Long before I wrote my first poem, science was my first love. As a kid, I enjoyed catching bugs, collecting rocks, and watching nature shows. When I got older, I was captivated by microscope slides, punnett squares, and molecules. Although I now oppose vivisection for ethical reasons, I see nothing aesthetically icky about dissecting earthworms, crayfish, and frogs. In my high school anatomy class, I was the one who helped the teacher demonstrate how to pry the entrails from a fetal pig. Some girls shrieked. One boy fainted. But I was in heaven.
What does a fetal pig have to do with writing poetry, you ask? For me, a great deal. My cure for writer's block has always been paging through a magazine at the doctor's office, on the lookout for scientific factoids. For example, one journal featured articles about carbon monoxide poisoning, the mating rituals of a preying mantis, and a man whose overconsumption of supplements turned his skin permanently blue. These details found their way into my writing in a variety of ways. I wrote a poem about unstable people who steal from others to feel complete, much like unstable CO molecules steal electrons. I created a speaker with the desire to bite off her husband's head, mantis-style. And in a series on chronic illness, I explored how the things that sustain and improve our health also have the potential to destroy it.
My love for science and my love for poetry are really one and the same. At its most basic level, science seeks to understand the nature of life by isolating, observing, and categorizing its basic components and determining their functions. Poetry does the same with language, a defining feature of our species. Whether we study cells and genes or words and sounds, we are exploring how our world is put together. Whether we analyze electrocardiograms or iambic pentameter, we are learning the patterns and rhythms of life.
For the poets (and other writers) out there, what role, if any, does science play in your writing? Does anatomy and physiology have a poetry all its own? Do you see the sciences and the humanities as diametrically opposed or just variations on a theme?
Speaking of themes and variations, my next post, and quite a few in the future, will be more commercial in nature but not to worry. My goal is to choose products to promote that relate to my personal musings, and this one fits the bill.
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