Poetry, art and science: complementary or contradictory?

I've never had a problem with the idea of science and art being compatible. Before my current role as writer-cum-law-student-cum-charity-worker I worked for a number of years as a research scientist, exploring the chemistry/biology interface and working on projects such as cancer drug discovery and global food security. A lot of my leisure time involves enjoying music, modern art, theatre and comedy as well as the literary arts, and I've never really seen a dividing line between these and what people tend to think of as "hard science". But a surprising number of people seem to be taken aback at my having interests on both sides of the arts/sciences "divide". People seem even more surprised at the idea of my having had a career, of sorts, in both.

In 2011 The Speakers' Corner (the spoken word night I co-run in York alongside Helen Sant and Joanna Ezekiel) featured for the first time in the programme for the York Science Festival. Our special guest was one of my modern literary heroes: the wonderful Diana Syder. Regular Soapbox readers will know just how in awe I am of this superb poet. As well as having four poetry collections under her belt, Diana holds a Public Awareness of Science award from the Institute of Physics and has been poet in residence in the Engineering department at Sheffield University. Her poetry is filled with wonder at the mysteries of the natural world and the achievements of science. When I first read her work, it seemed to encapsulate an excitement and joy which I could all too easily lose in the day-to-day grind of the research lab. She helped me see science through new eyes.

I was able to have a lengthy chat with Diana about the difficulties that people have in crossing the arts/science divide. One anecdote that came up concerned a cross-disciplinary festival at Cambridge University a few years ago. The idea of the festival was supposed to be that university staff could go and attend lectures and demonstrations given by experts from disciplines other than their own. The intention was to deepen the participants' knowledge and stimulate new ideas for interaction across the traditional dividing lines of academia. Apparently quite a number of scientists went to talks on fine art, literature, music and the humanities. Almost nobody from arts disciplines came to events organised by the scientists.

Did that mean scientists were more willing to step outside the boundaries of their disciplines than artists were? I'm not really sure. If anything, the result of our being in the Science Festival programme was the opposite: not a single new person came along to Speakers' Corner because of it. There was an excellent turn-out from our regulars, many of whom made a special effort to be there to hear Diana read her poetry. But there was precious little evidence of anyone from the scientific community "crossing the divide" and trying something new.

I have to admit that if my scientific training ever strays into my poetry, it does so unconsciously. A lot of what I write is inspired by imagery from the natural world - birds, wild plants, rock formations and sunsets - and although I don't exactly labour the point, I'm sure that my appreciation of the science as well as the aesthetics enhances the imagery in my poems. But I've almost never consciously chosen to write a piece inspired by my science. The nearest I ever got was a back-of-an-envelope love poem that went

"My love's like butyllithium.
I handle her with care.
I keep her under nitrogen
'cause she inflames in air"

which isn't likely to win me the Bridport Prize any time soon... I've had ideas for "sciencey" poems, to be sure, but they've rarely ventured any further than the idea stage. So to find a writer like Diana, for whom the link between the science and the art is so instinctive, is an absolute joy for me.

Is it really so difficult for artists and scientists to find inspiration in each other’s work? Or could we all benefit from a little exploration outside our usual field of expertise?

(A version of this article originally appeared in the Vitae Research Careers blog in March 2011)
(Special thanks to Diana Syder for the thumbnail image on this blog post - more can be found at http://www.dianasyder.com)

Ten Poems that Changed my Life

(Author's note: this article first appeared in issue 86 of NAWG LINK)

I'd like to pass on one of the best pieces of writing advice I've received. If you find the writing doesn't come, don't stress about writing – READ instead. Read your favourite things, the stuff that really inspires you. Immerse yourself in it, for weeks or months if necessary. Over time, those treasured writings will start to stir your subconscious, and get your imagination on the road to fruitfulness again.

I'll go a step further. Many people have a musical Top Ten, or a list of "songs that changed their life". So why not seek out the ten poems that changed your life, and use these as the starting-point for your literary therapy? Don't just list them – think about how and why they changed your life, why they're still meaningful today. Read them, again and again. Luxuriate in them.

I'll get you going by telling you a bit about ten poems that changed my life.

The first one goes back to my infant years, and Brian Cant (I think) on Play School (more than likely) reciting Wilma Horsbrugh's The Train to Glasgow. This has everything a perfect child's poem should have: it's full of rhythm and rhyme, delightful repetition, lovely unusual words, and it's really, really funny. I can still recite it today.

I have my Mum to thank for unleashing the storytelling power of poetry on me at an early age. Her eerie recitation of Edward Lear's fantastical ballad The Dong with a Luminous Nose is one of my earliest memories. She filled it with such weird musicality that it used to terrify me as a child; today, I consider it the finest gothic romantic poem ever written.

Roger McGough's First Day at School was another much-quoted childhood treasure. I didn't realise it at the time, but this was my first encounter with free verse. No less rhythmical or musical than The Train to Glasgow or The Dong, it's a joy to read aloud.

I came across Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village when I was 16, studying English Literature O-level. I have Irish heritage and this poem took me right back to where my ancestors might have started out. It was a blast of fierce political rhetoric, lambasting the establishment of the day for ruining a land and its inhabitants in the name of what we'd now call capitalism. At a time when my social and political conscience was still being formed, it stood strong alongside the repertoire of protest songs I was discovering.

O-level English Lit. also introduced me to Tennyson's The Lotos Eaters. Tennyson was well and truly part of the establishment that Goldsmith loathed. But he was a lyrical genius. Not only was this a slice of epic storytelling in a tradition that I loved, but it was one of the most musical things I'd ever heard (it demands to be read aloud).

After Tennyson, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land was a shock to the system! I blame a theatrical production by a university friend, not long after I moved away from home, for introducing me to this incredible piece of writing. I hardly understood any of it; at the same time I was mesmerised. The words, the chants, the half-glimpses of meaning wove a spell around me like nothing I'd experienced before. Suddenly I knew it didn't matter if I didn't always understand poetry, I loved it just the same.

J.R.R. Tolkien isn't best known for his poetry. A cursory glance at the form and structure of his Mythopoeia shows a number of stylistic weaknesses. But these didn't matter to me when I discovered that behind the shaky iambic pentameters lay the best excuse for imagination, ever! The poem was Tolkien's response to an argument with C.S. Lewis when Lewis was still an atheistic rationalist who sneered at storytelling and myth as "lies". Tolkien's defence of the storyteller's art was satirical, inspirational, and even a little prophetic when you consider the struggle that writers and dreamers still face against the dumbing-down of the world. The central stanza is a call to arms for poets and all creative writers to keep their eyes open, keep dreaming and marvelling at the wonder of the universe: "He sees no stars who does not see them first / of living silver made that sudden burst / to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song / whose very echo after-music long / has since pursued. There is no firmament, / only a void, unless a jewelled tent / myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth, / unless the mother's womb whence all have birth."

I’ve loved and lingered over almost all of Carol Ann Duffy's collections over the years, and have been lucky enough to hear her read a number of times. Our new Poet Laureate deserves to be represented in this list, though I struggle to settle on a favourite from her vast repertoire. The famous Valentine, a brilliant subversion of the classical love poem, is an obvious choice. But if pushed I think I might have to go for Star and Moon from the Meeting Midnight collection. A poem written for a close friend of the poet and for her unborn child, it has a breathtaking intimacy that I long to be able to emulate in my own poetry.

I was just beginning (unsuccessfully) to send my poems out to competitions when I discovered Diana Syder's Hubble. In my day job I'm a research scientist, and I'm acutely aware of how infrequently the scientific world and the poetic world overlap. It's not that they have no connection – more, perhaps, that many poets don't know how to make the connection. Syder, an astrophysicist, astonished me with her hymn of praise to the Hubble Space Telescope – and put a healthy dose of childlike wonder back into both poetry and science.

Just one more to choose: and for my last one I'll select something that brings me full circle, in Roger McGough's Poem for the Opening of Christ the King Cathedral, Liverpool, 1967. I grew up in Birkenhead, and the unique shape of "Paddy's Wigwam" sat on the skyline throughout my childhood. It symbolises family, community, my roots, and my faith. McGough, fellow Merseysider, catches the spirit of it perfectly.

There you have it. My poetry jukebox, or Ten Poems that Changed My Life. Which ten poems would you choose?