of being a “How to” poem.
You’ve
written a fantasy epic presented in the form of poems – Crowned: The Sign of
the Dragon, Book 1. What made you want to tell a longer narrative through the
form of poetry and what are your plans for the rest of the series?
Mary: I wrote
“Interregnum,” the opening poem from “The Sign of the
Dragon,” at a time when I was just returning to writing fantasy after
years of writing mostly mainstream poetry. And I rediscovered that writing
could be both all-engrossing and a joy. When I wrote that first poem, I thought
it was a standalone piece, but the character of the sixteen-year-old boy tugged
me back, and I wrote more and more poems about him. A lot of the later arc of
the story is implicit in the first poem, though that wasn’t clear to me then.
I’ve now written Xau’s whole story, which comes to over three hundred poems,
and it is in the hands of my agent (the superb Lisa Rodgers).
It must be a nice feeling to have the whole of Xau’s story written, do
you think you’d want to take on any other longer narrative projects like this
in the future?
Mary: I would
love to write another long narrative work, whether in poetry or prose. At the
same time, it was a hugely absorbing project, so part of me wants to delay
until my daughter is older. (She’s fourteen. She doesn’t need attention the way
a young child does, but I like her company and I’d like to be available when
she’s at home.)
Do you find the process of reviewing the books you’ve read on Goodreads helps your own writing and do you have a recommendation from the last year?
Mary: My book
reviews aim to report my reaction as a reader, rather than attempt something
more scholarly. Even so, I think the process does help me assess what I like —
or dislike — and that may well help my own writing. I have many
recommendations, but will try to restrain myself. In the past year, the book
that I’ve loved most is “A Brightness Long Ago” by Guy Gavriel Kay, a
quiet, reflective, beautifully-written fantasy. On the science poetry front, I
very much liked Simon Barraclough’s “Sunspots,” which is a collection
of poetry themed around the sun.
Mary Soon Lee’s antenna being.
Finally,
I’m curious about your website and twitter profile picture – can you tell
me a bit about it?
Mary: Do you
mean the little antenna being? That dates back at least as far as the 1980s
when I was a first-year mathematics student at Cambridge University: I would
draw the antenna being in my lecture notes. N.B. I’ve been blogging about
my mail on the web since 1995 — my website is antiquated and alarmingly close
to its original version. I’m hoping it will soon be thoroughly updated.
Well
I hope the little antenna being makes it onto the updated website! Thank you so
much for talking with The Sciku Project about Elemental Haiku and your writing, it’s been an absolute pleasure.
Mary: Thank you very much for all your
questions and for your friendliness! I very much appreciate your enthusiasm for
the haiku.
I
wish you all the best for your next writing endeavours and I’m looking forward
to whatever you share with the world next. Thank you.
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.
In the summer of 2017 Science magazine published a collection of 118 haiku about the chemical elements by poet and writer Mary Soon Lee. Two years later Elemental Haiku is now being published as a book by Ten Speed Press, with added explanations from Mary and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb.
The Sciku Project was lucky enough to
chat with Mary about the collection and in the first part of the interview we
go back to the beginning and discuss the process of writing and publishing the
poems in Science.
In the introduction to the book you say that one day you sat down and without any grand plan in mind wrote a haiku for hydrogen and the rest seemed to follow from there. What prompted you to want to write a poem about hydrogen and why did you choose to write it as a haiku?
Mary
Soon Lee: I keep a list of ideas that appeal to me, and when I sit down to
write, I will sometimes pick an idea from that list. Other days, the process is
more haphazard. I am fond of a book called “The Daily Poet” by Kelli
Russell Agodon and Martha Silano, which contains writing prompts that may start
my thoughts wandering in a helpful direction. Often I jot down semi-random
words or notions in a notebook before settling on a topic. For 12/14/2016, the
day that I wrote the hydrogen haiku, I have no scribbles in my notebook. I
think the idea must have just popped into my head, including the decision to
make it a haiku.
Why
Science, was that Lisa Rodgers’
suggestion or did you have it in mind as you developed the project further?
Mary: Partway
through writing the Elemental Haiku, it occurred to me that that they might
appeal to scientists, and so I decided to try submitting them to a scientific
journal before sending them to a conventional poetry market. Lisa Rodgers has
given me many excellent suggestions, but this idea was my own.
Having been through the Science review process a couple of times (both successfully and not!), I’m intrigued by how they reacted to your submission and whether there was any review process involving chemists or indeed other poets?
Mary: I
submitted the haiku to Science as if
they were a normal article, though I think I included a brief explanatory note.
Six weeks later, I heard back that they would like to run the haiku as a poetry
feature in the Letters section. The editor, Jennifer Sills, suggested several
small revisions, but they were of a poetic slant rather than a scientific one.
(It may well be that they reviewed the science content of the haiku behind the
scenes.) After their appearance in Science,
my book editor, Lisa Westmoreland, was able to get a chemist to review the
haiku. Happily the reviewer didn’t spot any errors. I should also mention that
my husband is usually my first reader, and he read the haiku before I submitted
them anywhere.
What
reaction did you get when the poems were published in Science?
Mary: I received quite a lot of emails from people who’d enjoyed the haiku, which was lovely. There were also a few articles, including an article in the Wall Street Journal that quoted the haiku for lithium, carbon, and silver. Over time, I received more nice emails and a few permissions requests. For instance, Tarik Gunersel asked to translate the haiku into Turkish, and later published several of the translations. This summer, C&EN — Chemical & Engineering News — asked me to contribute an essay to a special feature on the periodic table. (The essay may be read here).
The
haiku have multiple themes to them – some are about an element’s history, its
usage, position in the table or its structure. Did you take several approaches
for each element and decide on the best or did you go with what felt right for
each element? Was it important to have a balance of approaches across the
collection?
Mary: With a
few elements, I knew the theme I’d choose immediately. For instance, I decided
in advance that the haiku for potassium would be about it yearning for the
halogens on the other side of the periodic table. In most cases, however, I
began by looking up multiple sources about the element, and then considering
which aspects to write about. As part of that process, I did indeed try to
balance the collection. I wanted the haiku to vary in tone as well as subject
matter, with some being more serious and some more frivolous.
How many haiku did you write for each element and are there any haiku that didn’t make the cut but that you would have liked to include?
Mary: I usually only wrote one haiku that I liked, but sometimes that meant writing several haiku that I abandoned. I don’t think there are any abandoned haiku that I wish had been included…. In the few cases where I liked two haiku for an element, they both ended up in the book.
I find haiku to be quite
a forgiving medium for science writing – I think that it’s hard to write a
truly terrible science haiku (although it’s also hard to write a good one). At
the same time a lot of the researchers I speak to find poetry itself
intimidating and then the conciseness of haiku especially so. To get them
breaking through that mental barrier I advise them to begin by writing a few
key words down about their research and counting the syllables,
almost piecing together a poem like a puzzle. How did you
approach writing the haiku themselves?
Mary: With haiku, I think I usually try to
decide what I want to say first, and then try to find a way to express that as
clearly, concisely, and poetically as I can. American haiku don’t always keep
to the tradition of a 5-7-5 syllable count, but I like to do so. As you
mention, the process can feel like fitting together puzzle pieces. Both with
haiku and other poetry, I often look up words in a thesaurus to search for
synonyms with different sounds or shades of meaning … or different syllable
counts.
Do you have any tips for anyone wanting to write
scientific poetry, and for scientific haiku in particular?
Mary: The
Elemental Haiku are my first significant foray into science poetry, so it is a
comparatively new venture for me. Beyond trying to research the scientific
content carefully, I’m not sure I have science-specific advice to offer. There
are a few things that have helped me more generally. Firstly, reading widely.
Secondly, writing about what matters to me or interests me. Thirdly, looking
for feedback to improve my writing. (I ran a writer’s workshop for about a
decade; nowadays, I ask family members to give me feedback on my work.)
I
hadn’t realised you’d run a writers workshop – how did you find the process of
teaching writing and why did you stop?
Mary: I didn’t
teach writing, just started and ran the workshop. We followed a format close to
that used by the Clarion workshops, where the author stays quiet while the
other members offer initial feedback on their story, followed by more general
discussion. I tried to make sure that comments — especially negative comments
— were restricted to the story rather than the writer. After the birth of my
second child, my limited free time became even more limited, so I withdrew from
the workshop.
I can sympathise –
small children are (wonderful) time thieves! Thank you for taking the time to
talk with The Sciku Project.
Check out the rest of our interview where we discuss the process of converting Elemental Haiku into a book (Part Two) and Mary’s other writing, upcoming work and Star Trek (Part Three). You can also read The Sciku Project’s review of Elemental Haiku here.
Two thousand and seventeen was an auspicious year for scientific haiku. Chromatin Haiku began the year tweeting DNA and histone haiku in earnest (having posted the first tentative tweets in the last days of 2016). The Sciku Project started in May, collecting examples of science haiku (sciku) from across the research spectrum. On the 4th August 2017 the poet and writer Mary Soon Lee published her collection of poems Elemental Haiku in the journal Science; 119 haiku, one for each element of the periodic table.
Now, in 2019, Elemental Haiku: Poems to Honor the Periodic Table Three Lines at a Time by Mary Soon Lee is being published as a book by Ten Speed Press (you can purchase it here). The new version includes a couple of alternative haiku, explanations for each haiku by Mary herself and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb.
Getting Physical
There’s something about the physical. Sure, if you can access the Science webpage where the vast majority of the poems were first published then you’ve got much of what the book Elemental Haiku provides – the poems themselves. But as well designed as that webpage is (and it’s an excellent digital rendition) the book format means you engage with the poems more. You’re less likely to flit between poems rapidly, more likely to consider each poem individually. You’ll turn pages at your own pace rather than just twitching a mouse to have the next poem appear.
Then there are the explanations, which provide snippets of background to each poem and encourage you to go back, re-read and re-evaluate. The explanations are brief, the conciseness signposting key information in each poem, providing a taster of the research that informs each haiku. Occasionally I wanted more than a taster but the poems themselves are the stars of the show and lengthy explanations would likely diminish them.
Judging the suitable amount of information to present
alongside the poems is something I’ve also encountered whilst running The Sciku
Project, and I think Mary’s approach largely works in the collection’s favour. On
a screen you can scroll, much of the additional information hidden, but on the
page large blocks of text would be too imposing. The brevity is a success and for
those instances where I’ve wanted more information the selected bibliography
provides plenty of sources for further reading.
The whole book is designed to support the poems without over-whelming them. Iris Gottlieb’s illustrations are elegantly simple, cropping up every 2-3 poems and expanding the context with clean lines and a soft sense of humour. When present they’re a third channel of information, each chemical element explored through the mediums of poetry, art and fact. Triangulating between the three is a remarkably satisfying process, further helping the reader to explore the haiku and the elements themselves.
Lisa Bieser, the book’s designer, has created a minimalist design, the pages alternating between white and grey, quietly dividing the elements without you realising it. Space allows the work to breathe and some pages are little more than three brief lines of poetry and two lines of explanation. I can relate. When building the website for The Sciku Project I purposefully kept the design simple and discrete to help the poems stand out – it’s not just a lack of web-building skills! Haiku as works of art can be delicate and the design of Elemental Haiku helps to ensure that they aren’t lost amongst the additions.
Some Context
It feels strange to have been sent a preview copy of a
poetry collection. I stopped studying English literature at the age of 14 and
English language at 16, prevented by a combination of timetable clashes, an
education system that encourages early specialisation and a lack of smarts*. Now
that I look back, 20 years later, it seems an absurd system.
I don’t feel qualified or intelligent enough to comment on
Mary Soon Lee’s haiku, to judge her turn of phrase or use of juxtaposition. I
wouldn’t know where to start. If you’re looking for an insightful literary critique
you may be disappointed.
Yet…
I’ve spent over two years running The Sciku Project, publishing scientific haiku by scientists and authors from around the world. I’ve written articles, given presentations and offered tips for researchers wanting to write haiku about their work. I’ve penned hundreds of sciku and published many of them. One or two I’m even proud of.
So with some reviewer context covered, let’s talk about the poems themselves.
*You weren’t allowed to continue with literature at my school unless your combined score across English, History, Geography, French and Latin was high enough. I struggled to learn vocabulary by rote, learning best through narrative…
The Haiku Themselves
I often say that sciku are a remarkably forgiving medium, that the brevity of the format means that even just putting key words next to each other can produce something that’s not completely awful. If you’ve spent your career at the laboratory bench the idea of writing poetry can be seriously intimidating. Sciku allow hesitant researchers to apply an analytical approach, piecing together syllables to create poems that, more often than not, work.
Writing a sciku is relatively easy, but…
Writing excellent sciku is hard, it’s a process that goes way
beyond slotting words together like a puzzle. Sciku can include narrative,
drama, humour, pathos, queries and a whole range of other elements on top of
being informative and factual. Great sciku stimulate curiosity and provoke
thoughts about the research. As a result of reading a good sciku you should be
able to understand the ideas and information presented but should want to find out more. At their best Sciku
can be moments that echo in the mind.
In Elemental Haiku Mary Soon Lee walks the balance between information and artistry perfectly. Her poems are graceful, humorous and fascinating, sometimes all three in a single haiku.
Each element is imbued with a sense of personality: carbon
is a “diva”, dysprosium plays “hard to get” and caesium is a firebrand
with a “softer side”. There’s humour
in neon’s embarrassing red lights and tragedy in the Radium Girls and their
fatal luminescent paint. Through the haiku Mary Soon Lee makes these collections
of protons, neutrons and electrons relatable.
The poems cover a range of subjects around the elements.
Iron’s haiku is just a list, a powerful reminder of the integral role it’s
played in human history. Lutetium compares electron structure with helicopter
parenting. Rubidium’s haiku reminds us that Robert Bunsen did more than just
invent his burner.
Some of the haiku flow smoothly in a single tale, whilst the dynamic phrasing of praseodymium is key to its success:
“Magnetic cooling.
Absolute zero beckons.
Approach the limit.”
This mix of approaches, the use of language and emotion, and the varied structures and wordplay keep the haiku both interesting and informative throughout. I think my favourite is Sodium:
“Racing to trigger
every kiss, every kind act;
behind every thought.“
It’s a haiku that takes as a starting point sodium’s role in the transmission of nerve impulses but adds a new dimension and depth by demonstrating what the synaptic processes can actually mean at a human level.
The least interesting for me personally are those that take
as their subject an element’s location in the periodic table but even then Mary
Soon Lee injects a humanity that elevates the subject – Potassium yearns “for the halogens / on the other side”.
For those elements you know something about already there’s a fun degree of interpretation to reading the poems – seventeen syllables isn’t long to convey information and its satisfying to pick up on subtle references. But even those elements I’m more familiar with allowed me to place new information within an existing context.
Having not studied chemistry for many years, the second half of the book covering the latter elements is more a journey of discovery. Where these poems work best is in connecting things I already know with chemical elements I’m clueless about. Take americium:
“Alpha particles
dispatched in smoke detectors
to protect and serve.”
I couldn’t have told you whether americium was an element or not, far less how it might play an important role in my life. Now I know it plays a crucial role in ionization smoke detectors, by emitting alpha particles and ionizing air molecules – if the flow of ions detected is broken by smoke then the alarm triggers.
The problem with latter chemical elements, especially those
that don’t occur naturally, is that we know very little about some of them. It gives
Mary Soon Lee less to work with and there are perhaps a touch too many poems
about half-lives towards the end (in fairness, I honestly can’t see how this
could be different). To clarify, it’s the number of poems and not the presence
of poems with half-life as a subject matter that I was less a fan of, and this
is really a very minor quibble. Having read the collection cover-to-cover I’ve since
had an awful lot of pleasure dipping in and out at random, an approach that
removes this issue.
Final Thoughts
The big question is if you can access the Science website
and the versions of the poems published there, is the book of Elemental Haiku worth checking out?
Absolutely. The format and the additions alter the experience of reading Mary
Soon Lee’s poems for the better, the explanations and use of space enhancing each
haiku. Reading from cover-to-cover you get a sense
of discovery, a faint echo of the progress made from Dmitri Mendeleev’s
original version of the periodic table to its current state.
Science and art are often portrayed as mutually exclusive, but Mary Soon Lee’s wonderful poems show just how wrong that is. In our quest to define and organise the chemical elements it’s easy to transform them into abstract concepts. Elemental Haiku is a special alchemy of poetry and science that demonstrates something that’s easily forgotten: that these chemical elements are more than just symbols in squares on a table. Excellent sciku indeed.
Interested in how Elemental Haiku came about, the process of creating the book and Mary Soon Lee’s writing? Visit The Sciku Project next week for our interview with Mary!
The preview copy of Elemental Haiku that this review is based upon was provided by Ten Speed Press, with no expectations other than some independent and unbiased coverage. Please note that some aspects of the text or production may have changed prior to publication on the 1st October 2019. You can find out more about the book here.
