Poetry and Science Resources

"More and more mankind will discover that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely and truly does Wordsworth call poetry 'the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science'; and what is a countenance without its expression?"
                                           Matthew Arnold, The Study of Poetry, 1880.

The books listed below are all connected in some way to the theme of poetry and science. Some are by scientist-poets (or poet-scientists); some by poets working with science or scientists, as the subject for poems, including participants in The Poetry Experiment, which is where these particular pages spring from.

A few of the books have come out of projects related to using poetry to teach various sciences to different age groups. You can read more about these projects here, as well as following the links below.

If you have any more suggestions that might be suitable, please email them to us.

Index

Poetry Anthologies

 Contemporary Poetry and Contemporary Science
Ed. Robert Crawford
OUP, 2006

Poems of Science
Ed. John Heath-Stubbs with Phillips Salman
Penguin, 1984

A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems About Science
Ed. Maurice Riordan
Faber and Faber, 2000

The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics
Ed. Timothy Ferris
Back Bay Books, 1993

Songs from Unsung Worlds: Science in Poetry
Ed. Bonnie Bilyeu Gordon
Birkhauser, 1985

Poetry Collections

Maureen Almond
Tongues in Trees
New Writing North, 2005
The Works
Biscuit Publishing, 2004

William Blake
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Oxford Press, 1990

Bob Beagrie
Endeavour
Biscuit Publishing, 2004

Helen Clare
Mollusc
Comma Poetry, 2004

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Dover Publications, 1992

Loren C Eiseley
Notes of an Alchemist
Prentice Hall & IBD, 1974
The Innocent Assassins
Prentice Hall & IBD, 1975

Thomas Hardy
The Complete Poems
Palgrave Macmillan, 2001

Miroslav Holub
Poems Before and After: Collected English Translations
Bloodaxe Books, 2006

Hugh MacDiarmid
Selected Poetry
W.W. Norton, 1993

Mary Midgley
Science and Poetry
Routledge, 2001

David Morley
Scientific Papers
Carcanet Press, 2002

Mario Petrucci
Heavy Water: a poem for Chernobyl
Enitharmon, 2004.
Half Life: poems for Chernobyl
Heaventree, 2004.
Bosco
Hearing Eye, 2001.

Edgar Allan Poe
Complete Tales and Poems
Random House, 1992

Deryn Rees-Jones
The Memory Tray
Seren, 1994

Jo Shapcott
Electroplating the Baby
Bloodaxe Books,1988
Phrase Book
Oxford Paperbacks, 1992

Christopher Southgate
Easing the Gravity Field. poems of science and love
Shoestring Press, 2006

Diana Syder
Maxwell's Rainbow
Smith/Doorstop Books, 2002

Andy Willoughby
Tough
Smokestack Books, 2005

Clive Wilmer
The Infinite Variety
Carcanet, 1995

William Wordsworth
Lyrical Ballads
Penguin, 1999

Interesting Science

Richard Dawkins
Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
Penguin, 2006

Karl Popper
The Logic of Scientific Discovery
Routledge, 2002

Books for Children

Barbara Brenner
The Earth is Painted Green: A Garden of Poems about Our Planet
Byron Press Publications, 2000

Barbara Juster Esbensen
Echoes for the Eye: Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature
Harpercollins (May 1996)

Kristine O'Connell George
Old Elm Speaks: Tree Poems
Houghton Mifflin (Trade) (Sep 1998)

Meish Goldish
101 Science Poems & Songs for Young Learners: With Hands-On Activities
Scholastic, 1997

Lee Bennett Hopkins and Virginia Halstead
Spectacular Science: A Book of Poems
Aladdin Paperbacks (Jul 2002)

Patricia Hubbell
Earthmates
Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2000

Tony Johnston
An Old Shell: Poems of the Galapagos
Farrar Straus Giroux (Oct 1999)

Sanford Lyne
Ten-Second Rainshowers: Poems by Young People
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1996

Gaby Morgan
Space Poems
Macmillan Children's Books, 2006

Lisa Westberg Peters
Earthshake: Poems from the Ground Up
Greenwillow Books (Aug 2003)

Joyce Sidman
Song of the Water Boatman: & Other Pond Poems
Houghton Mifflin, 2005

Sea Dream: Poems from Under the Waves
Nikki Siegen-Smith
Barefoot Books (Sep 2002)

Jane Yolen and Jason Stemple
Water Music
Boyds Mills Press, 2004

Project-related Books

See Saw
by Anne Osbourn
The SAW Press, 2005

Anne Osbourn devised and piloted the Science, Art and Writing Initiative in Schools in 2005, following on from a DreamTime Fellowship she was awarded by NESTA. The project uses scientific images as inspiration for poetry and artwork, to encourage children to explore and understand science.

This pilot project led to the publication of an anthology of children's artwork and poetry on scientific themes (See Saw). Since then I and others have been exploring the nature, flexibility and potential of the SAW initiative in different ways.

Below are some responses to SAW.

"SAW is an integrative approach to the curriculum with a special emphasis on science, an area of the curriculum that is often neglected or poorly taught. The value of this program is that it develops science concepts using a multiple-intelligence approach to teaching and learning. By using writing and artistic expression as avenues in which children can express their understanding of scientific notions, teachers can address the diversity of learning styles and strengths of their students. It also takes any phobia out of learning about science. The key to the program, however, remains in the direct teaching of science through images."
Louise Swiniarski (Professor of Education, Salem State College, US)

"SAW is a highly creative project which has the potential to not only inform but excite children about science. I think its cross-curricular strategy, using words and art to explore scientific themes, stands a greater chance of engaging children's attention across the ability range than more conventional subject-defined approaches. As a child who was switched off science at school, I'm convinced that the SAW approach is particularly helpful in interesting children who currently struggle with science."
Esther Morgan (Poetry tutor and adviser to the Cheltenham Science Festival)

To find out more about the project, please visit the the sawtrust website.

Star Matter: Towards a new perspective
by Leslie Brown, Gordon MacLellan, Tom Mason and Chris Vis
StillWell, 2005

Through the collaborative effort of scientists and artists, StarMatter aims to raise awareness among primary school teachers of concepts such as 'star matter' and 'deep time.' The book suggests some rewarding approaches for how children might use their artistic creativity to explore non-human-centric perspectives of the world, as presented in the earth sciences.

Here are some extracts from appraisals for StarMatter:

"StarMatter is an altruistic endeavour to develop a new dimension in the education of young children, through the media of art, music, dance and drama… the book is ahead of its time in terms of the ideas it is promoting, it is factually correct, and it offers some wonderful suggestions on how to engage children in discovering their ultimate origins."
© Dr Ian Sanders 2006

"StarMatter begins by questioning the division that has arisen between arts and science. In the Renaissance a philosopher artist like Leonardo da Vinci had no difficulty in combining the two concepts. But over the years scientific research has drifted away from the arts, and the popular science, which makes an attempt to bridge the ever-increasing gap, has proved to be inadequate.

The authors of this beautifully presented book explore how this disharmony can be remedied through specialist education that approaches scientific knowledge through collective creativity. This concept, described as 'outreach,' combines dance, and song, drama and art, in the task of addressing the receptive minds of children and young people to awareness of our relationship with the natural world. The authors instruct on the promotion of science and the perception of spiritual aspects of our universe through group performance, workshop activities, art, and other means of encouraging creativity and acquiring holistic experience. The message of StarMatter is clearly and simply expressed and the result has to be exhilarating for teachers and pupils alike."
© Gillian Somerville-Large 2005

If you would like to obtain a copy of the book, or find out more about the education project, visit the StarMatter blog.

Websites

www.poetryandscience.co.uk
Liverpool University Centre for Poetry and Science

www.artscatalyst.org
An arts organisation that actively makes connections between art and science through commissions and strategic projects.

www.firstscience.com/site/poems.asp
An eclectic selection of science and nature poems.

www.scienceeducationreview.com/poetcomp.html
The online journal's International Science Poetry Competition

www.scienceeducationreview.com/poetarticle.html
In its own words: "This article considers some potential benefits of providing poetic learning experiences within a science curriculum, and provides practical classroom techniques and resources to support the strategy."

www.roaldhoffmann.com/pn/index.php
Personal website of applied theoretical chemist and writer, Roald Hoffman.

"Tulips at Dawn"
An animation by Rosie Pedlow, of a poem by Roald Hoffman,
read by Peter Blegvad. (Not available online.)

www.fetlerart.com/synergysong.html
Greg Fetler, 'Synergy Song'

www.mcn.org/ed/CUR/cw/Science_Poetry/Poetry.html
The Science Poetry centre, a space for students to post science poems.

www.ericdigests.org/2003-1/poetry.htm
An article, some information, resources and links, compiled by Davi Walders.

ahappening.typepad.com/qarrtsiluni/science_as_poetry/index.html
A weblog for artistic collaboration, with a section dedicated to 'science as poetry'.

www.bc.edu/schools/lsoe/poetry
The Massachusetts Science Poetry Contest, founded by Professor George Ladd, is now in its 18th year.

www.sff.net/people/Geoffrey.Landis/poetry.htp
An article which compares poetic and scientific uses of metaphor.

www.iger.bbsrc.ac.uk/Science_in_Society/TheArts.htm
The Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research has run a number of projects in the past relating to poetry and may be keen to hold more.

 

www.eiseley.unomaha.edu
A website about Loren Eiseley.

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