522. Collection at the Intersections of Science and Poetry (and Song)

First off, to say this is a touchy subject for me... because all my poetry and lyrics are deeply embedded in thoughts and themes of science. The question is, how have science and poetry become so distinct, so divided? As I was scrounging around through the internet, I learned that a lot of early scientists and explorers expressed their knowledge through art and poetry. Haeckel is an obvious case, Darwin wrote a prose adventure novel on the origins of the species... and I encountered someone who wrote poetry about developmental biology. Scientific expression through artful means was rather common.

But then somehow through time, science and art started to split to a point in which scientists and artists in the same room would look at each other like they just sited a pack of aliens across the room. Milton Love and I even discussed this theme... somehow through time, the structure of scientific expression transformed from artful and emotionally driven to logical, robotic, emotionally-absent, highly precise, verbiage that no one intuitively enjoys reading, including scientists themselves (me being one). I told Milton that writing a scientific paper became meaningless as I discovered that it was like filling out a form and that only 10 people in the world was going to read it. But then again, as I discovered the difficulties of publishing POETRY and SHORT STORIES, I started to realize that ... well, at least I get my scientific paper published, and THANKFULLY ten people read it. I announced to Hector in the car a couple weeks back, "It is officially easier to publish a scientific article than a poem," and then my heart sunk as I scratched my head, "And a lot of the published poems SUCK, the poets already established a big name, and they say nothing in particular... geee, this is really sad." And THEN, I realized the SOLUTION to this double-edged sword (as I spoke with Barry Spacks) was TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT BEING REJECTED BY DOING SOMETHING MEANINGFUL AND BEING ACCEPTED DOING SOMETHING THAT HAS LOST MEANING OR VALUE. And that, would be meaningful! *Sigh*

Captions from Above Slideshow: Collection at the Intersection of Science and Poetry (and Song). Well?! I've written over 500 blogs, I can say it's extremely surprising that I'm covering such a topic "so late in the game." I've bene having a long-term discussion with Barry Spacks on the intersection of scientific knowledge and creative storytelling for the last two years now... and have learned sooo much... but at this point, I am paying particular attention to the inter-relationships between science and (specifically) poetry, as brought to the forefront through NCEAS'-Santa Barbara Poet Laureate gathering last June of 2009 (where Barry presented a poem, I was so excited to review it before its presentation!). In addition, as an undergraduate, I happened to run into a few oddball poems in the middle of my science textbooks and handouts... so I just started to save a few snipits of other people's work, and I sincerely hope the collection grows!

The Poetry of Science. June 5, 2009. 8pm. Fe Bland Forum at SBCC. Sponsored by The National Center fo Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. Santa Barbara City College Creative Writing Program. Santa Barbara Laureate. My professor Barry Spacks (or poetry pal?) presented a poem and the only metaphor I remember out of the whole event (a year later) is how scientists behave like swarms of bees. Some snipits of Barry's poem: “Mostly she likes to count, to fill spreadsheets, to sample populations, invent software,” he read, garnering laughs from the audience, including Ryan, who stood on stage with him. “Oh, scientists so like to count! And foremost to get it right! While we slovenly poets need wild elixir for our work..." Noozhawk wrote an article on the event HERE. :

PDF of the Poetry of Science can be found here: http://sites.google.com/site/stokastika2/poetryprogramfullfinal5inorder.pdf.

"This is How Shxt Happens" Poem that I yanked off of Dr. Raul Suarez' office door to make a photocopy. We both tried to find the source of this poem but it was futile (one of Dr. Suarez' predecessors). Most likely it was an imitation of a well-known poem of "This is How Shxt Happens" in the corporate world. Fall of 2008. (probably will include in an essay in Ecology of Scale / Environmental Metaphors). Written on the Blog 105 .

"When a Fellow Needs a Friend" icthyological (fishy) poem by the esteemed Dr. Milton Love. Found in the book "Probably More Than You [Ever] Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast." This poem captures the miniscule parasitic male clamping onto the gigantous female of anglerfish. Whacky and very sexually exploritative! Uploaded Fall of 2007. Blog found at http://www.biologicallyincorrect.org/2007/09/two-and-half-poems-by-dr-milton-love.html (Two and a Half Poems by Milton Love).

"Reproductio Ad Absurdum" icthyological (fishy) poem by the esteemed Dr. Milton Love. Found in the book "Probably More Than You [Ever] Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast." This poem explores the bold and edgy notion of sex changes in fishes (wrasses, basses specifically). Uploaded Fall of 2007. Blog found at http://www.biologicallyincorrect.org/2007/09/two-and-half-poems-by-dr-milton-love.html (Two and a Half Poems by Milton Love).

Page 1. "Sweet Parasite Lovin'" Spoken Word by Martin Moretti, as found in my Parasitology Laboratory/Handbook from Dr. Armand Kuris' epic UCSB course... back in 2003.... Sigh... I still wish I were still an innocent undergrad... (missing poem Ode to an Alga)

"Digital" Lyrics by Mia Doi Todd. Last quarter I had the golden opportunity to watch her and Michel Gondry perform at Spaceland in Silverlake, California, though unfortunately she did not sing this song, which is potentially my favorite of hers. Though the lyrics metaphorically detail some form of intense male-female relationship, the metaphors evoke scale in a scientific fashion.

The one very weak spot in the entire tune is use of the term "plastic bag lubricated safety tube." All lyrics were surreal and metaphorical, and then this moment of precise, literal, and TACKY language destroyed the essence of the song--the worst part is that Mia ACCENTUATES these words when SINGING! I cringe every time I pass through this part.... Maybe that is why this song is not super famous, which it deserves to be. I think a more benign, and metaphorical term like "love glove" would be more appropriate... and the strange thing is that she had NO RHYMES to constrain her word choice... and still decided to use such gnarly words!

Refer to BLOG 454, an analysis of "The Fish" by Elizabeth Bishop.

"Science and Poetry" is like this whole can of worms I just opened... A can of worms so large I feel it's even worth exploring for an entire quarter, like in a College of Creative Studies Course (e.g. Bruce Tiffney and Hank Pitcher go out to Sedgwick Ranch and both offer commentary on landscapes when designing artwork depicting landscapes).

Here are some websites and names that may serve as starting points:

http://www.firstscience.com/home/poems-and-quotes/poems.html
Classic poets address science in their works.

http://www.helpstoknow.com/html/ps/
An attempt toward a first e-zine devoted to the intersection of science and poetry. Seems pretty dead right now, but it's certainly the right idea!

Of course, there are endless resources on Ecocriticism, "Nature Poetry" (like in Orion)... etc...

And then... just in the last hour I encoutered more than enough media classified in the "LAME" category... or "SUPER LAME" and "SUPER TACKY" category. For example, I encountered this Youtube video entitled "The Symphony of Science," and it was essentially old footage of science figureheads (Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss, Michael Shermer, to name a few...) with altered voices to make it seem like they were singing to some techno music track. Ummm... I'm sorry, if people were inspired by this piece (as state on Youtube comments), I could say this was more disturbing than inspirational. There was no sense of artfulness in the visual aspects, though quite a bit of technical music skills were portrayed (plus a lot of patience to dig through old video footage)! I'm trained as a scientist and I could barely watch any of these music videos. In all truth, I am appalled that there is recycling of old footage "old science icons" rather than generating new icons, characters, adventures...

Another tacky hit I got was a video called Science Cheerleader and it ended up being a bunch of ditzy blond (some were blond) high school girls waving pom poms and narrating "fun facts" about physics and chemistry and advocating that science was cool. Ummm... this honestly to me... was a bit degrading... to both parties... the cheerleaders no longer looked cool and the scientists were being associated with ditzy cheerleaders supposedly saying intelligent things (without demonstrating much comprehension of their knowledge).

So, the reason is that WHY I am in environmental media, is because the old "science and society stories" are OLD and the ICONS are the same old icons... and novelty is needed.... I'm also environmental media because I want to make Tackiness and Lame go EXTINCT.

486. A Very Random Slam Poem... Poetry and Parasitology... Do Not Ask...

Poetry and

Parasitology

iza Wild West

of Literature

and Biology.

And so I've come

to practice both.

For th' opportune

to self-impose

the Wildness

and Westness

into my Prose!

This poem was invented about ten minutes ago by my accidentally talking to myself. Ooops! This is what happens when a biologist starts creative writing: the invention of very strange, esoteric... associations. Well, at least it rhymes!

This poem is the merging of two separate incidents. When speaking with poetry pal Barry Spacks, I had once told him that to me, poetry is like the Wild West of literature. And then when I was blathering away with my fisherman friend Jules who has had several encounters with ocean parasites (and I told him about the bizarre life cycle of rhizocephalan barnacles hosted in spider crab), this comment just slipped off my tongue: "Parasitology is the Wild West of Biology. Once you thought there were some rules and some structure to the discipline, all of the rules seem to be broken or severely modified when you start studying parasites."

And so my silly brain gave birth to a poem associating Poetry and Parasitology. Voila!

I was just crafting a "justification" statement/essay for The Mountain's Last Flower, and I was trying to craft a fundamental method for my prose. Basically, I feel that the craft of writing poetry has tremendously freed up my mind from any arbitrary literary constraints, just as parasites did for the biological side of my brain (which is close to all of it), and then I think venturing into prose from a poetic, yet scientifically precise point of view constructs the notion of "poetic precision" and "layered, nonlinear minimalism" in my writing, which have been very touching compliments from quite a few people over the last few years. Scientists doing creative writing may produce a lot of useless byproduct (like the poem above), but at least they can breed new habits into the stale conventions of modern journalistic-like creative writing.

Guinea pig Victoria is, indeed!

485. Photography and Poetry for the Day After the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) Storm ::: Recuperation on the Ocean

Blurb for Photography Collection:
The Day After the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force Storm ::: Recuperation on the Ocean.
The day after the November 10, 2009 Blue Ribbon Task Force Meeting, I knew that my dire condition of mental chaos needed to be soothed and repaired by the ocean itself. Most importantly, after drowning in the waves of human commotion within the confines of a hotel room of quintessential corporate drab decor, you kind of need to be reminded WHY I or any one of us even go these these information-barbaric AA (Alternative Addictions for the Ocean) meetings in the first place! We're all fish out of water in these gatherings... we just want to return to where we all truly want to be... by or on or under the Big Blue itself. After all the entropy of the previous day, I was compelled to take and edit photographs that displayed warm starkness, bleakness... sheer minimalism... reconstructing a blank slate for my brain. So instead of taking pictures of seagulls, I decided to take pictures of REFLECTIONS of seagulls in the calm morning waters of Point Loma, California.

PDF for the poem "Incestuous" can be found here:
http://sites.google.com/site/stokastika2/incestuouspoem1.pdf.

The circumstance for creating this poem was actually "post October 22, 2009" Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force (BRTF) Meeting. I remember myself driving in the dark towards Santa Barbara (probably from Los Angeles, Riverside, or San Diego--I don't remember). So, I ended up writing two poems in response to my first round of BRTF meetings. This one and "Part of the Process" in Blog 472. The most powerful metaphor I was ever told about fishing was "a fisherman's goal is to essentially get to know his region so well that he is able to mentally 'pull up the blue blanket' and know all the nooks and crannies of the terrain underneath. Instead of being on being on the ocean and catching fish, the world is transformed such that the fisherman is floating on a boat in the sky and is using his hooks/lines/traps to capture floating birds and rodents in the mountains and valleys and vegetation below." This metaphor keeps coming back to me in a pleasantly haunting way, and then I kept thinking about all the metaphors fisheries reps have thrown at me and I started to come to realize that the "summation of these isolated metaphors" seemed to embody some kind of intimate love-hate relationship between a male and female, except in this case it's a male fisherman and female ocean. And of course, being bored in the car, my mind started to form a poem/song ditty in the middle of the night, now finalized as "Incestuous." The last poem I sent to my ultimate poetry pal Barry Spacks was this "Part of the Process," and he didn't really fully process the poem--though the people I spoke to at the BRTF MLPA meetings most certainly responded with a laugh, "Oh, I get it! I totally get it!" I realized that this poem was only registered by those who have experienced and endured the MLPA process, and it seems to the rest of the folks out there, these poems seem to be a bunch of riddles. The latest poems I have given to Barry, he responded in such a way that they will only be understood "if I provide footnotes." This has become a consistent theme in our email transactions. I have become increasingly frustrated, but at the same time I have to remember that "I am a scientist or a brain immersed in science for 20+ years dumping a bunch of new metaphorical associations into the literary world, which is riddled with stretched associations of the same / usual metaphors" (from Mike Davis' class), so the best thing that I can do is to assume completely nothing of the audience (though Barry at one point said to assume an astute audience when submitting to literary journals, but this audience is only "astute" in terms of the nuances of "literary tradition," but I have come to learn that their backgrounds in science, engineering, and most other fields of trade are quite weak." So, the best thing I can do now, is that nearly every poem I write, I NEED TO WRITE FOOTNOTES TO EXPLAIN THE CONTEXT OF THE POEM.

And in light of this NEW HABIT, I wrote a footnote for "Incestuous," which is included below:

"—This poem/ditty attempts to capture the relationship between a California fisherman and regional segment of the ocean to where he fishes, in which in this case, the ocean is metaphorically replaced in order to describe an edgy, dicey, yet subsisting affair with a female. The feminine analogy parallels the more common “mother earth” construct, except this poem documents a more precise “love-hate” relationship of “temptation and taming.”

Some unusual notes of the day out on the water with Jules:

(1) We did some sheephead trap fishing with the nearshore fisheries and we got a hit of 8 or so fish in one of the 8 traps.

(2) We caught our personal goal/quota of 50 legal sized lobsters, though we probably caught and released hundreds of lobsters all together.

(3) I made some significant advances in photography: (a) I FINALLY figured out how to adjust the APERTURE of my Nikon D80 though I had this dang camera for almost THREE YEARS! (b) I discovered that my "extra gadget/gizmo lenses and filters" for my ancient prosumer camera Nikon Coolpix 5700 were compatible with my Nikon D80 lenses, and so now I have a telephoto lens and a fish eye lens attachment I only paid 50 bucks for ebay, and if I bought 'official' lenses otherwise, it would probably rack up a cost of $2000. Definitely works with my impoverished graduate student budget! (c) So I ended up prolifically using the "fish eye lens" on our Point Loma boat trip today, and I decided that every single time I go on the boat, I will have to experiment with (i) a specific theme aka "Evolution of Art" or (ii) a specific technological trick/contraption, e.g. new lighting tools or filters or lenses. (d) I started becoming bored with taking "ordinary photographs" and I'm more interested in creating surrealistic effects with photographs or "imposing a reality in the photograph that's not necessarily there in the outerworldly reality" (which is what makes MRH's photographs unique and distinctive); low shutter speed, high aperture, soft focus, losing details, intentionally fogging the lens with your breath or even with vaseline!

(4) I feel guilty because instead of my head filling up with names of fishes and invertebrates, it's been clogged with names of people/individuals from the MLPA process. I'm experiencing lots of interference with recent memory of the MLPA process and my deep memory of taking my invertebrate zoology and parasitology courses. *Sigh.* But at the same time, I had ironic visions for that MLPA film: (a) comparing personalities of stakeholders to personalities of ocean creatures (b) the discrepancy between language and the visual reality of the place, for example, Jules was giving me an orientation to this very thick Point Loma Kelp bed, "Oh, the Marine Map says there's not kelp here. Especially there's no persistent kelp around here" while in the backdrop our boat was getting tangled with the excessive forest of kelp breeching the water surface (I guess at low tide) (c) Bedford did some really cute "hand-finger movements" to display the whole "moving the goal posts" metaphorical effect of the Science Advisory Team... that definitely goes into the flick. (d) overlay of corporate drab hotel scenery with interplaying ocean scenery... definite theme....

KEY WORDS: atmospheric photography, surrealism, poetry, south coast Marine Life Protection Act, MLPA, ocean, photography, alternative addictions for the ocean, fine art, minimalism, abstract, incestuous, ocean-sky-fish-birds metaphor, ditty, song, blanket metaphor, mother earth, footnotes, photographic learning, male-female relationships, fish-eye lens, telephoto lens, MLPA film

470. Roadtrip Nation Briefing with the Barry Spacks Creative Writing / Teaching Interview, Santa Barbara, California

Before all the hubbub of Extras and Central Casting, Shannon and I had a spectacular evening interviewing my poetry professor/writing pal thee-one-and-only Barry Spacks! He's been already embedded in my brain... and my blog... and so I call it, attempting to acquire the "Barry Spacks" consciousness, which includes unboundedness, succinct artfulness, and telling stories for the sake of storytelling without butchering the story (and poem) for the message. Aka preachy used-carsalesmanesqueness for the environment. Thoughts lingered the day after as I unwillingly stormed into Los Angeles to sign up for Central Casting (it's not that I didn't want to do it; I just felt overwhelmed... didn't want to do it that particular time and day...).

Shannon and I ventured into Barry's and Kimberly's cozy little Victorian home off Bath Street in downtown Santa Barbara... and I was finally able to see his office den, which is riddled with very cool art I had NEVER seen before--Barry had not placed on his website (there's one I particularly liked, playing on the notion of an inner universe and an outer universe, boundaries of order and chaos). I remember seeing the livingroom scene. I remember Barry being interviewed about the craft of teaching poetry to the local Cable Channel and I was like--we need a NEW setting. The sun was setting quite fine and there was little light left when Barry and Shannon settled in the kitchen, on a bench, with really cool figurines and cacti and buddha-like wood carvings in the background. Maybe a little cluttery, but interesting all the same. It represents Barry.

I have about 1 hour of interview footage and some B-roll. Perhaps I need to get some footage of the house--external B-roll, perhaps a later time. I remember showing up early, sitting in the car, contentedly delving into "Dead Cities" by Mike Davis, two key chapters on impact tectonics and "a natural history of dead cities." It's fine writing, but I would have to do a lot of "fact checking" in order to verify the validity of the prose.

But anyhow, Shannon was a superb interviewer as usual, and Barry had some very crucial points to make that are guarantees to be included in our Roadtrip Nation film.

(1). Major quote of the day. The most important thing I need, besides breathing, is to have the right to be creative, every single day. And Barry is fortunate he is able to squeeze creativity time, every single day.

(2). Major drivers of storytelling: message driven, or story-telling driven. Learn how to tell stories for the sake of telling stories. Messages can be there, but don't bombard with messages like meteor impacts with a sacrifice of the art! Major issue with environmental-related storytelling. (Need to balance message with storytelling). (Sierra Club storytelling junk mail used car salesman letter I received).

(3). Barry's a skeptic as to whether people can easily be scientists and artists, all in the same head. And, me, I, Victoria, am some form of guinea pig to see if I can get away with BOTH. Barry said that the writing style of science is so strict, so exacting, so precise, so lanuage-tecky, so robotic, that he is not sure that if scientists can easily start learning how to write poems, which require a mentality and looseness about the field. Barry actually recommends scientists to PAINT rather than do CREATIVE WRITING in order to get into an "artistic mode." Though, a scientist going into creative writing does have some BENEFIT. They have a greater repertoire, inventory of metaphors that are not necessarily common or accessible to the public. So, scientists in their tecky, specialized worlds have an opportunity to bring new material to the creative writing process. Most creative writers only tap into "the great history of American/World writing," they don't outsource in terms of their experiences and subject matters.

(4). A beautiful metaphor. Most writers/individuals in America are focusing on ME ME ME. Self growth and self development until the self becomes the center of the universe and there is no other universe out there. But what Barry emphasizes in class and in writing in general is to take this big ball of an "ego" and scrunch it and smoosh it down to a little blue gem, and then smash it with your foot, and watch the dust blow away in the wind. (But why is the gem blue?) If you are a true writer, the sense of self completely vaporizes and you become the system to which you are writing. FORGET THAT THE SELF EXISTS AND YOU BECOME THE SYSTEM AND THE STORY ITSELF. That's a trip. I can do it easily. When I was high school I was practicing this all the time. I had no sense of self. I was everything around me, but not my self. Then because everything around me had pulverized me into an anorexic stick, I had to invent this concept of self at age 17 just to survive and realize that I cannot be at the whims of my surroundings all the time. But then again, my sense of self has developed to be very relativistic, more so what is my place in this universe and society? The relative self in light of the evolution of the universe and life on earth. I feel very small... now by default. No new epiphanies here. But I suppose, intrinsic to my own personalities, and given a non-disturbing background, I can very easily forget that I exist and become the things that I am writing about. As I told many people, when I am writing a story, I am experiencing it. I am seeing it. I'm going through the emotions. I am experiencing it. This philosophy is associated with Buddhism, I think. Barry's affiliated with Tibetan Buddhism? I think, as well as works a little with Zen Buddhism and Koan-stuff.

(5). I learned that potentially a very easy way to get out of service in the military is to state that you wanna be a "poet" when you grow up. It worked for Barry back in the day!

(6). Barry and I are both prolific ramblers, so I guess it's very good that Shannon was there, and she was interviewing, because if it were Barry and me... well, it's dangerous... black hole phenomenon of human conversations.... Black holes are cool though!

(7). Having participated in theater, Barry considers himself a "performer" when he's teaching. People don't even realize that teaching is a performance practice and study.

I lost an orange clamp.

And another final key point that Barry made is that ... he recited a poem to us. It was about a mountain, and how sometimes we are given knowledge--as if we were being spoonfed--and sometimes don't we wish we simply didn't know? The poem reminded me of the brutality of those car GPS units like "Constance" in Mark the photographer's car. That machine made the process of driving and exploring a totally mindless, mechanical experience, and there is no sense of spontaneous adventure otherwise. Sometimes you wish there were no grid there. No grid left. No grid at all! You could re-invent the universe all to your self! Who wants all knowledge at the finger tips? Invent your own worldly map!

After the interview, I talked with Barry one-on-one about our novella-sharing. It was very-much-needed advice! This is potentially our next subject of discussion! And then I went to find Shannon and wished Ben happy birthday at Sharkeys downtown Santa Barbara. The bar was empty for once. And then I had Freebirds and went to bed. Zzzzz....