by Jo Marchant

“What do poets and scientists have in common? I admit “not much” was my first thought, so when I heard about a poetry and science event hosted by the London charity Poet in the City, I was intrigued enough to go and see what all the fuss was about.

“Four poets who use science as inspiration for their work – Lavinia Greenlaw, Maurice Riordan, Mario Petrucci and Michael Symmons-Roberts – spoke at the event (hosted at the new Wellcome Collection galleries in London, UK), to explain why they think poetry and science go together, and to read us some of their poems. You can watch them in the videos below.

” “Rigour” was the first theme to arise. Although scientists are often seen as rigorous, the poets insisted that rigour is key to their work too. It is important in terms of how they observe the world around them, how they derive meaning from those observations, and how they try to describe that meaning as precisely as possible.

“Another shared challenge was the need to communicate new and unfamiliar concepts – for which appropriate words and metaphors may not already exist – without resorting to lazy clichés that may distort the meaning. As Lavinia Greenlaw points out, so much science now happens at a level we can’t see, so science depends more and more on metaphor and analogy to communicate itself.

“The poets also pointed out that both groups of people spend most of their time at the coal face, working at the very edge of their understanding (“at the end of a plank”, as one audience member nicely put it), before coming up with a result. And of course their work is never finished – there is always further to go.

“Greenlaw suggested, that as with some leading-edge scientists, poets can often be trying to communicate ideas that mainstream society isn’t ready to hear. “The poetry we write now will be read in 50 years time – people will catch up with us,” she said. “At least, I hope they will!”

“To hear the poets talking about what poetry and science can learn from each other, and reciting some of their poetry, click the videos below.”