Back to course description In the next few weeks, we are going to read poetry, plays, and fiction that were written about or inspired by scientific ideas. The author Vladimir Nabokov's ideal was to combine the passion of the scientist and the precision of the poet. That's right. It sounds like it should be the reverse, right? Poets are the passionate ones. Scientists are known for being precise. But you can probably think of examples of famous scientists who were passionate. And as we learn the craft of poetry, we'll see that creative writing has an element of precision to it. Without imagination, there is no purpose to observation; without keen observation skills, even the wildest imagination is shabbily furnished. Planck's discovery of the quantum, Einstein's theory of relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, for example, have revealed a universe far stranger than previously imagined, and our task as writers is to inhabit that universe. Towards the end of this short course, it will become clear that observation, imagination, and the use of metaphor are all essential aspects of both science and art. This course, like any writing course, works on the assumption that all of your work could use improvement. If you feel that everything you write needs no revision, I suggest you adopt a new attitude. In other words, you must be willing to learn to take criticism. If you want to write well, you must learn to read well. That means you should be extra-attentive, read closely and carefully. Re-read whenever possible. If you are a fast reader, and you've read something twice, try copying a few lines from the passage to see how much more you can get out of it. Expect to work hard. But if you do, you'll be rewarded. It's fun! To develop our understanding of the readings and to practice articulating inferences, we will discuss each reading and most exercises. These discussions are conversations that, typically, extend over a week (start and end dates are in the class calendar). To have successful discussions, everyone must participate consistently. Your instructor may kick off the discussion with a question, may guide the inquiry in a particular direction, and may even call on a particular student to respond. However, students are primarily responsible for the level of discourse. You must monitor discussions frequently. During the academic year, check on each discussion or workshop at least three times during the week -- more is better. During the intensive summer program, participate daily. You must post at least two significant comments to each discussion. "Significant comments" do not equal "right answers." In discussions and workshops, there are no right answers. Significant comments demonstrate thoughtful inquiry. These comments might offer insights, might be paragraphs exploring aspects of the reading, or they might be meaningful questions that stimulate further insights. The reward for engaging in the discussions is discoveries that enrich your learning process and make your final writing assignments more profound. Why is Lesson 1 Different? Because it is our first, Lesson 1's discussion will be somewhat truncated. Your first set of readings is shorter than usual so we can get to the discussion quickly, reach a consensus, and start writing! What does science do for poetry? For one thing, as we will see, science makes the 'creative canvas larger' for poetry; in other words, science gives poets new ways to say old things by giving poets more objects, images and ideas to work with. | Readings for this Lesson: | Finish by: | | Academic Year and
Early Summer Session | Mid Summer
Intensive Session | David Levy, excerpts from Starry Night
Louise McNeill, "The Long Traveler," "The Leaf,"
"After Hearing a Lecture on Modern Physics," "Scholastic", "Star-Map"
John Timpane, "The Poetry of Science" | Day 4 of course | Day 2 of course | Post two responses to each reading. |
Levy surveys poems relating to the night sky through the ages. John Donne, Byron, Coleridge, Hopkins, Milton, and other poets responded to the theories of their times. We will find that science poems can be about more than meteors, craters on the moon, eclipses, and the heliocentric universe. The Law of the Conservation of Matter (and likewise, the Conservation of Energy) states that matter (or energy) cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change form. We will need to review some things (and perhaps learn some new things) about the structure of atom. At the center of the atom is a nucleus, which contains protons and neutrons. Orbiting the nucleus is a series of energy "shells" containing electrons. The electron is so small compared to the nucleus, and the space between them is so large that we can say that matter is mostly empty space. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that one can never know the exact position and speed of an electron simultaneously. This is quite strange, because in everyday life, we can tell at any instant both the speed and position of a large-scale object, such as a baseball. The really weird part is, if you know the exact position of a particle, its speed could be anything! Electrons are spread out: rather than thinking of them as small particles like the crude model of planets revolving around the sun, think of electrons as clouds. This "spreading out"of particles is not restricted to electrons; particle-wave duality applies to light as well. Ultimately, a photon (particle) of light is simultaneously a particle and a wave, until an observation is made, at which point it must "commit" to being in one state or another. Electrons are part of matter (the atoms which make up large scale, everyday objects), and light is a form of energy made up of photons. There is a deep relationship between matter and energy, because they are both composed of particle-like things that mysteriously do not behave like particles much of the time. Given what you're about to read, perhaps you can imagine how the two can blur together. Louise McNeill was in her 80's when she wrote the book these poems came from, called Fermi Buffalo. Outside of Chicago, there is an underground particle accelerator that stretches for miles. But above this technological marvel, buffalo roam freely. McNeill was focusing on the juxtaposition of the two objects: contrast makes the reader pay attention. As you will soon see, Louise McNeill's poems reflect the way the discoveries of 20 century physics had an impact on the way we understand the world. - First, what literally is happening in each piece? Summarize the events in a couple of sentences. If your summary disagrees with someone else's summary, that's okay. Post your summary of what is literally happening, state that your explanation disagrees with [Name's] summary, and explain why your interpretation is more or less accurate by referring to specific passages in the poem.
For example, I might say
Jack and Jill got injured while fetching a pail of water. The poem states, "Jack fell down and broke his crown," but it is less clear that Jill is injured since she only "came tumbling after." - From the literal summary, move to the larger meanings of each poem.
Be sure to attend to the visual images your poem evokes. Any poem, even a philosophical poem (this is a slight generalization, but it works for beginning poets), should include vivid imagery. Exercise: make a mental list of some of the images that stand out in your memory without looking back at the original poems. With each line break, you made a decision, and the frequency of decisions a poet makes significantly high. What are the functions of the line breaks? Lines that are end-stopped break in places where a phrase or a whole thought has been completed. Lines that are enjambed are associated with contemporary free verse. Those lines break to emphasize the first and words of a line, to create suspense, etc. The poems that David Levy discussed were very traditional, following strict forms that dictated rhyme and meter. Similarly, most of Louise McNeill's poems rhymed and were based on a fixed meter. Copy this section of a poem by Amy Newman ("Darwin's Unfinished Notes to Emma") that has been stripped of its line breaks. Paste it into a new document. Insert line breaks where you think they should be. Of all the species of bee, only the humble-bee can visit the common red clover. It has to do with curvature, with length of the proboscis, too slight to be appreciated by us. Whole fields of red clover offer in vain their abundant supply of nectar to any other bee. This idea of a vast spreading of fresh green waiting with all its juice. Post your version in the discussion area in the topic Lesson 1 Exercise 1. Compare your line breaks with everyone else's. The actual poem will be available in a day or two. The crux of this discussion will probably be the purpose(s) of line breaks. Read this lengthy poem by Marianne Moore ("The Pangolin"), which has been stripped of its line breaks. Guess where line breaks are, or assert where you think they should be. Remember, I am only asking you to read and guess where the line breaks are--you don't have to write it out! I'll post the original poem in the Lesson 1 Exercise 2 topic. You can comment on the line breaks if you wish, but that isn't required. Another armored animal--scale lapping scale with spruce-cone regularity until they form the uninterrupted central tail-row! This near artichoke with head and legs and grit-equipped gizzard, the night miniature artist engineer is, yes, Leonardo da Vinci's replica--impressive animal and toiler of whom we seldom hear. Armor seems extra. But for him, the closing ear-ridge--or bare ear lacking even this small eminence and similarly safe contracting nose and eye apertures impenetrably closable, are not; --a true anteater, not cockroach-eater, who endures exhausting solitary trips through unfamiliar ground at night, returning before sunrise; stepping in the moonlight, on the moonlight peculiarly, that the outside edges of his hands may bear the weight and save the claws for digging. Serpentined about the tree, he draws away from danger unpugnaciously, with no sound but a harmless hiss; keeping the fragile grace of the Thomas-of-Leighton Buzzard Westminster Abbey wrought-iron vine, or rolls himself into a ball that has power to defy all effort to enroll it; strongly intailed, neat head for core, on neck not breaking off, with curled-in feet. Nevertheless he has string-proof scales; and nest of rocks closed with earth from inside, which he can thus darken. Sun and moon and day and night and man and beast each with a splendor which man in all his vileness cannot set aside; each with an excellence!
"Fearful yet to be feared," the armored ant-eater met by the driver ant does not turn back, but engulfs what he can, the flattened sword-edged leafpoints on the tail and artichoke set leg-and body-plates quivering violently when it retaliates and swarms on him. Compact like the furled fringed frill on the hat-brim of Gargallo's hollow iron head of a matador, he will drop and will then walk away unhurt, although if unintruded on, he cautiously works down the tree, helped by his tail. The giant-pangolin-tail, graceful tool, as prop or hand or broom or ax, tipped like an elephant's trunk with special skin, is not lost this ant-and-stone-swallowing uninjurable artichoke which simpletons thought a living fable whom the stones had nourished, whereas ants had done so. Pangolins are not aggressive animals; between dusk and day they have the not unchain-like-machine-like form and frictionless creep of a thing made graceful by adversities, conversities. To explain grace requires a curious hand. If that which is at all were not forever, why would those who graced the spires with animals and gathered there to rest, on cold luxurious low stone seats--a monk and monk and monk--between the thus ingenious roof-supports, have slaved to confuse grace with a kindly manner, time in which to pay a debt, the cure for sins, a graceful use of what are yet approved stone mullions branching out across the perpendiculars? A sailboat was the first machine. Pangolins, made for moving quietly also, are models of exactness, on four legs; on hind feet plantigrade, with certain postures of a man. Beneath sun and moon, man slaving to make his life more sweet, leaves half the flowers worth having, needing to choose wisely how to use his strength; a paper-maker like the wasp; a tractor of foodstuffs, like the ant; spidering a length of web from bluffs above a stream; in fighting, mechanicked like the pangolin, capsizing in disheartenment. Bedizened or stark naked, man, the self, the being we call human, writing-master to this world, griffons a dark "Like does not like like that is obnoxious"; and writes error with four r's. Among animals, one has a sense of humor. Humor saves a few steps, it saves years. Unignorant, modest and unemotional, and all emotion, he has everlasting vigor, power to grow, though there are few creatures who can make one breathe faster and make one erecter.
Not afraid of anything is he, and then goes cowering forth, tread paced to meet an obstacle at every step. Consistent with the formula--warm blood, no gills, two pairs of hands and a few hairs--that is a mammal; there he sits in his own habitat, serge-clad, strong-shod. The prey of fear, he, always curtailed, extinguished, thwarted by the dusk, work partly done, say to the alternating blaze, "Again the sun! anew each day; and new and new and new, that comes into and steadies my soul."
I expect you imagined something quite different than Moore's. She played with indentation, which is not something we need to worry ourselves with. Just note how much fun she had with line breaks! Let's recap. We started out looking at the poems in David Levy's essay about meteors, the moon, and eclipses. The poems about meteors reminded us just how majestic falling stars can be. The moon and eclipses have been a major part of poetry since people first put pen to paper. In much the same way that our knowledge at the time about the moon, eclipses, and meteors influenced the poems in Levy's essay, we saw how 20th century physics influenced the poetry of Louise McNeill. We examined the importance of the image and of line breaks. We even read an essay about the importance of poets learning about science. From this lesson on, we'll be looking at fiction, plays, and more poems that contain scientific material. For example, we will write a fiction piece about a scientist making a critical discovery. We will look at some models of fiction that convey concepts in an interesting and literary way. We will revise one of the pieces we have written. Finally, we will wrap up the course by discussing the various levels of success poets and fiction authors have met while using scientific material in their work.
After having read the poems of Louise McNeill and others, write your own scientific poem. Research a scientific topic -- perhaps one of the theories mentioned at the end of John Timpane's "The Poetry of Science" -- (you may want to use an encyclopedia), then write a poem that both conveys information and celebrates the science or mathematics involved. Pay close attention to your images and line breaks. Good luck! Academic Year and
Early Summer Session | You have 6 days to write | | Mid Summer Intensive Session | You have 5 days to write |
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