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##  Poetry and Science Education. ERIC Digest.                                   

Poetry and science?  Does this equation compute?  Poets, many of                whose works have been inspired by science, would certainly answer in            the affirmative, including William Carolow Williams, a doctor who               continued to make house calls while becoming one of America's major             poets. 
On a smaller scale, I am a poet and former teacher who                 encourages the weaving of poetry into all areas of the curriculum,              particularly into the sciences.  As a collector of poems for many               years, I have seen the power that the right poem read at the right              moment can have.  Paradox, creative thinking, attention to detail,              discovery, humor--a good poem carries many of these elements so                 critical to scientific inquiry. 
For instance, one of Emily                    Dickinson's numerous poems on scientific subjects might provide a               good beginning to a study unit on the human body. Here is one of her            brilliant and playful openings: 
The Brain -- is wider than the                Sky -- 
For -- put them side by side -- 
The one the other will               contain 
With ease -- and You -- beside... 
Or Adrienne                       Rich's "Planetarium," a contemplation about astronomer Caroline                 Herschel standing alone in 1848, offers students a clear image of a             real person doing real science. 
...a woman 'in the snow 
among               the Clocks and instruments 
or measuring the ground with                       poles' 
in her 98 years to discover 
8 comets...levitating into               the night sky riding the 
polished lenses... 
I believe poems have            a role to play in all classrooms and disciplines. Even if only used             occasionally to change pace or try something new, a good poem has               the power to awaken students (literally and figuratively), to stir              the imagination with metaphor and surprise, to open a window, and               let the light of learning in. 
How could I not feel this way?  I am            a poet who has had the pleasure of looking out at audiences during              readings, watching words form a magical bridge that connects in                 nods, smiles, and tears.  I have watched new awareness and space in             a listener's mind and heart being created through the power of a                poem.  After a reading, people have lined up to share their own                 memories evoked by something I have read.  Sometimes I have been                thanked for writing what listeners say they have long known or felt,            but could not express.  A poem has helped them know more about their            own experience.  And I, myself, have often felt that same shock of              recognition and insight when reading a good poem. 
But even more               importantly, long before I wrote my own poems, I used other's poetry            in my classes, whatever the subject I was teaching.  I still run                into students who say they remember nothing else but a poem we read             and the boy (or girl) in the next row.  I kept a file of poems and a            few anthologies next to the dictionary on my desk.  And I used                  them. 
Maybe you're thinking about how much you disliked poetry,               how intimidated you felt, how you never "got it."  I didn't much                like poetry in school either.  Because of the way it had been                   taught, I rarely had been allowed to experience the power of the                poem, taste its richness, let its texture really touch me before I              had to begin analyzing, dissecting, pulling apart.  Keep the                    dissecting in the lab.  Use poems to increase understanding and                 deepen enjoyment. 
Poems may be written in vernacular or rap, all              caps or lower case, but a good poem is always substantial, teaching             us about ourselves and the world. A poem's imagery and metaphors can            intensify and clarify meaning.  Poetry can turn on the light and                deepen meaning as nothing else can.  Which carries more                         meaning?  "That's a difficult class," or "I feel like shattered                 glass after that class." 
Two or three minutes may be enough.  A               poem that catches a class's interest may come up over and over in               discussion, be referred to again and again throughout the year as a             shared experience by which other moments may be measured.  What                 can't be seen or understood by more didactic methods of teaching may            suddenly be clarified by a poem. Poems touch us at deep levels,                 levels we don't or can't always articulate.  Meaning carried by                 metaphor and the condensed, tight language of a poem may penetrate              faster for learning disabled students as well as having great appeal            to gifted students because of a poem's many layers and the worlds               contained, but not necessarily voiced. In their richness, poems can             often be the source of "aha," or "Now I get it." 
Poems braid                  curriculum areas, breaking through boundaries, weaving things                   together: formulae to feelings, a long-ago lab experiment to                    today's, frustration to sudden laughter.  Poems contain values and              voice, time and place, past and present.  They carry within their               spareness the currents of rivers, the horizon, and the scent of                 loamy soil.  Nothing else but "some forms of advanced science --                particle physics, for example," says poet, educator, and 1996                   Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham, "allows a young mind to                     experience the paradox, ambiguity, irrational thought,                          associative 'leaping' any good poem teaches us to think and feel                in." POETS AND POEMS ON SCIENCEMargaret Atwood, "Selected                 poems 1965-1976," Houghton Mifflin, 1987. Includes such wonderful               poems as "The Woman who could not live with her faulty heart." 
e e            cummings, "The complete poems, 1913-1962," Harcourt Brace                       Jovanovitch, 1972. Includes such poems as "now air is air and thing             is thing: no bliss" and "[space being (don't forget to remember)                Curved)." 
Emily Dickinson, "Collected poems of Emily Dickinson,"              Doubleday, 1997. Most also available online at                                  userweb.interactive.net/~krisxlee/emily/poemsOnline.html.  Any                  collection will include such surprising and thought provoking gems              as "The Brain - wider than the Sky." 
Robert Frost, "Collected                 poems, prose, & plays by Robert Frost," R. Poirier and M.                       Richardson, eds. The Library of America, 1995.  Includes poems such             as "Our Hold on the Planet," and "Why Wait for Science?" 
Robinson             Jeffers, "Collected poetry of Robinson Jeffers Vol. II 1928-38." Tim            Hunt, Ed.  Contains beautiful pieces about the natural world, Big               Sur, and the California coast such as "Evening Ebb." 
Mary                     Oliver, "New and selected poems" and her other collections contain              quiet celebrations of animals, the moon, trees, the seasons.  A                 sampling of titles includes "Alligator Poem," "Poppies," "Water                 Snake," and "Black Snake." 
Marge Piercy, Mars and her children and            many of her other collections have poems about the gifts of the                 world including whales that visit the coast of Cape Cod, her cats,              and her garden. 
Muriel Rukeyser, "A Muriel Rukeyser reader," Jan              Levi, Ed., W W Norton, 1994.  Contains amusing and true poems of                praise for small things such as "The conjugation of the Paramecium"             and "St. Roach." 
William Carlos Williams, "Selected poems," New               Directions Publishing Corp., 1985.  Williams was a doctor who                   practiced full-time while writing some of America's finest poetry.              Many of his poems such as "Iris" are famous for their beauty and                power. 
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: 
Following are selected resources              listed in Volume 36, Issue 2 (March/April 2000) of "Science Books &             Films:" 
Brown, Kurt (Ed.).  (1998).  "Verse and universe:  Poems              about science and technology."  Minneapolis: Milkweed. 
Elder,                 John. (1985).  "Imagining the earth: Poetry and the vision of                   nature." Champaign, IL: University of Illinois. 
Fletcher,                     Ralph.  (1997). "Ordinary things: Poems from a walk in early                    spring."  NY: Atheneum. 
Frucht, William, (Ed.). (1999). "Imaginary            numbers: An anthology of marvelous mathematical stories, diversions,            poems, and musings." NY: Wiley. 
Goldish, Meish.  (1977).  "101                science poems & songs for young learners with hands-on activities."             NY: Scholastic. 
Steinman, Lisa M.  (1987). "Made in America:                  Science, technology, and American modernist poets."  New Haven, CT:             Yale University Press. 
ERIC RESOURCES: 
Searching the ERIC                   database (http://www.accesseric.org:81/searchdb/searchdb.html)                  using "poetry" as a descriptor, together with "science education" or            other science-related descriptors will lead to such resources as the            following: 
Romer, Robert H. (1993). Robert Frost and the Second               Law of Thermodynamics. "Physics-Teacher," 31(6),                                360. [EJ487023] 
Liftig, Inez Fugate. (1993). Getting the point                through poetry. "Science Scope," 16(7),                                         22-24.  [EJ473486] 
McClintock, James I. (1992). Gary Snyder's                 Poetry and Ecological Science. "American Biology Teacher," 54(2),               80-83. [EJ471647] 
Coletta, W. John, & Tamres, David H. (1992).                Robert Frost and the Poetry of Physics. "Physics Teacher," 30(6),               360-65. [EJ458331] 
WEB RESOURCES 
Using a search engine, such as             Google (http://www. google.com) and terms such as poetry and                    science, many Website similar to the following can be                           located: 
Science Through Poetry: A Cross-Curricular Approach                  http://www.ncrel.org/mands/docs/6-12.htm 
A Successful Experiment              in Poetry. A science poetry contest for schoolchildren.                         http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/rvp/pubaf/chronicle/v8/n11/poetry.html                 
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This digest was funded by the Office of Educational                   Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, under                   contract no. ED-99-CO-0024. Opinions expressed in this digest do not            necessarily reflect the positions or policies of OERI or the U.S.               Department of Education.                                                     **Title:** Poetry and Science Education. ERIC Digest.                                   **Document Type:** Information Analyses---ERIC Information Analysis Products (IAPs) (071); Information Analyses---ERIC Digests (Selected) in Full Text (073); **Available From:** ERIC/CSMEE, 1929 Kenny Road, Columbus, OH 43210-1080. Tel:                      800-276-0462 (Toll Free); e-mail: [email protected]; Web site:                     http://www.ericse.org.                                                       **Descriptors:**  Integrated Curriculum,  Language Arts,  Poetry,  Science Education,            Secondary Education                                                          **Identifiers:** ERIC Digests                                                                 
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