Onramps
Portals for intersectionists
Cosmology
Go big. Cosmology inspired Goldbarth’s Heaven and Earth (U. of Georgia Press, 1991) collection.
GoldbarthE-Microscopy
At Youngstown State University, visit POEM: the Photonic, Optical and Electronic Materials Group.
POEMAids and Anaphora
Consider poetry authoring aids, tools, bots and crutches of every shape and size.
They’re comingKnow “Two Cultures”?
If you're not aware of C.P. Snow's seminal "Two Cultures" lecture, visit TwoCultures.net to stand awhile on the bridge.
Blog
Poetry and Technology
This site is a gateway to PoetryandScience.com, which collects poetry written at the intersection of
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Well-Versed at MIT
2016 was the twentieth anniversary of MIT's "Pleasures of Poetry," a month-long course that runs
Read More“Which is the World” by Gregory Orr
A reading from a long poem by Gregory Orr, "Concerning the Book that is the Body of the
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So Few Venues
PoetryandTechnology is technology as subject, not vehicle for traditional topics. Listed here are
Read MorePoetry and Science
Poetry and Science is the most hospitable place for poetry with or about technology.
Lorine Niedecker on Charles Darwin
The Poetry Foundation hosted a combination legacy reading by Lorine Niedecker and an analysis of her
Read MorePeople in Poetry and Tech
Students of poetry and technology may wish to review the work of these essayists and researchers.
C P Snow
Physicist, Novelist
C.P. Snow recognized the “Two Cultures” chasm. Sometimes furious debate followed, but the camps seem as far apart today as in the 1950’s when he first proposed the notion. “As delivered in 1959, Snow’s Rede Lectures specifically condemned the British educational system, as having since the Victorian period over-rewarded the humanities . . . at the expense of scientific education” (Wikipedia).
Kurt Brown
Poet
Kurt Brown authored Verse and Universe. “Verse and Universe, a poetry collection edited by Kurt Brown (Milkwood, 1998), is a recent and worthwhile attempt at convergence, though the collection limits itself to work by American poets writing in the second half of the twentieth century. The selected works, overall, are useful, and the project is probably unique among poetry anthologies.”
Frederick Turner
Poet
Frederick Turner is a poet. From Wikipedia: “As a poet he uses the longer genres, the narrative, science fiction, and strict metrical forms. He is a winner of the Milan Fust Prize (shared with Zsuzsanna Ozsváth) and the Levinson Poetry Prize, awarded by Poetry Magazine (1983).” Snip from “On the Anthropic Principle” “If all was as it was at the beginning / Because its consequence must be its cause. . .”
Ed Barrett
Poet and Lecturer
Edward Barrett (Ph.D., Harvard University) is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Media Studies/Writing, where his research, teaching, and publications focus on poetry and digital media. Snip: “The body with its CVS of free radicals and antioxidants, the body filled with homelessness and blood and crips, the four humors wearing puffy sleeves embroidered with stags chased by archers in waistcoats . . . “
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Opinions and Provocations
If you’re a doctor, you certainly don’t have time to write, and that’s what turned me away from medicine. I realized that I was spending my time in the library stacks of poetry, not of science.
Helen Vendler, Literary Critic
A blank computer screen makes me want to throw up.It's not conducive to good writing. The physicality of longhand pleases me. I can revise as I work in a way that doesn't happen on a laptop.
Niven Govinden, Novelist
Leslie Wu first read her poem, “Say 23,” in the Ruby programming language in which it was written. As she read the poem, she entered the code into her laptop. She then ran the program, which downloaded Psalm 23. Her code then rearranged selected words from the Scripture, assigned them precise audio frequencies and instructed the computer to recite the reconstructed psalm.
Leslie Wu, HCI doctoral student
The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way. The two are incompatible.
Paul Dirac, PhysicistIntersectionist Tracks
"For even if knowledge of the true and original Tree of Life, which could have postponed the arrival of old age, is lost, the plants nevertheless remain and renew their flowers, and with gratitude enduring through the years they shall always exhale the sweet memory of your names. . ." -- Carl Linnaeus.
What about poetry and science?
“A world
existing side by side with yours,
where love struggles to perfect
itself, and finally perfect,
finds it has no object.
The waking dream’s intact-
the world continues not to change,
and staying the same, changes us.”
from “Letters from Swan’s Island” by Elizabeth Spires