Pattiann Rogers on the Scientific Underpinnings of Poetry
“Poets judge their own reactions to the words and the forms they have chosen.”
When I first began to write poetry seriously, years ago, I came across essays published in magazines and journals written by people who were not poets but whose thoughts have stayed with me and influenced me.
One of these essays appeared in The Atlantic in 1992 and was titled “The Case for Human Beings,” by Thomas Palmer. In a portion of this essay, the author wrote a short summary of evolution in simple, colloquial language, ending with this sentence: “It was as if Nature, after wearing out several billion years tossing off new creatures like nutshells, looked up to see that one had come back and was eyeing her strangely.”
That was the beginning of humanity as a wondering, curious, questioning creature; maybe even the first question, a uniquely human invention. Scientists and poets, each in their own ways, still continue asking, exploring, and discovering. Who are we? Where are we? How did we get here? What are our limits? What are our obligations? What does it mean to be human? What is nature?
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