lable at ScienceDirect

Space Policy 26 (2010) 198–200

Contents lists avai

Space Policy

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/spacepol

Book Review

Dark Matter: Poems of Space, Maurice Riordan and Jocelyn BellBurnell (Eds), Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (distributed byCentral Books), London, 2008 (208 pp., ISBN 978-1-903080-10-8)

The laudable aims of this tomeAre to bring space and poetry homeIn productive conjunctionOf both form and functionWhere poets and boffins may roam.

Space science and poetry? Please!(Watch NASA go weak at the knees.)From John Donne to LarkinThe poems are sparkin’But the launch pad remains ill at ease.

My doggerel cannot expressThe points that I now want to stress;So forsaking the rhymeTo save space and time,This review will no longer digress.

Poets have long been stargazers, moved by the strange infinitiesof the universe to translate them into metaphor and song. Butwhat do they know of the science of astronomy? And what doastronomers know of poetry?

So begins the promotional copy for this interesting little volume,setting the context for what at first sight appears to be little morethan an anthology of mostly Anglo-American poets in star- andmoon-gazing mode.

Yet Dark Matter is the third of a trilogy of collaborations betweenpoets and scientists, encouraged and supported by the GulbenkianFoundation. The first of these was Wild Reckoning: An Anthologyprovoked by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring [1], and the secondwas Signsand Humours: The Poetry of Medicine [3]. With this third volume, theFoundationcontinues toexplore thepossibilitiesof cross-culturaldia-loguebetween the arts and science and to facilitate awider interest inand understanding of both (see www.gulbenkian.org.uk). Animmediate question arising from such a laudable aim, however,relates to the nature of the targeted readership for such a volume.

The title Dark Matter is at least a nod in the direction of the lateRebecca Elson, one of the few professional astronomers to havewrittenandpublishedpoetry.Herownresearch involveddarkmatter:hiddenmass which can be inferred only from its influence on observ-able objects. Yet “Thewords ‘darkmatter’, morewidely used in a non-specialist way, also carry a sense that there are hidden depths to beplumbed and that exploration of them could be worthwhile” (p. 15).

Much of poetry is, almost by definition, about inner space –

emotions, perceptions, responses – and this volume is certainly

doi:10.1016/j.spacepol.2010.06.005

no exception. As indicated above, the ‘scientific’ dimension of thecollaboration is tilted towards astronomy.

The night-sky gazing and musing bedrock of this volume isprovided by a range of well-loved poets old and not so old, fromShakespeare, Ben Jonson, Donne and Milton, through Coleridge,Byron, Keats, Shelley and Wordsworth, Longfellow, Emily Dickin-son, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost and Thomas Hardy to Ted Hughes,Sylvia Plath, Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin.

GerardManleyHopkins’The StarlightNight, fusedwithalliteration,exclamation and religious supplication, kicks off the proceedings:

Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!

[ending with]

The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouseChrist home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.

This is immediately followed by Anne Sexton’s Riding theElevator into the Sky:

As the fireman said:Don’t book a room over the fifth floorIn any hotel in New York .....

And the poem develops eventually to encompass “floor sixthousand”.

This juxtaposition of just the first two poems in the book high-lights my main criticism of this collection: that, interesting andeclectic compilation though it is, there appears to be little thematicor systematic structure to guide the reader. I shall return to thispoint later, because, despite the indulgent range of well-loved(mostly deceased) poets to be found here, the focal objective ofthis volume is actually the Gulbenkian Foundation’s commissioningof 16 contemporary ‘leading international poets’ to create newwork ‘inspired by their discussions with eminent space scientists’(back cover). These collaborations (see Table 1) were brokered bypoet Maurice Riordan and the cosmologist Dame Jocelyn Bell Bur-nell (who, as a postgraduate, was involved in the discovery ofpulsars, for which her supervisor won a Nobel prize).

According to SiânEde, ArtsDirectorat theGulbenkian Foundation,

“Poets are entitled to be snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, butthey are no fools and who could not be intrigued by theprofound implications of space science, its big bangs and phasetransitions, its black holes and collapsed stars? And this is to saynothing of the metaphors and mental pictures that physiciststhemselves invent and relish” (p.10).

Yet, of the 110 poems and extracts of poetry featured in thiscollection, despite the aims of its collaborative core, there is

Table 1Poets commissioned for Dark Matter.

Poet Scientist Poem title

Julia Copus Malcolm Coe, Prof. of Astronomy, Univ. of Southampton Stars Moving Westwards in a Winter GardenGreg Delanty David Helfand, Prof. of Astronomy, Columbia Univ. The Alien

The Event HorizonJames Fenton Pedro Ferreira, Lecturer in Physics, Univ. of Oxford Cosmology: A PrologueLeontia Flynn Mark Bailey, Director, Armagh Observatory The Full Moon and the Ferris WheelJohn Kinsella David Malin, Adjunct Prof. of Scientific Photography, RMIT Univ., Melbourne The Light Echo of Supernova 1987AAntjie Krog Hans Zinnecker, Head of Star-Formation Group, Astrophysical Institute of Potsdam I Am, Because You AreNick Laird Paul Murdin, Senior Fellow, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge The EffectsBill Manhire Marilyn Head, science writer Herschel at the CapeKathryn Maris Frank Close, Prof. of Theoretical Physics, Univ. of Oxford WhyJohn McAuliffe John Dyson, Prof. of Astronomy, Univ. of Leeds Arguing About Stars Near InchJamie McKendrick Kevin Fong, Specialist Registrar in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care Medicine,

UCL Hospitals, and Co-Director of the Centre for Altitude,Space and Extreme Environment (CASE) Medicine

Out There

Paul Muldoon Jo Dunkley, RCUK Research Fellow, Univ. of Oxford OntarioThe Space We Live In

Robert Pinsky Jim Moran, Donald H. Menzel Prof. of Astro-Physics, Harvard Univ.,and Senior Radio Astronomer, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The Procession

Deryn Rees-Jones Ian Morison, Gresham Prof. of Astronomy, Jodrell Bank A Dream of ConstellationsNeil Rollinson Anita Richards, AstroGrid Astronomer, Jodrell Bank The Very Small Baseline Group

Convenes at the Cat and FiddleTom Sleigh Janna Levin, Prof. of Physics and Astronomy, Barnard College, Columbia Univ. For a Spacesuit Set Adrift

Book Review / Space Policy 26 (2010) 198–200 199

relatively little on what could in any way be described as ‘spacescience’. Of the uncommissioned pieces there is Auden’s grumpy‘Moon Landing’ and his philosophically sceptical ‘After Readinga Child’s Guide to Modern Physics’. George Bradley’s ‘About PlanckTime’ and Alan Dugan’s ‘Prothalamion of Quantum Mechanics andAstrophysics’ begin to get into the scientific lexicon, while AlisonHawthorne Deming’s ‘Mt Lemmon, Steward Observatory, 1990’manages to infuse a greater sense of the business of observatoriesthan either of two other poems about Jodrell Bank.

Of the certainly diverse commissioned pieces, the South Africanwriter Antjie Krog’s recreation of the symmetry of the HH212 gasjet and John Kinsella’s reflections on the light echo of supernova1987A (inspired by David Malin’s photographs of the night sky)most explicitly offer evidence of ‘space science’ collaboration.Several of the other commissioned pieces, disappointingly, givelittle indication that such collaboration has been fruitful, and, tobe honest, offer up not always terribly good poetry.

Ironically, given the earlier observation about poems based onthe observatory, the Jodrell Bank collaborations do appear to havestimulated some imaginative reflections. In the case of Neil Rollin-son’s The Very Small Baseline Group Convenes at the Cat and Fiddle,humour and inebriation contribute crucial dimensions to observa-tions and reflections aimed upwards, as well as to those cast overJodrell Bank itself, from the fecundity of an English pub garden.By contrast, Deryn Rees-Jones’ A Dream of Constellations isexpressed, apart from the title, in Morse code which, writtendown, she claims (according to the book’s publicity), looks “likea depiction of a night sky busy with stars”. (For the benefit of thoseof us a little rusty in our ability to interpret dots and dashes thepoem is decoded at the end of the book.)

Is the lack of explicit structure to the book an exercise in itself ofcosmic poetry, the editors having allowed the contributions – bothselected and commissioned – to float freely in the vastnesses oftheir offices until they fell to Earth in random order?

A crude designation of the order of poems looks something likethis:

� perceptions of the stars and ‘the heavens’� a diversion into an emphasis on physical processes� back to the stars and the moon� reflections on lunar eclipses� the moon landing

� listening and observatories (including pieces on looking forundiscovered planets and naming those found)

� the night sky as a backdrop� astronomers and watching the skies (again)� gas jets� comets� ‘falling stars’� star-gazers/gazing (again)� starlight� meditations on the planets� thoughts on the first manned expedition into deep space� astronauts [I first keyed this in, erroneously, as astronuts]� Laika� Suitsat� human – ET interaction� reflexive attitudes to space knowledge� ‘the dark’� moonlight (again)� the constellations� infra-red� birth and death of the universe� metaphysics� the planets (again)� views of the moon (yet again)� ‘the heavens’.

Mercilessly mixing my metaphors, this tome is like the tip ofa cosmic iceberg named Hydra.

Assuming the hoped-for readership is likely to be untutoredeither in matters of poetry or space (or both), it would havebeen useful to know more about the poets and space scientistsand why they were chosen for collaboration. The book’s end noteson each commissioned poem could have been usefully woven intothe fabric of the collection: they represent potentially the mostinteresting part of the book for readers of this journal. Howwere the collaborative partnerships organised? How did thecollaborators view the objectives of such an exercise? Did collab-oration contribute to the science involved? And has the experi-ence had a longer-term impact on the scientists’ (way of)thinking?

Other volumes celebrating the conjunction of poetry and spacedo exist out there, notably Rebecca Elson’s (2001) [2]AResponsibility

Book Review / Space Policy 26 (2010) 198–200200

to Awe, but the current tome is perhaps unique in its collaborativeagenda.

But, as noted above, who is this collection really for? Is its keyrole as part of a propaganda/educational exercise to bring thearts and sciences closer together: to infuse mutual under-standing? And what is the expected readership? Is it intendedto encourage those who read (and write) poetry to take a greaterinterest in science in general and space (science) in particular? Isit to encourage the ‘space community’ to more explicitlyembrace poetic articulations of scientific knowledge, endeavourand interpretation? Are poetry and science conceptuallycompatible?

And where do poems of space sit in relation to space policy? Foreducative purposes, can the representation of space matters inpoetry and in the arts generally, however superficial and specula-tive, be anything but for the collective good? Can (and should)more be done to: (a) represent a wider range of space-related activ-ities through this medium; (b) penetrate, reflect and articulatemore intimately human (and non-human?) space-related experi-ence(s); (c) improve the quality of the poetry, which may followfrom (a) and (b), but which, in this reviewer’s view, would be assis-ted by more humour (and irony).

Would space agencies such as NASA and ESA benefit from a poetin residence? Maybe there’s one or more already out there.

So much of this volume comprises romantic and/or fantasticruminations on the stars/‘heavens’/moon that some may ques-tion its relevance for the readership of this journal. Yet the‘space sciences’ – social, physical (and metaphysical?) and mate-rial – are sufficiently eclectic to embrace and benefit fromfurther, and more fruitful, collaborations of the kind presentedin this work.

References

[1] Burnside J, Riordan M, editors. Wild reckoning: an anthology provoked byRachel Carson's silent spring. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation(distributed by Central Books); 2004.

[2] Elson R. A responsibility to awe. London: Carcanet Press; 2001.[3] Greenlaw L, editor. Signs and humours: the poetry of medicine. London:

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (distributed by Central Books); 2007.

Derek HallHAMK University, Mustiala, Finland

E-mail address: derekhall.seabank@virgin.net

Available online 16 July 2010