Tue 24 Jul 2012
The Poetry of Science
Posted by Diana Kenney under MBL
[23] Comments
On Wednesday, August 1, the MBLWHOI Library Salon series will feature science-related poetry. We are encouraging members of the MBL and WHOI communities, as well as the public, to bring a favorite science poem to read or to write and read their own science-inspired Haiku or “Sci-ku.”
Post your science-related Haiku right here on our blog in the comments section, and come to the MBLWHOI Library’s Bay Reading Room on Wednesday, August 1, at 3pm to read it out loud for other poetry fans to hear! Or just peruse some of the great Sci-ku submissions we’ve already received.
For the uninitiated, Haiku is a Japanese poetry form consisting of 17 syllables spread across three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second line features seven, and the last line features five again. Haikus also frequently feature a “cut”, meaning the poems frequently compare and contrast two different ideas or images sharply.
Here is an example of a science haiku:
Light and CO2
Water, kick those electrons!
Photosynthesis
-Vinay Mahajan
Full details about the Poetry of Science event are available here:
http://www.mbl.edu/blog/salon_series12/
Sci-Ku #1
Ocean pH is up
Too fast for evolution
Goodbye shellfish feasts.
Sci-Ku #2
A shiny urchin
Alvin’s new sphere yearns for depth
Let’s go exploring!
yet another sci-ku
Her body, so fair,
its cells working busily,
most of them microbes.
Sci-Ku #1
African Clawed Frogs
have flown on the space shuttle.
That’s one giant leap.
Sci-Ku #2
Xenopus use their
hands to shove food down their throats-
bad table manners.
Sci-Ku #3
I wrote a haiku
About quantum mechanics.
It was a real Bohr.
lost on stack floor three
finding a dirigible
watch out for the dust
Virus steals the cells
Infecting the DNA:
In bed with the flu!
World ecosystem
P, C, and N. Move, cycle
All under the sun
Toadfish down below
Singing for their lovely mates
Best met in the dark
Biodiverse life?
Remaining branches only
Of a tree once full
Blue blood and ten eyes
Lateral Inhibition
Limulus secrets
Look closely at things
immense beauty fires our
Curiosity
Particles have mass
given differentially
Higgs boson is real!
From the Miocene,
All of Creation oozes,
Through my hands as mud.
Came for the summer
Research? Stony Beach! mistake.
Will need to come back.
Mapping all the nerves
They found yet another “OME”
Dating game for worms
Inspired by: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6093/437.abstract
Helicies and sheets
Folding uniquely into
Microscopic machines
Stella, my starlet
Siren of Sippewisset
Reveal your secrets
From next-gen machines
A DNA tsunami
Drowns us in data
The endless debate
“Everything is everywhere”
Or is it really?
You, ecosystem
Of hidden symbiosis
One with your microbes
RFA announced.
Creative plea for funding!
Will this be the one?
Octopus hiding
Adaptive coloration
Boo, did I scare you?
we are all humbled,
by the vast diversity,
of mighty microbes.
#1
Summer’s flock arrives,
Answers abound in courses.
What was the question?
#2
Lampreys repair cords
Why can’t I regenerate?
Need a second chance.
#3
Neuroscience searching
For the root of consciousness,
Ouroboros found.
My “Sci-cle” of “Sci-Ku”
Space, Time continuum
Contracts in scholars brain cells
When a beach beckons
Slow raking of leaves
Expands the brain to ponder
Relativity
Under mounds of snow
The problem of egress seems
Impenetrable
When daffodils bloom,
Lawn games win out over
Dull science lessons
Mantis Shrimp punch hard,
burrow fast, defy theory,
please give me data.”
My parents ask me
Why a career in science?
My answer: blue jeans.
CERN seeks Higgs Boson
summer solstice collisions
gravitons await
Listen, a rain of fluorescence beating on your cells
A Limulus crab, gazing at thousands of moons on a shell
A small spindle, spinning DNA into a yarn of life
Blue-green algae, wavy hair of a beauty, sleeping for billion years in a shallow sea
Glassy jellies, emitting green rings that spreads over the earth
Floating ctenophores, combing a rainbow on sunny seashore
Double helix, a spiral staircase to step down to the origin of eternity
Open your mind, your ion channels, through which you see the world
Strange stomatopod
Fast strike, good eyes, and keen nose
Why don’t you rule Earth?
MBL–a place
Where exciting things happen
Library is best
Ubiquitin
Tags, binds, and degrades bad proteins.
Thanks, Dr. Hershko!
Drat! How to explain
scientific hypotheses?
Try bodystorming
Hands-on research with
Amaral Zettler at sea.
Such biodiversity!
Nature of the cell-
Mysteries to be solved -
Shinya Inoue
lush, green, breathtaking
canopy of fragrant hemlock-
the Harvard Forest