Poems
purepedantry | November 5, 2006In the upcoming election, immigration is likely to be a big issue.
The wisdom and expanse of legal immigration notwithstanding -- I tend to favor the widest possible on both humanitarian and economic grounds -- it is good to remember that the distinction between the natives (unless of course you are Native American) and recent immigrants was and has always been a fiction. It is wildly unhistorical to suggest that we are anything other than a bastard people. We are all visitors, so the trying to distinguish amongst the quality of more recent migrants is destined to be arbitrary hair-…
purepedantry | October 28, 2006Keeping in my continuing theme of interspersing a little humanities with my sciences -- I never was a kid who needed their food separated -- here is your poem of the week, Langston Hughes' Theme for English B.
A little note on why: you can't live in New York and not feel entangled with others -- sometimes willfully and sometimes against one's will. It is one of the things I love about living here. It makes me proud to be American that so many crossing lives can coexist without too much friction. So many neighborhoods with cultures of their own, so many people who want to pursue their…
purepedantry | October 22, 2006I like posting poems from time to time. They remind me that at one point I had an interior life that did not involve anxiety over tissue culture.
Anyway, the poem of the week is by Billy Collins, a personal favorite. His work is always direct but insightful -- like prose-poetry until it isn't, when he hits a note of sublimity where only that word will do. (Click on any of the images to enlarge).
Study in Orange and White
by Billy Collins
I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene -
the cafe awning and the wicker chair -
but I was surprised when I discovered the painting
of his…
purepedantry | October 16, 2006My head hurts. I am sitting in a crappy slide session of limited personal relevance, trying vainly to find something fascinating in the injection of morpholino oligos into Xenopus. Two complete yo-yos are talking really loudly behind me.
Let's have a little humanities moment, so that I don't lose it.
I really love the poetry of ee cummings. He always captures a little bundle of emotion in life that is lost on most people. This moment reminded me of this poem:
since feeling is firstby ee cummings
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly…
purepedantry | August 10, 2006...it is one of my favorites.
Snow
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge…
purepedantry | July 14, 2006Apparently today will be poetry day. I found this poem in a book I was reading. It is by a man named Mortimer Collins (1860):
Life and the Universe show spontaneity:
Down with ridiculous notions of Deity!
Churches and creeds are all lost in the mists;
Truth must be sought with the Positivists.
Wise are their teachers beyond all comparison,
Comte, Huxley, Tyndall, Morley and Harrison.
Who will venture to enter the lists
With such a squandron of Positivists?
There was an ape in the days that were earlier;
Centuries passed and his hair became curlier;
Centuries more gave a thumb to his wrist…
purepedantry | July 13, 2006This week's Ask a Scienceblogger is as follows:
Is every species of living thing on the planet equally deserving of protection?...
In response, I hath composed the following:
An Ode to the Cuter Mammals
If I were Noah, roused from drunken slumber,
forced to choose the duos of animals
of such a sad and limited number
to reside within the Ark's stalls,
thus protecting them from the squalls
of the righteous Lord's impending wrath,
you can bet that I would choose
only the most cutest of creatures;
for I could not bear to lose
those most adorable of features
that are the kitten's whiskers
or the…