Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory: Difference between revisions
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Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory | Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory | ||
by David Ignatow | by David Ignatow | ||
<pre style="font-family:monobook,serif;"> | <pre style="font-family:monobook,serif;"> | ||
Come out and talk to me | Come out and talk to me INVITATION | ||
for then I know | for then I know | ||
into what you are shaping. | into what you are shaping. | ||
Line 10: | Line 18: | ||
I read your thoughts for a symbol: | I read your thoughts for a symbol: | ||
a movement towards an act. | a movement towards an act. | ||
I give up on thought | I give up on thought RETHINKING | ||
as I see your mind | as I see your mind | ||
leading into a mystery | leading into a mystery | ||
Line 21: | Line 29: | ||
the most complex being | the most complex being | ||
convention and habit. | convention and habit. | ||
You shall form patterns | You shall form patterns PRESCRIPTION | ||
of research and bind yourself | of research and bind yourself | ||
to laws within your knowledge, | to laws within your knowledge, | ||
Line 36: | Line 44: | ||
== Comments and Notes == | == Comments and Notes == | ||
This poem is an invitation to a dialogue between the speaker (a poet) and a physicist. The title and first line make this explicit: "Poet to Physicist..." and ''Come out and talk to me.'' This is an invitation for the physicist to emerge from his laboratory and engage with the poet. The speaker wants to know the "shape" of the research occurring in this laboratory; the word shape is peculiar in this context. It could be the research, as we would normally expect, or it could refer to the physicist | This poem is an invitation to a dialogue between the speaker (a poet) and a physicist. The title and first line make this explicit: "Poet to Physicist..." and ''Come out and talk to me.'' This is an invitation for the physicist to emerge from his laboratory and engage with the poet. The speaker wants to know the "shape" of the research occurring in this laboratory; the word shape is peculiar in this context. It could be the research, as we would normally expect, or it could refer to the physicist herself, oddly enough. To the poet, the physicist's word is full of symbols and mysteries. The attempt to build a bridge from the Humanities to the Sciences, as the speaker conveys it, is an invitation but also an acknowledgement of frustration. There are mysteries, perhaps encoded in the abstract symbols of mathematics, that the poet cannot access. | ||
The dialogue quickly becomes a monologue or even a soliloquy. The physicist seems to have no voice of his own in this narrative poem. The title, then, may be more literal than it seems at first: a one-way discourse from poet to physicist caged in his cavernous and unfathomable laboratory. Initial curiosity turns into an "animus". The long final line of the poem turns into a prescriptive warning, a credo. It recalls the Church's inquiry into Galileo's innovative but heretical experiments of the heavens. This is a reactionary poet, perhaps, speaking from a position of fear and speaking with a disturbing turn of tone. We feel a growing sympathy for the unseen, voiceless physicist hemmed in from all sides. I like this poem because it is challenging and claims no simple moral agendas. | |||
== Questions for Discussion == | |||
1) What type of physicist does the poet refer to in the poem? Do you think the poet had a particular physicist in mind when he wrote the poem? Which of these physicists do you think he had in mind (Oppenheimer, Einstein, or Teller)? | |||
[[Image:RO.jpeg]] [[Image:AE.jpeg]][[Image:ET.jpeg]] | |||
2) Is a physicist representative of the general scientific community, now or in the past? What type of scientist what you have addressed instead and why (e.g. molecular biologist, nuclear engineer, stem cell biologist, etc.)? | |||
3) Do you think this is a realistic dialogue/monologue between these two role types? How would the dialogue differ if instead the physicist had been the biologist Charles Darwin? | |||
4) Have you had a similar dialogue or experience when trying to explain your research/engineering/software project to a non-scientist? How about when trying to explain your research to your friend, your relative, your mother? What obstacles in perception and comprehension did you encounter? How did you overcome them? | |||
== Further Reading == | |||
The Man Who Saw Through Time, Loren Eiseley. About Sir Francis Bacon, scientific visionary under Queen Elizabeth I. | |||
Any of numerous books about Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb. | |||
Genius: The life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick. About Richard Feynman, his work on the atomic bomb, and his later speculations on physics. | |||
Back to [[Poetry & Science]] |
Latest revision as of 16:16, 1 November 2011
Back to Poetry & Science
Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory
by David Ignatow
Come out and talk to me INVITATION for then I know into what you are shaping. Thinking is no more, I read your thoughts for a symbol: a movement towards an act. I give up on thought RETHINKING as I see your mind leading into a mystery deepening about you. What are you trying to discover beyond the zone of habit and enforced convention? There is the animus that spends itself on images, the most complex being convention and habit. You shall form patterns PRESCRIPTION of research and bind yourself to laws within your knowledge, and always conscious of your limitations make settlement, with patience to instruct you as it always does in your research: an arrangement spanning an abyss of time, and you will find yourself patient when you are questioned.
Comments and Notes[edit]
This poem is an invitation to a dialogue between the speaker (a poet) and a physicist. The title and first line make this explicit: "Poet to Physicist..." and Come out and talk to me. This is an invitation for the physicist to emerge from his laboratory and engage with the poet. The speaker wants to know the "shape" of the research occurring in this laboratory; the word shape is peculiar in this context. It could be the research, as we would normally expect, or it could refer to the physicist herself, oddly enough. To the poet, the physicist's word is full of symbols and mysteries. The attempt to build a bridge from the Humanities to the Sciences, as the speaker conveys it, is an invitation but also an acknowledgement of frustration. There are mysteries, perhaps encoded in the abstract symbols of mathematics, that the poet cannot access.
The dialogue quickly becomes a monologue or even a soliloquy. The physicist seems to have no voice of his own in this narrative poem. The title, then, may be more literal than it seems at first: a one-way discourse from poet to physicist caged in his cavernous and unfathomable laboratory. Initial curiosity turns into an "animus". The long final line of the poem turns into a prescriptive warning, a credo. It recalls the Church's inquiry into Galileo's innovative but heretical experiments of the heavens. This is a reactionary poet, perhaps, speaking from a position of fear and speaking with a disturbing turn of tone. We feel a growing sympathy for the unseen, voiceless physicist hemmed in from all sides. I like this poem because it is challenging and claims no simple moral agendas.
Questions for Discussion[edit]
1) What type of physicist does the poet refer to in the poem? Do you think the poet had a particular physicist in mind when he wrote the poem? Which of these physicists do you think he had in mind (Oppenheimer, Einstein, or Teller)?
2) Is a physicist representative of the general scientific community, now or in the past? What type of scientist what you have addressed instead and why (e.g. molecular biologist, nuclear engineer, stem cell biologist, etc.)?
3) Do you think this is a realistic dialogue/monologue between these two role types? How would the dialogue differ if instead the physicist had been the biologist Charles Darwin?
4) Have you had a similar dialogue or experience when trying to explain your research/engineering/software project to a non-scientist? How about when trying to explain your research to your friend, your relative, your mother? What obstacles in perception and comprehension did you encounter? How did you overcome them?
Further Reading[edit]
The Man Who Saw Through Time, Loren Eiseley. About Sir Francis Bacon, scientific visionary under Queen Elizabeth I.
Any of numerous books about Robert Oppenheimer and the atomic bomb.
Genius: The life and Science of Richard Feynman, James Gleick. About Richard Feynman, his work on the atomic bomb, and his later speculations on physics.
Back to Poetry & Science