Poetry Forum Provisional Agenda [here]

The Science meets Poetry Session provides the participants of ESOF2008 with a unique opportunity to meet contemporary poets from all over Europe, some of whom write about science, some of whom are themselves scientists (including even a Nobel Laureate from the USA), and some who are simply poets, but fascinated by science as we all are.

The purpose of this session is to demonstrate that literature and science are not poles apart, as people sometimes imagine, but actually come together in our modern world. It will be argued that poets are in fact closer to scientists in their way of thinking, in their sociology and in many of their preoccupations than previously suspected. Poet-scientists have probably always existed, but, today, there is a growing band of poets – some of whom are not scientists – for whom science is a key subject of inspiration.

Even in their sociology, they resemble each other. Poets, rather like scientists, tend to form small groups around a common aim or idea. Like scientists, they develop a language of their own and modes of expression they feel appropriate for a particular task. More than other writers, they seek a compact and sleek elegance of language, and they believe, just like physicists or mathematicians, that unnecessary words and secondary developments should be hacked away, to leave the structure of their creation standing in its purest possible form. Indeed, scientists and poets are so similar in many respects that stepping from one activity to the other is very natural.

This session is intended for a broad public and, it is hoped, will give a new angle both on science and on poetry by bringing together poets who write in English, in French, in German, in Russian, in Spanish and in Catalan, and whose subjects range from mathematics, through physics, chemistry, biology, zoology palaeontology and sociology, and even poets who look on science from the outside, as a subject for them so far unexplored. The session will attempt to explain why some scientists must have access to poetry in order to maintain a productive equilibrium in their research, and why many contemporary poets find unprecedented insights and inspiration in sometimes esoteric branches of science.

The session will also give food for thought to all those who recognize that scientific communication does not stop with the business of writing and publishing scientific papers, or indeed that the only other option beyond that is some kind of vulgarisation. It will be shown that there are many kinds of scientific writing, including the most challenging intellectually, which take place outside the sphere of scientific journals.

Thus, Science meets Poetry is not merely a session about bringing together apparently disparate fields. It is in fact a session of profound significance to all those who are concerned about the future of culture itself, about qualities of thought and imagination in the Sciences, and about rigour and precision in the Arts.

We are looking forward to your participation!