Editing Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
The edit can be undone. Please check the comparison below to verify that this is what you want to do, and then publish the changes below to finish undoing the edit.
Latest revision | Your text | ||
Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory | Poet to Physicist in His Laboratory | ||
by David Ignatow | by David Ignatow | ||
<pre style="font-family:monobook,serif;"> | <pre style="font-family:monobook,serif;"> | ||
Come out and talk to me | Come out and talk to me | ||
for then I know | for then I know | ||
into what you are shaping. | into what you are shaping. | ||
Line 18: | Line 10: | ||
I read your thoughts for a symbol: | I read your thoughts for a symbol: | ||
a movement towards an act. | a movement towards an act. | ||
I give up on thought | I give up on thought | ||
as I see your mind | as I see your mind | ||
leading into a mystery | leading into a mystery | ||
Line 29: | Line 21: | ||
the most complex being | the most complex being | ||
convention and habit. | convention and habit. | ||
You shall form patterns | You shall form patterns | ||
of research and bind yourself | of research and bind yourself | ||
to laws within your knowledge, | to laws within your knowledge, | ||
Line 44: | Line 36: | ||
== Comments and Notes == | == Comments and Notes == | ||
This poem is an invitation to a dialogue between the speaker (a poet) and a physicist. The title and first line make this explicit: "Poet to Physicist..." | This poem is an invitation to a dialogue between the speaker (a poet) and a physicist. The title and first line make this | ||
explicit: "Poet to Physicist...". The first line is ''Come out and talk to me.'' This is an invitation for the physicist to emerge from his laboratory and engage with the poet. The speaker wants to know the "shape" of the research occurring in this laboratory; the word shape is peculiar in this context. It could be the research, as we would normally expect, or it could refer to the physicist himself, oddly enough. To the poet, the physicist's word if full of symbols and mysteries. The attempt to build a bridge from the Humanities to the Sciences, as the speaker conveys it, is an invitation but also an exercise in frustration. There are mysteries, perhaps encoded in the abstract symbols of mathematics, that the poet cannot access. | |||