Correspondence: Guest Editors’ Discussion, Spring 2024

In poetry and art concerned with science, we—Rebecca Kamen and S.J. Fowler—share a great, consuming enthusiasm. We both approach the sciences in collaboration and from the perspective of our own particular creative means. That is to say, when working together, we are not scientists. We have not confused science with visual art or poetry, just as we have not mistaken poetry or art with science. Instead, we have investigated, illuminated, and understood our scientific subjects through poetry and art while never describing, translating, or illustrating them. We have never tried to make the science in question less than the deeply complex thing it is, for in that complexity lies opportunity for understanding, which comes from attention, which offers us wonder—just as we believe is the case with poetry. We hope to share our enthusiasm and some of our practice through our curation of Poem of the Day for Poetry Month 2024.

Our collaborations have been marked by many literary methodologies, from found text to concrete poetry, epistolary poems to the sound-based.We feel  it is often as powerful to know how to write on certain subjects as it is to know what to write. Our work has often been rooted in extensive and enthusiastic correspondence from different sides of the Atlantic Ocean, with this correspondence frequently forming the basis for our shared poetic language world. Poems and artworks have been formed out of all the language that surrounds us in our discoveries as we exchange and research together. Our poems are often sparse, elliptical, and very much about the vernacular of science. Visual poetry has also been a strong element of our work as well, exploring where the appearance of language intersects with how we envision scientific concepts–a kind of poetic cartography. In these cycles of exchange, Rebecca finds the seeds for new visual artworks, and S.J. the roots of new poems.

Pivotally, we have attempted to create art and poetry that is as complex as the science we admire and requires the same level of attention that science needs to be fathomed. This is where we believe the heart of neuropoetics–or neuroaesthetics–lies. In poetry, where language can be wielded to reflect the immense strangeness of existence without necessarily communicating or imparting information, there is such remarkable potential for exploring scientific concepts and language, especially of the mind and perception. As such, we have decided here to share Poem of the Day selections that explore science and poetry in ways that may at first seem oblique or ambiguous. We believe, often in the absence of obvious referentiality, the true sense of the profundity and discovery that marks scientific concepts that fascinate us find their equivalent or presence in poetry.

– S.J. Fowler & Rebecca Kamen, April 2024 Poem of the Day Guest Editors

Rebecca and S.J. have curated April’s Poem of the Day selections conversationally and include excerpts from their emails discussing their selections in the newsletter’s editor’s notes. Watch your inbox to read their ongoing conversation about poetry, science, and art, and read and view one of their collaborations, "Silent Spread," in the archive.

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The guest editors of Poem of the Day represent the readers of the newsletter and of poetry: a broad and diverse group with many talents, interests, passions, and reasons for bringing the arts and humanities into their lives. Guest editors select a number of poems for the month and write editor’s notes for each selection in addition to a blog post summarizing their experience and themes. Subscribe to Poem of the Day to read the guest editor’s selections and to experience future unique perspectives in poetry!

Read more about Poem of the Day in the archive editor’s blog.