Science Made Marvellous was launched in SA on the weekend at the Royal Institute of Australia's (RiAus) Science Exchange in Adelaide.
Nestled amongst a host of speakers addressing the science art divide, a Science themed Haiku inspired competition and a presentation of science meets art creations by the students of the Australian Science and Mathematics School: this was truly an event Where Worlds Collide.
Bellow you will find the published books as a result of the Science Made Marvellous competition. A poem from each book has been reproduced in full.
Each book is downloadable at no cost by clicking on the title or cover.
Earthly Matters
Biology & Geology Poems
Red-hot with Spiders
‘I am at present, red-hot with Spiders...’
Charles Darwin to J.S. Henslow, 1832
Charles Darwin to J.S. Henslow, 1832
I am burning with Spiders, each leg a friction match
to strike a flame. They are forming webs in my mind,
busy weavers; interlocking, strong, well-hung.
Ideas wriggle like half caught flies, too fleet to pin down.
At night the ship’s nauseous rocking lulls me into dreams.
I hear their susurrus inside the thin wood cupping me.
Stroked by the hot thread of the red-hot Spiders,
the bright eight-legged sirens leading me on
I wake and swing in this hammock of thought.
Wrapped in silk of flinchless reason;
so hard to ignore this original spin.
Copyright P.S.Cottier
Law & Impulse
Maths & Chemistry Poems
Gastric Juice
Pumped from my stomach
juice sharp enough
it dissolves gold
houses bugs
crazy for the pH
dismembering-car-strength acid
parts set out in the wrecker's yard
millimetre by millimetre
shedding metal skin
like my guts
cell by cell
sloughing off the lining
just as in oysters
where hourly irritation
grain by grain
sand creates pearls
my ulcer, a flaming
jewel of passion
juice sharp enough
it dissolves gold
houses bugs
crazy for the pH
dismembering-car-strength acid
parts set out in the wrecker's yard
millimetre by millimetre
shedding metal skin
like my guts
cell by cell
sloughing off the lining
just as in oysters
where hourly irritation
grain by grain
sand creates pearls
my ulcer, a flaming
jewel of passion
Copyright Kate Deller-Evans
Holding Patterns
Physics & Engineering Poems
Singularity
Causation is nowhere if
All the world is one event
Spring of a butterfly's wing stiff
With no meaning in the cyclone's course
And billiard-balls and planets sent
At angles skewed like letters in a name
Told like whimsies in a story
that accumulate but lay no claim
To deeper plays of force on force
Or formulae for simpler glory
More than the one continual unfolding
Awkward shape that always was
Already-all-of space and time and holding
Everywhere at bay the word - because
All the world is one event
Spring of a butterfly's wing stiff
With no meaning in the cyclone's course
And billiard-balls and planets sent
At angles skewed like letters in a name
Told like whimsies in a story
that accumulate but lay no claim
To deeper plays of force on force
Or formulae for simpler glory
More than the one continual unfolding
Awkward shape that always was
Already-all-of space and time and holding
Everywhere at bay the word - because
- David Mortimer
Copyright David Mortimer
Credit: Singularity: David Mortimer, Fine Rain Straight Down in Friendly Street New Poets 8
All Images are copyright to Poets Union Inc. Cover Art is copyright to specific photographers - click each cover to find out more.
A huge thank you to P.S.Cottier, Kate Deller-Evans (here & here) and David Mortimer who kindly allowed me to reproduce their poems in full on this blog.
Bulbar Dislocation
ReplyDeleteA violent fit of sneezing
And out pops his left eye!
Jesus Christ! cries the startled host;
The hostess swoons, fearing he might die.
Amid the tumult, he calmly contrives
To reinsert his mischievous eye,
And feign credible bewilderment
To mask precedents and an unspoken lie.
Boghos L. Artinian