Mike,
I've got plenty of time for this poem, even if I'm critical of it, in parts.
I like the way it plays around with big ideas. So please take my enthusiasm
as read. I'm critical of it in the first half because it lacks the precision
of science and the passion of poetry. It's a very hard thing to put
scientific ideas into poetry and it's easy to fall between two stools, as I
know to my cost, but certainly worth the attempt IMO, particularly when such
ideas energise popular culture. Take: "a most basic sensitivity to light or
the capacity to respond to its stimuli.", this is too technical sounding. It
doesn't communicate to me through modes of poetry that I know. It's bit like
it's been snipped from a scientific mag, but at the same time it's not as
clear and concise as the best scientific writing can be. I suppose the first
five lines refer to the counter-argument against evolution that no organ
could function in an incomplete state, and therefore could not begin to
evolve through its dysfunctional precursors. But I don't know if I'd have an
inkling of that, if I didn't already know. It's quite big chunk of the poem
to be spent on such a struggle. I like the first two lines a lot, though.
Please don't change them.
The second part of the poem switches (successfully) to another mode of
talking. It's full of metaphor and hence is IMO agreeably poetic. However I
don't find that I get as much as I'd hoped from it. I'm interested in poetry
and I'm interested in evolutionary biology, but somehow that's not enough.
Certainly the use of mind's EYE is witty as a ref to the eye that has gone
before and is rich with possible connotations and certainly the last seven
lines of the poem can be followed as a depiction of someone who is intent on
what is before him to the exclusion of other knowledge, but I don't
understand how it all fits together or the significance of the second
character (after Darwin). Indeed I have difficulty following who the "he"
is. Is the poem a play on the painting by William Blake that satirises the
Newtonian approach to the Natural world (where Newton looks down on
minutiae, missing even the coral wonders on his chair)? I wondered if this
poem was a reversal of that with the Darwinian world lost to the excessively
religious person in prayer? But if so why does it have to be in an old
movie? My guess, and it may be the wrong advice because I'm not sure of your
objectives, would be to simplify the poem and torque up the personal/
emotional significance of the ideas. This may not be what you want to do and
if not please ignore it. It's your poem. Finally isn't it interesting that
such ideas seldom make it into poetry, whilst modern novels are much more in
touch with such trends in society. Take that novel Brazzaville Beach from
the early nineties, by William Boyd that you recommended to Arthur last
year. It's almost a manifesto for evolutionary psychology. No doubt poetry
is powerfully in touch with societal trends in other ways, but is there as
much
communion between the two as demonstrated by novels?
Colin
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 26, 2004 12:51 PM
Subject: new sub: The refugee of evolution
The Refugee Of Evolution
He knew Darwin had said of the eye
that it led him to question his theory,
in his own case, though, he had doubts about
a most basic sensitivity to light
or the capacity to respond to its stimuli.
When he replayed old scenes in his mindīs eye
it was like watching a movie
where a figure walks over uneven ground,
bearing a cloth-covered bowl which contains
an unnamed solution. He must not spill a drop.
So while the world watches him unheeded,
he fixes his attention on his hands,
oblivious to the birds that wing his secret
through the air, that it is written on every leaf.
Mike
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