Oh, I'm sorry, Gerald--I didn't mean to seem to be NOT asking you for
recommendations too (and I'm very glad of the tip on Allman, who's unknown
to me). I was just responding to Peter's having said he was reading a lot
more good science poetry these days.
Also wanted to ask the both of you--and everybody else, while I'm at it--if
you've read Rob Swigart's _Directions_? It can be purchased at the Eastgate
Systems "serious hypertext" site for $19.95 (beyond my budget at the moment,
so haven't read it myself): http://www.eastgate.com/catalog/q14.html
It's apparently based on the Periodic Table, which I once tried to
reorganize as a poem for a junior high science class (failed!), and Swigart
himself describes _Directions_ as "a quasi-sentimental pseudo-scientific
hyperpoem." Be real interested to know what you think of it, if you know it
or care to slap down $19.95 for it. (Oh, and you should know that it's
downloadable only to a Macintosh, plus requires a HyperCard.)
One other thing re a comment Peter made on your poem about neutrino tracks,
I'd half-assumed when I read it that the image was perhaps drawing on the
terrible damage caused by the November 12th implosion at the Kamioka
Observatory, photographs of which were published a few days later
(http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/doc/sk/photo/pmt-damage/index.html). Of
course, this isn't a track left by neutrinos, but more like the storm damage
left in their wake. Still, I did wonder if that's what you had in mind, not
knowing when your poem was written.
Candice
on 1/11/02 1:40 PM, schwartzgk at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> Candice:
>
> While I know your question was directed to Peter, I'd like to chime in with
> a poetry-of-science/science poetry selection, Scenarios for a Mixed
> Landscape by American poet, John Allman (1986, New Directions).
>
> Not exclusively brimming with "science poems", the volume houses poems
> attempt, at one level, to look back to the changing, "mythical" universe of
> Lucetius' of benign random change. But he does more: his work brings
> insights cast in the words of science, evolution. There ARE awesome
> possibilities in what he's made.
>
> Gerald
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 12:53 PM
> Subject: Re: A Responsibility to Awe
>
>
>> Let me add my thanks to Gerald's, Peter, since I found your comments on
> his
>> poem instructive too--and I'll definitely be asking you to vet my own poem
>> eventually, if you can spare the time when the time comes. In the meantime
>> (ahem!), can you recommend any other science-poetries as highly as
> Elson's,
>> or at least point us toward some of that "good stuff" you say you're
> reading
>> "these days"?
>>
>> To clarify my point about Sokal being a throwback to the "two cultures"
>> school of (mutually alienated or estranged) thought, remember that his
>> _Social Text_ hoax began with his own inability to penetrate the language
> of
>> critical theory and his assumption on the basis of his own limitations
> there
>> that it wasn't comprehensible or substantive at all. That indicates to me
>> such a profound arrogance about one's own normative status and an equally
>> profound disrespect toward specialized knowledges other than one's own as
> to
>> leave Sokal way behind, out of step with, the spirit and the letter of
>> art/science interplay happening now. (What his reputation is as a
> physicist,
>> have no idea--but I have my doubts!)
>>
>> Finally, thank you, Gerald, for that beautiful post on Lucretius, which I
>> printed out and have reread several times now with great pleasure!
>>
>> Candice
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