Editorial

Interactions between poetry and science are by no means a new phenomenon. Look as far back as Dante’s Divine Comedy, which Alasdair Gray claims is ‘based on a model of the physical universe developed by the Pagan Greeks’ or to Milton’s Paradise Lost, in which Milton ‘made room in his poem for the solar system revealed through modern telescopes’ designed by Galileo (Gray 2012, 9–10) and you’ll find poetry and science sitting comfortably together. More recently, as Robert Crawford points out in his introduction to contemporary poetry and contemporary science, ‘readers now take it for granted that those Modernist impulses which dominated much of early twentieth-century literature from Joyce to Mayakovsky and from Paul Valery to T. S. Eliot were engaged with the epoch’s scientific revolution’ (2006, 1).

Such poetic works have informed our understanding of, amongst other things, what we comprehend as truth. This edition of Interdisciplinary Science Reviews acknowledges that our views of poetries and sciences are informed by our scientific and literary past, bringing our gaze forward to the twenty-first century. Indeed, you will find the theme of truth recurring throughout the articles included here, not simply to sketch what we believe to be true but to question our views by considering where they have come from. In this sense, the poetries and sciences may not only keep a record of our past, but challenge our present understanding and speculate about possible futures.

In December 2005, the Interdisciplinary Science Reviews published an issue on science and poetry (Vol. 30 No. 4), in which the editor, Howard Cattermole, argued that ‘the suggestion that science and poetry are somehow incompatible, or that scientists and poets should be by definition at loggerheads, is meaningless’ (289). I agree, and believe it is the nature of both the scientist and the poet to explore what is only partially known or understood in the hope of bringing us a step closer towards some form of realization. As Cattermole also points out, the scientist and the poet are curious creatures and each of them frequently uses a language of metaphor to explore their subject. I would go a step further to suggest that poets and scientists are actually working towards similar goals: the revelation of, or progression towards, a form of truth.

Another question altogether is what each discipline has to offer the other. This is perhaps best debated by poet-scientists, though one might argue that poetry offers an unusual means of entry, an alternative mode for expressing and exploring scientific ideas. Regarding the issue of what science can offer poetry, Edwin Morgan, — the first Scots Makar (d. 2010), who frequently wrote poems embodying scientific ideas — once said that poetry ought to consider ‘man within his whole environment: not just the drop of dew; the rose, the lock of hair, but the orbiting rocket in Anselm Hollo, the laboratory in Allen Ginsberg, the lunar mountains in Hugh Mae’. (1989, 8) If we accept Morgan’s view then the two disciplines must necessarily converge to provide a more complete understanding of the modern human condition in which science and technology play such integral parts in everyday life for so many people. Poetry cannot remain bound to the past, it cannot remain parochial; rather it must embrace change, including scientific changes, in order to respond to the lives of new generations.

Anthologies such as A Quark for Mister Mark (Riordan 2000), Dark Matter: Poems of Space (Riordan 2008) and Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poems from the UK (Jones 2012), as well as numerous single-author publications, demonstrate a growing public interest in poetry about science. Meanwhile the formation of the Centre for Poetry and Science at the University of Liverpool and The British Society for Literature and Science show an increasing level of importance being placed on the subject from an academic perspective. As a poet and literary scholar, I straddle both the creative and academic sides of the poetic fence and, consequently, wish to showcase the cutting edge work being done on each side. The first portion of this issue is therefore dedicated to contemporary research that explores the influence of our scientific and literary heritage on twenty-first century writing. The second portion approaches some of the thinking and methods behind the work of three contemporary poets whose work engages with scientific subjects, with extracts of their poetry by way of example. Therefore, I hope that this issue of the Interdisciplinary Science Reviews marks its position in this field of interest by not only looking back at science and poetry reflectively, but by challenging our understanding of the here and now, and looking forward to the possible avenues science and poetry might take in the future.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Russell Jones

Russell Jones is an Edinburgh-based writer, researcher and editor. He has published two collections of poetry: ‘The Last Refuge’ (Forest Publications, 2009) and ‘Spaces of Their Own’ (Stewed Rhubarb Press, 2013). He is also the editor of Where Rockets Burn Through: Contemporary Science Fiction Poems from the UK (Penned in the Margins 2012). Russell has a PhD in Creative Writing from Edinburgh University and has published on the science fiction poetry of Edwin Morgan.