Cross-Pollinations: The Marriage of Science and Poetry (Credo)
Literary ethnobotanist Nabhan, a captivating storyteller in command of complex ecological thought, appeals to both our intellect and our imagination in his groundbreaking books, which includeComing Home to Eat(2002). In his latest thoughtful rumination, a contribution to the worthy Credo series that also includes Rick Bass, Alison Hawthorne Deming, and William Kittredge, Nabhan offers a fresh and stimulating analysis of the crucial role cross-pollination plays both in nature and in human endeavors. Drawing on such personal experiences as his own color-blindness to reveal how an unexpected "perceptual shift" can lead to new understanding, he recounts how an attentive reading of an O'odham song-poem about the profound relationship between the sacred datura and the hawkmoth yielded invaluable scientific knowledge, and how an Amy Clampitt poem helped him solve the puzzle of how desert foods once protected desert people from diabetes. Nabhan is at once scientist, mystic, and artist as he marvels over the surprising results of the usually covert cross-pollination between art and science, an interaction that truly does deserve more conscious cultivation.Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved