The Poetics of Space
Alison H Deming
Univ. of Arizona (Creative Writing Dep't)
The great English poet John Donne published "Anatomy
of the World" in 1611, one year after Galileo's first accounts of his work
with the telescope appeared. The poem tracks the author's spiritual
dislocation induced by the fact that the universe suddenly had been peppered
with ten times the stars that had been there before. Part of his task as
a poet was to integrate this new information about the nature of the universe
with his beliefs and emotions, to give a voice to his very process of confusion,
his struggle for equilibrium in a newly unstable world. Ever since then
poets have responded with wonder, praise, humor, befuddlement and lament
to the burgeoning discoveries that astronomical exploration has given us.
The discoveries of science have metaphysical implications because when
we rethink the nature of reality, we rethink the nature of ourselves. Throughout
the ages, poetry has offered eloquent testimony to the impact of astronomical
phenomena on the inner life.
This session will be a poetry reading of works
that reveal connections between outer and inner discovery as inspired
by astronomical events and theories. The goal will be to offer some historical
and international highlights, with emphasis on contemporary work in English.
Authors currently under consideration: Donne, Shakespeare, Dante, Walt
Whitman, W.H. Auden, Eugenio Montale, Jaroslav Seifert, May Swenson, Pattiann
Rogers, George Starbuck, Jorie Graham, Robert Pack, W.H. Auden, Sherman
Alexie.