2026 National Poetry Month, Day 22 Science-poetry
Talk The Poetry Collective
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1DebiCates
The Sciences Sing A Lullaby - by Albert Goldbarth
NPM 2026, Day 22 Science-poetry
We have just a little over a week left to celebrate National Poetry Month. It's flying by. For the next week, each day I will be focusing on a genre of poetry. Then last two days, we'll start to pickup up the paper cups, vacuum the confetti, and sigh that sweet, tired sigh.
But, for now, the party is still on!
Have you read any Science-poetry? It is trending. Science, of course, has never been excluded from poetry but now it's gaining traction, more interest, more specificity. Its time has come. I figure the Web makes even a passing curiosity easy to explore. We have a refreshed wonder and crave that combination, the wonder in science and the language of wonder, to join together.
Feel free to create and share an original poem. Or tell an anecdote. Find a connection with an existing poem you know and share that. Or post a link to music, film, essay, book.
NPM 2026, Day 22 Science-poetry
We have just a little over a week left to celebrate National Poetry Month. It's flying by. For the next week, each day I will be focusing on a genre of poetry. Then last two days, we'll start to pickup up the paper cups, vacuum the confetti, and sigh that sweet, tired sigh.
But, for now, the party is still on!
Have you read any Science-poetry? It is trending. Science, of course, has never been excluded from poetry but now it's gaining traction, more interest, more specificity. Its time has come. I figure the Web makes even a passing curiosity easy to explore. We have a refreshed wonder and crave that combination, the wonder in science and the language of wonder, to join together.
Feel free to create and share an original poem. Or tell an anecdote. Find a connection with an existing poem you know and share that. Or post a link to music, film, essay, book.
2DebiCates
NPM 2026, Day 22 Science-Poetry, some lovely rabbit holes....
"Does science destroy the beauty in the world?" Inspirational 3 min video
featuring a clip from an interview with renowned American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman (1918-1988) If you want an introduction to Science-Poetry this is a nice place to start, a panel discussion from the 2016 World Science Festival https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFznbLroew
"The Scientific Lens: An Exploration of Science-Inspired Poetry" Where Poets.org covers the subject in a 2022 educational article that answers questions like, "How might poetry benefit from a scientific lens?" "What constitutes a science poem?" and gives a list of linked "Science Poems" available on poets.org site.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/158272/the-scientific-lens-an-exploration-of-science-inspired-poetry
Ten Science Poems You Need To Read" From Hello Bio, a supplier for bio labs! The ten poems, ten poets, all with links. https://hellobio.com/blog/ten-science-poems-you-need-to-read.html
Books I now want to read
Have you read any of Richard Feynman's books?
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=richard+feynman&searchtype=ne...
How about The Universe in Verse:15 Portals to Wonder Through Science & Poetry by Maria Popova? Creator Popova describes it as “stories of science winged with poetry.” Have you read that? You might be familiar with her highly entertaining and intelligent site, The Marginalian, https://www.themarginalian.org/about/ or the first 9 chapters of her book are summarized here with links to videos of all the poems featured. https://onbeing.org/universe-in-verse/
And one last book that this day's NPM celebration has led me to that I want to read Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning by
Karen Barad. This is a fascinating summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXxiEdMFt0A
How I love this intersection of poetry and science...and the Internet of People and Thought!
"Does science destroy the beauty in the world?" Inspirational 3 min video
featuring a clip from an interview with renowned American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, Richard Feynman (1918-1988) If you want an introduction to Science-Poetry this is a nice place to start, a panel discussion from the 2016 World Science Festival https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvFznbLroew
"The Scientific Lens: An Exploration of Science-Inspired Poetry" Where Poets.org covers the subject in a 2022 educational article that answers questions like, "How might poetry benefit from a scientific lens?" "What constitutes a science poem?" and gives a list of linked "Science Poems" available on poets.org site.https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/158272/the-scientific-lens-an-exploration-of-science-inspired-poetry
Ten Science Poems You Need To Read" From Hello Bio, a supplier for bio labs! The ten poems, ten poets, all with links. https://hellobio.com/blog/ten-science-poems-you-need-to-read.html
Books I now want to read
Have you read any of Richard Feynman's books?
https://www.librarything.com/search.php?search=richard+feynman&searchtype=ne...
How about The Universe in Verse:15 Portals to Wonder Through Science & Poetry by Maria Popova? Creator Popova describes it as “stories of science winged with poetry.” Have you read that? You might be familiar with her highly entertaining and intelligent site, The Marginalian, https://www.themarginalian.org/about/ or the first 9 chapters of her book are summarized here with links to videos of all the poems featured. https://onbeing.org/universe-in-verse/
And one last book that this day's NPM celebration has led me to that I want to read Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning by
Karen Barad. This is a fascinating summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXxiEdMFt0A
How I love this intersection of poetry and science...and the Internet of People and Thought!
3DebiCates
What are those Ten poems you should read as per hellobio? See https://hellobio.com/blog/ten-science-poems-you-need-to-read.html for links to the poems. Every single one is a treat.
"A Universe of Atoms, An Atom In The Universe" by Richard Feynman
__I'd highly recommend this Vimeo video with Yo Yo Ma's reading and music, along with some mesmerizing animation. https://vimeo.com/700869688?fl=pl&fe=sh
"In the Laboratory of the Great Chemist" by John Oscar Beck
__A scoffer of science learns what it's like to be an atom, published in 1927.
"The Sciences Sing A Lullaby" by Albert Goldbarth
__He goes through multiple sciences and their particular lullabies.
"My Proteins" by Jane Hirshfield
__my favorite poet, a Buddhist, she always returns to the now and the is.
"Evolution" by Linda Bierds
__is known for using historical philosophical and scientific persons, you'll see it in this poem.
"X-Ray" by Danielle Legros Georges
__a collaboration of a POC poet and a POC scientist, from site poetryofscience.org
"Singularity" by Marie Howe
__an embedded YT video of her reading to a group, with a super lovely animation.
"Rocket Science" by James A. Tweedie
__correct link: https://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/index.php/2021/issue-56-december-2021/james-a...
"Science Homework" by Kenn Nesbitt
__Kenn Nesbitt is a children's poet.
"Mrs Darwin" by Carol Ann Duffy
__from the funny 1999 The World’s Wife.
"A Universe of Atoms, An Atom In The Universe" by Richard Feynman
__I'd highly recommend this Vimeo video with Yo Yo Ma's reading and music, along with some mesmerizing animation. https://vimeo.com/700869688?fl=pl&fe=sh
"In the Laboratory of the Great Chemist" by John Oscar Beck
__A scoffer of science learns what it's like to be an atom, published in 1927.
"The Sciences Sing A Lullaby" by Albert Goldbarth
__He goes through multiple sciences and their particular lullabies.
"My Proteins" by Jane Hirshfield
__my favorite poet, a Buddhist, she always returns to the now and the is.
"Evolution" by Linda Bierds
__is known for using historical philosophical and scientific persons, you'll see it in this poem.
"X-Ray" by Danielle Legros Georges
__a collaboration of a POC poet and a POC scientist, from site poetryofscience.org
"Singularity" by Marie Howe
__an embedded YT video of her reading to a group, with a super lovely animation.
"Rocket Science" by James A. Tweedie
__correct link: https://www.lightenup-online.co.uk/index.php/2021/issue-56-december-2021/james-a...
"Science Homework" by Kenn Nesbitt
__Kenn Nesbitt is a children's poet.
"Mrs Darwin" by Carol Ann Duffy
__from the funny 1999 The World’s Wife.
4DebiCates
God's Body
--Debi Cates
If I could conceive of the Universe
as I conceive my hand on this table
where it feels as though my hand is solid
with no space between my atoms (though there is!)
and that I actually am touching the table (though I am not!)
would that be God's perception?
And would Earth's humans then be
a rumbling in my tummy,
a vague bellyache, a lamentation
after dining too richly,
a small mar
in an otherwise perfect starry evening?
--Debi Cates
If I could conceive of the Universe
as I conceive my hand on this table
where it feels as though my hand is solid
with no space between my atoms (though there is!)
and that I actually am touching the table (though I am not!)
would that be God's perception?
And would Earth's humans then be
a rumbling in my tummy,
a vague bellyache, a lamentation
after dining too richly,
a small mar
in an otherwise perfect starry evening?
5SandraArdnas
>2 DebiCates: Oh, a fellow Marginalian devotee 🧡 It must be among the top 10 sites on the internet I've ever stumbled upon, way back when it was still Brain Pickings. Love Maria's writing and the new rabbit holes she sends me down to.
6DebiCates
>5 SandraArdnas: I remember it too when it was Brain Pickings! But forgot that. She is a wonderful writer, thinker. I can't think of a single post that didn't resonate with me. There should be a whole social media group to discuss her thoughtful articles! Sharing rabbit holes :)
7TonjaE
>4 DebiCates: This is beautiful Debi, and I love today's subject. Will spend some time with the things you have brought together here.
