'And Here We Are!': Science and Meaning in the Poetry of Anne Cluysenaar. (January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bowen, W. Richard
• Is Part Of: International journal of Welsh writing in English. Volume 5:Number 1(2018)
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Subjects: Anne Cluysenaar -- consciousness -- deep time -- evolution -- genetics -- geology -- Alfred Russel Wallace; English literature -- Welsh authors -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Welsh literature -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; English literature -- Welsh authors; Criticism, interpretation, etc; Periodicals; 820.809429
• DOI: 10.16995/ijwwe.5.1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2053-1915

Abstract

Abstract : In a perceptive academic article published early in her career, the linguist and poet Anne Cluysenaar challenged poets to engage strongly with science so as to stimulate their imaginations by freeing them from inadequate interpretations of the world. This challenge requires poets to find means of engaging with the core of scientific practice in ways that are sufficiently intense as to appropriate into their subjective interactions with the world the apparently objective knowledge that science provides. The present article explores and analyses how Cluysenaar's own engagement with science influenced her creative writing and assesses whether the challenges she identified were met in her own poetry. Cluysenaar's poetry shows particularly knowledgeable interaction with evolutionary theory, genetics, the origins of consciousness and geology, all of which are linked through her awareness of 'deep time'. Her poetry exemplifies how, through serious study and interaction with scientists, a poet can appropriate science with intensity and discernment such that it becomes an integral part of her awareness of the world. Her eloquent writing provides for the reader intelligible and subtle connections between the apparently objective world of science and the subjective experiences of life. At the same time, the poems sensitively keep a perspective on the findings of science through inclusion of expression of feelings, ethical concerns and a willingness to value other means of knowing. Her poetry shows how science greatly enriched her imagination and her life, that science mattered personally to her and hence that it can matter personally to us.