0:04
space my father brought home the blue
0:11
jacketed government-issued views of the surface of the Moon parsed printed and
0:21
bearing the cross hairs of our optics on modeled fields where illusion made
0:28
bubbles of craters as we watched my small body tracking toward a moon cycle
0:35
still years away toward wings I would seek to merit and a paper to confirm my
0:43
degree in postulating the deep workings of a universe but not the world who
0:49
sings to us first before the logic of reason before speech equations forged in
0:59
the engines of memory hot interiors of moments that melt thought to muscle and
1:08
words to thought good afternoon and
1:19
welcome to our art meets science at SLAC lecture at different physics the poetics
1:25
of discovery the art meets science lecture series investigates the
1:30
intersections between these creative approaches to exploring the world around
1:36
us I'm Angela Anderson from the slack Office of Communications and I thank you
1:42
all for coming this afternoon and I welcome you to stay for the reception following the talk it'll take place in
1:48
the lobby just outside the auditorium doors you just heard from poet Lisa Rosenberg who will share more of her
1:55
fascinating poems in just a moment here to introduce her is Roger Blandford
2:00
professor of physics and particle physics and former director of the Kavli Institute for particle astrophysics and
2:07
cosmology whose home is right here in this building Roger and his group study
2:13
some of the most extreme events in the universe such as black hole neutron stars and white dwarfs I'm sure
2:22
we'll learn more about the poetry of science as he engages our poet speaker
2:27
today in conversation following her presentation please welcome Roger Blandford through poetry essays in
2:46
conversation Lisa Rosenberg works from shared territory in science and art she holds
2:54
degrees in both physics and creative writing and was a wallace stegner fellow
2:59
in poetry here at Stanford prior to the Fellowship she worked as a research
3:04
engineer in space craft hardware and flew as a private pilot she later
3:11
founded the marketing consulting practice and recently served as the second poet laureate of San Mateo County
3:19
her debut poetry collection a different physics was awarded the red mountain
3:25
poetry prize released last year Lisa's
3:32
poems explore natural and cultural landscapes the art of making and the
3:38
drive to question inherited models she's creating a series of Poli disciplinary
3:45
essays and engagements bringing pools of poetry and science to the ocean discourse on our modes of inquiry and
3:52
enterprise she looks forward to continuing this work in the newly
3:58
awarded Geraci residency for scientists and artists in 2020 the Rosenberg
4:13
[Applause] Thank You Roger for volunteering or
4:19
agreeing to be drafted into conversation with me today thank all of you for being
4:25
here and my thanks also to this very gifted team of people here at SLAC who put
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together these events I'd also like to acknowledge the great generosity of
4:38
thought of those who created conceived of and created this lecture series of
4:45
art meets science and knowing that this space has probably witnessed many more
4:52
lectures than poetry readings I am going to talk for just a bit give a reading
4:58
and then Roger and I will we'll be in conversation to explore more of the
5:04
questions that the poems and the talk bring up and then welcome questions from
5:10
all of you so art meets science and they
5:15
do meet in many ways and in more ways than intersections and the notions of
5:24
complementarity can reveal I found that if we look through a lens of commonality
5:31
and from that shared territory that is really where some of the very powerful
5:36
tools and insights can come from we know
5:42
from you know current conversations ongoing investigations that poetry and
5:49
physics specifically art and science more broadly are these exquisite ways of
5:55
describing and gaining understanding about this nonlinear universe a very
6:03
cyclical world and they offer the opportunity to be in something other
6:10
than our ingrained ways of thinking and working so the more we can use those
6:19
invitations to to think differently than we normally think whether it's outside of our
6:24
discipline or outside of our habits the more we do have access to the processes
6:31
that put us in discovery mode a poem a
6:37
piece of scientific work these are processes of exploration that allow us
6:44
to be in synthesis which is one word for insight to come to discoveries or
6:52
epiphany and we can think of it Tiffany as we could discontinuous insight you
6:57
know that kind of huge leap where we don't see the small logical steps or
7:03
ways of coming to those things that really are emergent properties of
7:10
complex dynamic systems and in that sense I I do consider the act of poetic
7:19
composition and also with reading and experiencing a poem to be exploratory spaces poetry is problem-solving on
7:30
multiple levels with many interdependencies and we're usually
7:35
talking about emergent effects as opposed to discrete characteristics so
7:43
in the spirit of that I chose the the poem space to open with we're going to
7:50
go back in time just for a moment to you
7:56
know from that was an animation of a model of dark matter that was on the screen there these are very old
8:02
photographs I collected this collage from hard copies at home from these old
8:08
JPL notebooks that my father had we used to have the outdated versions lying
8:14
around the house to peruse wonder over or scribble on whatever the case may be
8:20
so many of you probably have had that experience of you know it's a bubble no
8:27
it's a crater and then being able to make it go back and forth which was great fun but
8:33
mostly I shared this piece because in part it's a very condensed biography it
8:39
answers questions that you could not answer in a single paragraph or more but
8:44
more importantly because this really was a case where I had to remain or put
8:52
myself in a mode of exploration and not go where I was trying to drive it so I
8:59
had a very tightly held agenda of what I wanted this poem to do I wanted it to be
9:04
so it biographical and I wanted it to arrive at some great kind of cosmological insight or confluence of
9:13
the artistic in the scientific and I had to let that go
9:18
it was um it went through many many versions over years finally ended up in
9:23
the format it has when I decided to open with the line about my father bringing these these photographs of these books
9:30
home and the Wonder and to follow that wonder and instead of ending up at a
9:37
great cosmological insight I ended up at something very very specific about my humaneness that I would not have found
9:45
otherwise so I I would like to talk a little bit about the process of
9:51
exploration and discovery and then read some poems that aren't necessarily about
10:00
science per se and I use the word about very reluctantly whenever I discuss
10:05
poetry but poems that illustrate different ways that that process of
10:11
exploration might happen on different sets of constraints and I have to say I
10:18
love being here and talking that way because it needs to be an engineering
10:23
world kind of my everyday speak loaded with too many acronyms and then the
10:30
acronyms fall away and then we we use say the language of the literary world or the linguistics side of things and so
10:38
we'll bring back in just a few words like constraints so what is our work our
10:44
work whether we are building a poem making a
10:50
poem or hunting for a quasar we have an initial point we have a point we end up
10:57
at and we have a process in the middle so um you go back to dark matter in a
11:09
bit in a very simple sense we I mean invite us to really open up our language
11:14
because our language and our thinking are very much coupled and the more we can create a larger frame for our
11:23
terminology the more open we can be about it so if we call this a place where we embark calling X sub zero and
11:34
where we arrive X sub N and it's not
11:40
infinite but it's definitely iterative and this is you know what is this this
11:48
is the process we can call exploration
11:55
these points have very you know a variety of names in the art world we
12:02
might call it you know an aesthetic impulse a personal a personal area of
12:11
interest that we want to explore or that we want to we want to share with the
12:18
world on the scientific or technical side it might be a contractual demand
12:26
might be it might be a piece of some
12:32
bigger project some scope of that at the
12:38
base of both of those we hope is curiosity over here what do we want to
12:47
arrive at you know when these could all come under the term agenda but is it a
12:53
deliverable
12:58
results Solutions the word that is
13:05
thankfully I think got out of use in poetry I think Robert Frost had a wonderful way
13:12
of saying it when he said a momentary stay again confusion some kind of
13:19
understanding sometimes expression
13:25
although that's not the primary role in poetry so some kind of understanding so
13:39
we have these the impetus we have these kind of goals or objectives that we're
13:46
driving toward no part of this it's without bias you know we hope to arrive
13:57
at a discovery with the more loosely we can hold these desired outcomes the more
14:05
we can head off that premature narrowing of our paths of inquiry that's that's
14:15
really kind of the soapbox message but that brings up a lot of questions most
14:20
of which start with how so how do we come become aware of our biases how do
14:30
we set out when we don't know exactly where we're going or what we're looking
14:36
for how do we proceed when we're being told what to find what to look for I
14:45
think that's even harder and then how do we get unstuck when we do get stuck so
14:54
this is really you know poetry has become poetry and language have become
14:59
my lab of preference at this point I think because all my personal
15:05
sensibilities just go toward patterns in sound and language and wordplay
15:12
and all of that it's not to say that you know obviously there are many kinds of
15:17
labs and I love being here in a lab talking about this web of language
15:24
poetry is a lab in part because of the kinds of problem-solving that it has
15:30
that it offers like physics it requires us to move fluidly between the micro the
15:37
macro and the meta we can do that before
15:42
we have the skills in higher math or after we've lost them those go away
15:50
faster than muscle tone so how do we you
15:59
know how to answer these house I think that you know what really can keep us
16:04
honest in our process and by honest I mean not going to where we so badly want
16:12
it to go the answer there really is craft you know process again to quote
16:21
Robert Frost not that he's the only person who who's ever spoken with insight on poetry but his essay the
16:28
figure of poem makes really talks about the process of discovery and you know he
16:33
says no chairs and the writer no chairs and the reader no surprise for the
16:38
writer no surprise for the reader and that you need to proceed line by line with the rules of language in order to
16:46
discover what comes next not to just know where you want the piece to go and drive it there through
16:53
your lovely devices that you spend years honing so he tells us the why because
17:01
yeah we want to we want to have this element of surprise we want these every
17:07
line you arrive at to be in the words of another teacher both inevitable and
17:13
surprising you know that beautiful blend of fit so
17:21
that's you know the why it doesn't tell us a lot about the how and I think that
17:28
if if that becomes the next area of focus that's where we we will build out
17:37
what you could think of as a meta toolset or the the common tool set from
17:42
dual focus and Dual Immersion I do think
17:49
that that whole aspect of you know what if insight what is discovery what are
17:55
the things we what are the names we have for it that we're not even aware of you
18:00
know today given the kinds of crises and challenges we're facing my default is
18:07
usually to to become aware of it start naming it try to name it you know naming
18:14
is both an act of observation and an act of synthesis we're both differentiating
18:19
we're parsing we're really breaking things down and we are bringing things together so if you start to work on
18:29
articulation you definitely find out where you have gaps it's a way of
18:34
getting in stuck it's like going back to first principles so definitions new
18:41
definitions functional definitions within the area that you're working in
18:48
building taxonomy so that you can see things like apps and abundances and
18:56
linkages whether existing or potential that's where I think that poetry really
19:01
does offer us this fab fascinating a really demanding lab because we don't
19:07
have those built in structures like equations or units to point out glaring
19:17
inconsistencies that we might not be aware of you really have to hone your skills of
19:23
taxonomy in poetry we can't rely on balancing equation or dimensional
19:30
analysis or just keeping things consistent with variables so you you hone those
19:36
taxonomical principles I am sure that
19:41
there are many wonderful gems I am missing here but I want to have time for
19:48
some poems given that we we did start a little late to allow for the parking so
19:56
I'm going to share a few poems that are clips from my kind of journey as a maker
20:05
and being in the process of discovery one of those one of those processes is
20:12
staying in wonder and following that wonder and I'm often really compelled by
20:18
things by objects whether they are inanimate objects or living creatures or
20:24
once living creatures or ideas and following you know just going into that
20:29
trying to either describe it or animate it give it a voice is one way when we
20:36
follow what compels us in curiosity and
20:41
to learn about why we are compelled can reveal a lot not only about what we're
20:46
studying but about ourselves our preferences our biases our strengths and so forth this first piece is called
20:53
Archaeopteryx perfect as nike head bent
21:02
feathers arrested the imprint of upturned wings a likeness to wonder at
21:11
your last flight dear prototype and the
21:20
word prototype there I meant I think as much in a sense of Aeronautics as
21:26
evolution it was an emotion given that our lives are very very far apart in
21:33
time moon jellies and this is the first of probably several poems with the moon
21:39
more poems with the moon this is a piece where I really did get stuck and I think
21:47
I I was stuck for about two years in the middle of it and I I wanted I'm hoping
21:55
most of you have seen the moon jelly exhibits at the Monterey aquarium I wanted to use the metaphor of those
22:03
bright those bright arcs in the middle I wanted those to be a filament like an
22:10
incandescent bulb I was shocked when I
22:15
learned what they actually were and when I came back to that shock that was my
22:21
entry point back into the poem and letting it go and finding out what
22:26
metaphor it would then find moon jellies animate in the back lit black tank you
22:37
fly lace edged ghost bells propelled by
22:43
such grace as I cannot match with my clumsy spine my opacity the aging truths
22:54
inside me unseen and unborn stung by the
23:01
fact of your eggs in arced Rose hot
23:07
flower in a clear spell one more moon
23:16
poem and this again followed an object of wonder for me my father slide well
23:22
which my mom found and this is a piece
23:28
where I actually had no idea where it would go I just knew that this was an
23:33
object of memorabilia for me certainly
23:38
because it was found long after my father passed away and fascination at
23:43
that whole era slide rule to love
23:52
elegance of speed against a different meter of a different day
24:00
day you walked out to suburbs and cars and the faithful hold of motor oil on
24:07
hot asphalt and orange blossoms a sky
24:14
ripe for the faint drone of airplanes their hulls designed with aligned
24:21
precision and the fortitude of hand calculations of penciled graphs
24:29
blueprints and circle templates on an angled drafting board mechanical tools
24:36
where mechanical telephone bells call through the plumes above crowded
24:42
ashtrays and coffee rings on flecked Formica the desks in rows the men in
24:49
ties and shirts leaves I am almost there in my pixie cut and
24:56
white shoes on family day a gape at the dark control room unaware of the beauty
25:05
of logarithms the fluid promises of computing that this laminate rule will
25:13
soon outlast its hayday a burnished leather case and all of us there is war
25:23
on the news we are scaling the moon and everyone I love is living or yet to be
25:32
born
25:42
I'm in airplane mode in more ways than
25:48
one but if you wear the mic you have to be an airplane mode or you lose your your sense of balance or something we
25:57
are running a little tight on time so I'm gonna read three really short poems
26:03
from my my time in like really in the engineering trenches and then a closing
26:12
piece and then Roger and I will we'll go to the living and have a conversation so again I
26:19
objects wanting to animate objects I found that that was one way that I could meet things that were daunting
26:25
threatening things I had fear or or conflict around and but also to find
26:32
beauty to find beauty in odd ways and odd things and places and admittedly a
26:39
lot of this is pre digital paper era polygraph
26:46
what are they sampling these slender and ten I who's clubbed tips startle and
26:53
drift over paper tape which truths do they taste
26:58
how many evade the thin dark stop they
27:04
weep cleanroom I know you have more than
27:11
one here on site do not shed your DNA
27:18
here restrain your hair let no
27:24
exhalation fog or mist the air this jumpsuit these tissue booths will rein
27:32
you in as no other fashion can well the bouffant cap and blue or white is the
27:41
great equalizer making grannies of all as we tend the sensitive but tensile
27:49
strong that by dust specks come undone
27:57
many of these poems I found that that come from that environment in that part of my life and I like would give them a
28:04
voice but there was always some snark in that voice and I just learned to enjoy that
28:12
this one is well although this this piece definitely had had more compassion
28:22
and curiosity and maybe sadness in it zero defects is a motto from
28:28
started in aerospace migrated into other industries and thus I walked in my first
28:33
day of work and there it was on a doormat it kind of brought out a lot of my rebellious thinking especially being
28:40
fresh out of college zero defects I want
28:46
a new notion of perfection one to live with in my defect full humaneness bone
28:55
cache chatter and thought rest let me
29:00
admit the whole within the scrap and learn to find scrappiness on a par with
29:06
the truth as truth moves to plural as we
29:12
fail and flourish beyond the slashed zero so give me great pleasure as a poet
29:21
to slant rhyme plural and zero but that really was a piece whereas I got stuck I
29:27
had to go back to my my tool which is really working by sound and especially
29:33
bowel sounds I never would have found thought breast if I hadn't gone back to humaneness
29:38
and that allowed me to proceed because I had gotten very stuck up to then so I
29:44
will close with one fairly short poem so that we have enough time for discussion
29:51
conversation and questions I'm leaving out the landscape poems there are I do
29:58
write about landscapes and other things besides kind of worlds of engineering
30:04
and physics and this piece in particular really goes back to poets physicists
30:11
engineers machinists I grew up with a
30:17
shop it's called to the makers maker is the ancient Greek word for the modern
30:24
greek word for poet and a poem is a making and I wrote it because I had the
30:30
experience after reading a poem by Ted Kooser former u.s. laureate of as Emily
30:37
Dickinson says those at the top of my head were taken off and I think that was 19th century speak for having your mind blown really so I
30:45
read this poem of kusers and I had that I have chills just describing it and I thought wow I want to tell him I want
30:52
him to know I still need to do that he is he areas in the Midwest and how often
30:58
do we have that experience and we can't tell this the maker of that piece of art
31:04
or piece of equipment great invention
31:09
because they're long dead or somehow remote from us so this poem started out
31:15
of that desire to tell them to the makers I want to tell them all of them
31:24
the living and the dead not about gratitude I want them to know
31:31
to tell them that it happens years or ages after their labors
31:37
it happens with their work in my hand on a bowed page at or near the end of a
31:45
phrase a fissure opens onto the deep lake of their making its slate skin and
31:55
forested rim tools strewn on the silty bottom wavering shapes soft with life
32:04
along grooves and shanks through this water through murk and Sun shaft and
32:12
clear shoals the pressure building or falling off they'd ov and rose time and
32:19
again hauling gleaning and leaving the
32:24
lake to make a portal from words so with
32:31
that I invite Roger up to join me in
32:36
conversation
32:48
my water yeah well thank you very much
33:01
Lisa thank you for sharing your opponents with us and I would say reading them and also discussing them in
33:07
a very engaging way I think you describe this as our living room so we'll have a
33:12
very informal conversation yeah looking
33:20
for the model things that actually there was a little bit about your biography
33:26
which came first you think in your life the physics and the engineering or the
33:32
verse or did they sort of grow together with you well I noticed you phrase that very carefully because when we met prior
33:39
to this event and I said oh I often get the question of why did you switch and I
33:44
say well I didn't switch I think in terms of you know initial exposure I had
33:51
I was fortunate to grow up with people working very earnestly in arts and in
33:57
sciences but I didn't necessarily have those labels on them so with a father
34:04
who was an engineer and a builder there was always this you know well we're
34:09
gonna do these things that I only later found out were math that most say 1st or 2nd graders don't get to do and then
34:17
having painters and musicians on the other side of the family I think though if I put all of it into
34:24
one big category it was design and so
34:29
whether I was drafting and I thought I invented drafting whether I was drafting
34:35
and designing a building or a piece of clothing it all felt like the same to me
34:42
but in terms of you know explicit immersion it was probably the writing
34:49
because you're given opportunities to do that sooner in school you know like in
34:54
elementary school and it was in high school though that I really started to focus more in poetry
35:00
but at the same time I was determined to become an astronaut and so I was
35:05
studying physics at the same time I didn't I didn't separate them more until
35:11
I decided I needed periods of dedicated study in one or the other
35:16
your father was clearly a large influence upon you and it's pretty an engineer at amount of numbers but was he
35:23
also a man of letters was he some who care deeply about language was even a poet he was not a poet he wrote very
35:30
well and he communicated well and I think that goes back to just those tools
35:36
of thought that will come out wherever and that of course was an era where you
35:42
didn't study say stem to the exclusion of the humanities just as you know you
35:47
came out of that same kind of background and I'm he always impressed upon me writing down and getting your thinking
35:54
clearer whether you're working on an essay or solving a calculus problem you have to write it down and and see you're
36:01
thinking he was definitely a practical genius I think in minute he usually
36:06
figured out the simplest least fancy way to do something amazing and may or may
36:13
not have been credited for it you know but really the gift was that I grew up in a house where I had this model all
36:20
the time of this absolute love of making things of making mistakes of pursuing
36:27
those of knowing it's not going to be ideal and tinkering which is another map
36:33
to discovery just to to tinker and always building and making things whether they were models or or full-size
36:41
full-size they were playing at one point and your mother you mentioned the other side of your family you said my mother's
36:47
side were musicians and tailors seamstresses painters there was music in
36:55
my father's side as well my mother had that amazing capacity to know how to support whichever way interests were
37:03
going and I remain very grateful for that and she still is extremely
37:09
Porter than that but she definitely my grand my maternal grandmother was a painter and designer and her husband a
37:17
pianist I could surrounded by by art
37:23
especially my grandmother's yes yeah we turned to the craft of poetry and
37:31
obviously it's there's no simple answer to these questions but if if you're
37:37
trying deciding you want to write a poem does it sort of grow from the inside out
37:43
or do you have what people often accuse scientists of having quite incorrectly a
37:49
great master planner they go to them fill in the pieces along the way yes
37:58
both so you know we can have a very
38:03
strong desire to write a particular piece whether or not that meets some kind of lyric impulse we we don't know
38:11
but for me poems really I can hold these
38:16
things that I know I want to write about what typically happens is I will hear
38:21
something Musa here's the musical language or I will see something and a
38:28
phrase arises I haven't haven't gotten to that point of development personal
38:35
development where I had this nice space between experience and putting it into
38:40
language so I will come up with a phrase and if it intrigues me if it's rhythmic
38:46
and musical I will follow it and I do work by ear very much like writing a song and I need to hear what comes next
38:54
if I don't it'll sit there but I will
38:59
often build it out and I'll use the tools of craft whether it's choosing a
39:04
metrical structure choosing a complete existing structure like a sonnet or
39:11
blank versts I enjoy playing first free verse as well in free first it's not so
39:17
free because you have to make every decision so sometimes I will look for a
39:22
model if I'm really stuck and I know I want to write about something I will take a
39:27
model and just work through it because that will force me at least to find out things I didn't know and then I can take
39:34
that like those are like studies and and hopefully move into actually creating
39:42
this piece in some ways it's like growing it crystal yeah you know one
39:49
follows the reductionist zeal of a particle physicist the poem becomes a series letters and spaces of punctuation
39:56
have we back off from that a little bit to the atoms of the business which might be the words you sort of alluded to this
40:05
and the answer has to be both I know but a word has the sound right you say the
40:13
music there and so on but it also has to make connections illusions metaphor however you want to put it to it to
40:19
other ideas or things that you may be sharing with the reader how do you
40:25
balance those two when you're looking you're stuck in you the word and you know there's a word that ought to fit there right so there's there's a duality
40:31
in physics yes and it was duality and writing so part of it is trusting that
40:37
those connections you're making in the sound patterns there is a there's some
40:46
knowledge in those connections I mean we and this is you know this is a field
40:51
they say in psychology and neuroscience that we do have some very visceral and emotive connotations with sound patterns
40:59
and and the muscular structures that go with them and we inherently know we can hear you know a very very tiny clip of a
41:07
piece of music and know if it's a sad and melancholy piece or you know there are rhythms that go with dirges and
41:13
rhythms that go with celebration and so for me I tend to be very sensitive to
41:19
the sound patterns and I trust that there is some kind of meaningful
41:25
connection or I will look for the meaningful connection or I'll take it as
41:31
a challenge you know like if someone in an improvisation gives you two things and says
41:36
the connection sometimes they really do I think we are predisposed to find
41:42
things that fall within the scope of our Curia so that is where I think those
41:48
those come together and it's this big thrill when you know hey this is going
41:54
to get me - yeah this idea I'm hoping to to build and learn more about going the
42:01
other way and we look at the large-scale structure on the screen and so we look
42:06
at look at your book you had essentially three themes here you split the phones
42:13
into three themes was that a conscious thing or something or an organization I should say what they are asked I retold
42:20
kingdom of secrets of markets those are the three themes they're good descriptive words but was that a
42:26
conscious thought started just a way of organizing them at the end that is something that's like this process once
42:33
you start to see work come together it's very much like listening to your data and you look for trends and you look for
42:41
themes to emerge and start to look at the wave that sub groups seem to
42:47
organize and the Kingdom of Secrets was definitely this coherent group of poems
42:53
about working in the military-industrial complex especially place where words actual words are very tightly controlled
43:01
and that was also like you know the the Draenei through through the underworld
43:06
and out ask I retold really kind of captured those landscape pieces and
43:14
exploring places that I've lived in their influence on me and then models
43:21
was the hardest one to figure out it's not like you just put all this all these
43:26
poems that don't fit in one into another and you do find when you're putting together a manuscript and I know several
43:32
of these faces that I recognize here from my poetry family and people know what this is like you know you you try
43:40
to find how the work comes together there are people who have projects that go the other way they're going to build
43:45
into a theme and sometimes it's kind of a midpoint between those
43:51
but the models I suddenly realized we're both literal and figurative because I
43:56
grew up with a model builder in physics we use models and we make models and
44:04
then as growing up in especially in the 70s as a girl you know we're exposed to
44:12
these models of what is feminine what is sexy what what are you supposed to be what are you not supposed to be and so
44:19
all of those really came into models and then there's this fascination with things and poems about things which are
44:25
usually I'll discover some kind of model in there and then the closing piece
44:30
really is that Vitruvian model yes and growing up with that it's kind of the ideal of Western rational scientific
44:38
thought that leads to everything wonderful and wanting to free that from gender especially yes yeah I could get
44:49
no better person to make this contrast between the tinkering the modeling the
44:57
creative process in the one hand and engineering and science and then the other hand in in writing and in
45:05
particular in poetry how how do you there's obvious differences and there
45:12
are not many poems written by 20 authors for example and can you can you imagine
45:18
that from yet you know so I'm most scientific papers are those collaborative processes and squeeze out
45:24
any poetry I hadn't been but but can you see any other similarities and
45:31
differences between those two well you know there are people who will now
45:36
crowdsource a poem or work collaboratively but we do we collaborate
45:42
with the past certainly yes you know we are taking every time you act you're
45:48
right it's an act of criticism and you are taking the work that came before you and either you're in conflict with it
45:57
you're in concert with it some combination of those and we do solicit
46:02
the the feed the comments the the deconstruction and
46:07
help support and reconstruction from our peers so many writers do work with other
46:14
writers to critique each other's work and help help you know not only to to
46:20
improve a piece refine it but to support us in that process so there is a lot of
46:27
collaboration I think it's just not always simultaneous you miss develop a list of all themselves and right exactly
46:34
you you won't find it all yes it's not necessarily simultaneous and it also doesn't happen within the same body of
46:40
work yes yes I think that might be actually quite a good time to ask the
46:45
audience for questions so or comments or even a poem maybe so there are over do
46:51
cover roaming mic or if you're in the middle or is what yes you can share maybe yes hi thank you for sharing your
46:58
poetry that was lovely my son is also an engineer and a poet and he strongly
47:05
prefers in his poetry to work in formal structures so a sonnet or a particular
47:12
rhyme scheme or a particular meter
47:17
because he feels like it imposes discipline and the chat and makes it a
47:24
bigger challenge and he's sort of scornful of the freeform poetry that doesn't have to conform to a particular
47:31
structure I'm wondering about your thoughts on on meter versus nine well
47:36
you would have you would have meter in whether you're in an open forum or a fixed form but we are free to create
47:44
successful or unsuccessful poems in either mode and it's really a trade-off
47:52
because you have you have a set of freedoms and a set of requirements in
47:58
each and they're different so we might find ourselves constantly migrating to
48:03
one or the other the open forum or the fixed form without an awareness of why
48:10
we we're more comfortable in one or the other and it's a huge leap as an
48:16
investigator or may when you come into that mode of conscious compositional choices whether
48:24
you're composing an experiment or a piece of art so when you start to become aware of why you're making those choices
48:31
and all of you suddenly have a lot more tools to make the choices when you
48:37
become aware of the need to make them each time so in a fixed form some of those choices are already off the table
48:43
so it frees you up to do more I mean you have more attentive energy available to
48:49
to work because you're not deciding on the line length or the number of lines or the rhyme scheme in free-verse you
48:56
have to make all of those decisions and hope they're all really fitting to what you want to do the other though the
49:03
other kind of gift of working in a an existing form is that it forces you to
49:09
find connections that you might not find otherwise because you have to you have to build that line out to a certain
49:16
length or you have to meet a rhyme scheme and not have it sound hokey you
49:23
want a lovely rhyme which doesn't mean it has to be hidden but but that word still needs to work the phrase that
49:28
still need to work so gifts on both sides and I think the more aware we are
49:33
of why we make those choices and what options we have the better we you know our makings will be ever you do it's ha
49:44
you know sometimes sometimes it's harder than others you know really some pieces arrive quickly as gifts and others can
49:52
take days weeks months years and decades
50:25
yes I mean I have some work that that's in progress now and some of it when I say
50:31
in progress sometimes it has to wait because you're just too busy and yes you
50:37
kind of you can go anywhere in terms of distance and time in a poem it's not to
50:44
say you have no constraints because you do have constraints but you're you're free to explore and to build out a lyric
50:50
a narrative a lyric narrative in that way and I it's just like science fiction
50:57
novels you you create this space for both yourself and the reader or listener
51:04
to experience that so for me I don't
51:09
consciously say this is called science fiction but I might be yeah or going
51:16
into a world you know especially there's some planetary bodies that I really am intrigued by right now and so exploring
51:24
them and how to describe them and you know where can we put ourselves or or or RV ourselves as viewers or or people
51:32
experiencing it you know you can be right there on the surface if you like
51:37
look forward to that thank you
51:52
[Laughter] well the kind of tongue-in-cheek answer
52:00
is when you sit with them for such a long time or when you are busy as
52:05
someone else's employee doing something else and you know you have to carry them
52:10
in your head and you can only work on what you're able to memorize and you're building them that way then they're there and I have a very oral memory for
52:20
and visual both but so for a long time I had memorized the del squared operator
52:27
in spherical polar coordinates I could recite the entire thing well it had a it
52:34
was because of the rhythm you know it was one over R squared partial partial R as if that's all I remember at this
52:40
point but it's like those you know songs that you can't get out of your head you
52:47
know it's not that they all stick but when I built by ear there you know and
52:53
and I had teachers who made us recite from memory because that's how we would we would learn what is memorable so part
53:01
of its personal the way I work and and some of it's a gift and I do find though
53:07
that if I haven't read a piece in a long time then if I'm reading in front of a large group I can go into that mode you
53:14
know that's the way to teach physics is verse oh yeah so my question was about
53:28
like sorry okay so I just want to say thank you for coming as a physicist and
53:35
as a poet I really appreciate like just being in this room and like being in community with other people who think interdisciplinary think in those ways
53:42
but um I know you already talked or touched upon like the military industrial complex and like gender
53:48
models and I'm I'm curious as to like your process in terms of where you
53:54
derive urgency in your writing and also in moving through interdisciplinary
53:59
worlds how you ground yourself while you're writing hmm grounding is one of those life
54:06
skills that just doesn't seem to go away you know I it's a little hard to get my
54:14
head around the question in terms of urgency it's kind of like conflict or
54:23
desires you know like oh I really want a life partner or oh I'm really
54:29
uncomfortable about whatever this is I knew the military industrial complex for
54:34
me was so rich and also so conflicted because I couldn't work in the ways
54:40
where I felt most valued and I was being like the eldest son you know going into
54:47
my fathers and grandfathers profession and they were hardly any women that you know when it was like in hidden figure
54:53
it was like three blocks to find a ladies room or but the urgency is
54:59
something that I have an intuitive sense about or you know the universe keeps
55:04
putting it in front of you coming up hoping that we'll meet with the lyric impulse is something that I
55:12
think practice can help with some people do you know right no matter what it
55:18
sounds like I would be very picky and I would want to like I know that sounds like a poem but it isn't some of these
55:25
pieces I just had to hold until I felt I had the permission to work on them so
55:32
some of that is self permission others is oh I've signed an agreement how do I
55:38
work around that poetry is though in all aspects of life an art of saying what
55:44
cannot be said and so even if you're prohibited from saying things and I have poems in an essay about that you can
55:51
still find ways to explore it and to to share it that exploration invite a
55:57
listener into it that's one other we can
56:02
also we can also talk in the reception as well so when we have one more question and then
56:16
I was interested that you used words to describe how you arrived at a conclusion
56:21
at the beginning you refer to bias and being told what to look for what the
56:28
result would be you may be aware that this is a common problem not so common
56:34
but an occasional problem in science where physicists latch on to certain
56:40
beliefs because of their beauty their symmetry things like symmetry principles
56:45
and conservation laws are cherished by physicists who sometimes extrapolate
56:51
them beyond the experimental proof there are some famous examples of that having
56:57
to do for example with the concept of conservation of parity the fact that we
57:02
have a right hand means that left hand and then reactions that are viewed in a
57:09
mirror should certainly be possible turns out it's not true and yet people
57:15
left leap to the conclusion that even though this was proven in certain cases
57:21
that it was a universal law which it was not leading to a revolution and
57:26
understanding of science back in the 1950s so I just wanted to point it out
57:33
that physicists are also subject to being led in wrong directions by being
57:41
enamored of certain well I had hoped to imply that I included all of that yeah and that's what I meant by how do we
57:48
stay honest you know what keeps us honest and becoming aware of the models
57:53
that are at play in our mind or the constructs you know such as parody or becoming aware of our habits of thought
58:00
and our habits of working you know and and when we need a question and how we
58:08
need to question so that's a matter of practice and a matter of building a
58:15
toolset really for asking those kinds of questions and remembering to put them in
58:21
you know to bring them into our process because especially when you have an outside directive on where you're
58:27
supposed to be looking or what type of thing you're supposed to be finding the pressures to go in that direction
58:33
are are intense and it's very easy to fall into these habitual you know
58:39
cognitive diagrams of where the knowledge falls are what phenomenon tends to be here in which which there
58:47
and how they how they are related those are all areas that are you know we have existing patterns that we want to put
58:54
the knowledge into that sounds like wise advice intense science and so science I
59:01
think we close up now I was gonna offer as a gift just a beloved poem that's
59:08
also from the sky as many of these pieces are upon by Hafiz
59:14
translated by Daniel lijinsky and it's a piece that I often return to especially
59:20
now for calm and for insight it's called this sky this sky where we live is no
59:31
place to lose your wings so fly fly fly
59:40
so thank you I think [Applause]
59:54
and thank you so much wonderful questions we could just go on but I hope you'll bring your questions
1:00:00
to the reception afterwards I want to thank Lisa and Roger my colleagues
1:00:07
Rachel Yael Linda chuckling for the photos and a special thanks to Lisa
1:00:13
Bonet our chief engineer here at slack who introduced us to Lisa so please join
1:00:19
us thank you [Applause]