Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Celebrate Science Poetry During National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month! A fine time to read science in verse - or communicate science in verse.

Consider:
"Shall not geology, which is the first science in affording scope for the imagination, be brought into favor with the Muses, and afford themes for the Poet?"
—Edward Hitchcock, Jr., 1849

You would surely enjoy the The Biochemist's Songbook (take to your next fireside sing-along and amaze your friends with references to complex biochemical pathways).

FirstScience.com offers an entire section on poetry.

The poetry collection in the main library is brimming with science-themed compositions - go explore books with call numbers that begin PS3551, for starters. You can spend a life-time there.

Submit your own science poetry here! Just leave a comment with your creative lines. We'll post your submissions in the science library at the end of April. An award (very modest, possibly edible) might be in the offing!

5 comments:

Cuttlefish said...

For whatever reason, this site keeps popping up as having visited my blog. I don't actually see a link here, so I thought I'd mention it

http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com

Some science verse, some social commentary verse, some atheist verse, some verse that is difficult to categorize. Take a look, leave a comment...

Alison Ricker said...

And it's an interesting blog to visit! I especially like:
"Now it’s published in the journal, but that is just the start
A community of scientists will pick it all apart
Through acceptance or dismissal, now science will proceed
For we follow where the evidence may lead."

o_chemer said...

Arrhenius

Svante Arrhenius! You clever,
clever man. You subtle relater of rates
of reactions and chemical states.

Your statements are law,
and are certainly first rate.
I sit in my room and anticipate,

that moment when I might,
crash, collide, with activation energy!
and change, convert to a newer, original me.

Svante Arrhenius, you’ve taken my natural log
and strung my soul out linearly,
its points plotted on a graph for the rest of the world to see.

Alison Ricker said...

wonderful!
More on Svante Arrhenius
nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1903/arrhenius-bio.html

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