Science Versus Poetry!

Well, it's no secret that I write a lot of science fiction poetry, and even straight-out science poetry.

The American Scholar says:
"Science versus Poetry: Worlds apart, and yet alike in many ways"

"They are old enemies, or else they are old lovers. The poet Albert Goldbarth writes, 'Perhaps the arts and the sciences have never slept together without one eye kept warily open.'   However warily, though, they have slept together. There are points of connection, even intimacy...."

And in the American Scientist, Anna Lena Phillips says something similar:

"Poetry and science go way back: Over the centuries, they have occasionally gotten together, like old friends who find themselves in the same city and meet up for tea, only to head home the next day and lose touch again."

On the other hand, poet Robert Kelly has this to say:

Science explains nothing
but holds all together as many things as it can count...
science is the same as poetry
only it uses the wrong words

 and the poetry foundation gives you
Ten Poems to Get You Through Science Class This Year



Some years ago, I wrote an essay "Science, Fiction, Poetry," as an introduction to a poetry anthology called Mindsparks. It has some more of my thoughts, at the time, about how science is like and unlike poetry:

• Science Fiction Poetry