Category: Science Poetry

“The month’s new-complete contribution /
Re: concepts, reactions, allusions; /
A break from spring’s stressing: /
Chem-terms, verse-addressing, /
In welcome routine’s resolution.”

The 30 April 2025 Bluesky limerick marked the end of my seventh attempt at the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) tradition, and this is our last week of spring classes, so it is a good day to formally end the 2025-2026 “academic year” posts.  

“The month’s new-complete contribution /
Re: concepts, reactions, allusions…”

April 2025 was the seventh NaPoWriMo routine I completed in terms of daily science-themed poems; my routine began in April 2019 with the overlap of National Poetry Writing Month and the International Year of the Periodic Table. 

Over the years, some of these poems have summed up specific chemical concepts; others address reaction mechanisms; several allude to figures from history or famous scientific stories.  

“A break from spring’s stressing: /
Chem-terms, verse-addressing, /
In welcome routine’s resolution.”

I am now a few weeks into my eighth version of this April tradition– or rather, I hope I will be, since I write and schedule these essays a few weeks ahead. If so, I suspect it will be the last one in terms of such formal adherence; it would be appropriate to end with a “full octet” of the April poem collections.  I’ve also noticed that I don’t need the cyclic routine quite as much in generating ideas for posts as I did in the first few years of the website.  

In an academic term, though, NaPoWriMo arrives at a particularly opportune time to merit “a break from spring’s stressing,” so time will tell.  For now, I’m glad to bring both the 2025 poems and the 2025-26 essays to a welcome resolution.

“To celebrate day metrologic / 
With global theme, STEM-philosophic, /
This May marks attention /
To Metre Convention /
As sesquicentennial topic!”  

I’ll go slightly out of order with revisiting this particular poem, so that I can wind down NaPoWriMo2025 as I formally end my Spring 2026 semester next week.  This poem was posted on Bluesky to celebrate World Metrology Day 2025.  

“To celebrate day metrologic / 
With global theme, STEM-philosophic…”  

World Metrology Day is celebrated on May 20 each year; it celebrates the date on which the International System of Units (the metric system) was adopted in 1875.  (The phrase “SI units” is often used as a shorthand, given the system’s name in the French language: “Système international d’unités.”)  This was a banner day in the history of science; it marked a shift toward standardized, universal communication, or a “global theme, STEM-philosophic.”

“This May marks attention /
To Metre Convention /
As sesquicentennial topic!” 

In 2025 specifically, the World Metrology Day celebrations were particularly festive, as it was the 150th anniversary (or the sesquicentennial) of the original Metre Convention in Paris.  

The metric system had been proposed by France in 1799.  The meter was first defined based on measurements of the Earth, and the kilogram was first defined based on a certain amount of water (these units represented far more egalitarian measurements than, for instance, a king’s foot).  In 1799, France defined the units in relation to specific prototypes that were then housed in the National Archives.  At 1875’s Metre Convention, several such standards were then distributed internationally.

The metric system has been adjusted in the years since.  In 2019, famously, the seven base SI units were redefined in terms of the fundamental constants of nature, so that their values no longer hinge on physical objects.     

(Metrology is a subject that tends to be highly condensed in a science course; we focus more on using and interconverting a few specific types of units than the history of measurement itself.  James Vincent’s outstanding 2022 book, Beyond Measure, recounts several fascinating stories.) 

“Acidic-environment feature: / 
Oft-stable reactant’s chem-cleaver. /
The process provides / 
Alcohol and halide: /
Two products formed out of the ether.”  

The 29 April 2025 Bluesky limerick addressed another common organic chemistry mechanism.  

“Acidic-environment feature: / 
Oft-stable reactant’s chem-cleaver…” 

I’ve addressed the idea of a “functional group” before in this space.  The term refers to a characteristic pattern (group) of atoms that shows up across a large number of molecules and governs, in part, how such molecules can react (function).  

One functional group is the ether: an oxygen atom singly bonded to two alkyl (hydrocarbon) groups, abbreviated as R-O-R’, where R and R’ generically represent the alkyl substituents.    An ether does not have the panoply of subsequent reactions available to it that many other functional groups do (comparatively, it’s an “oft-stable reactant”), but a few steps are feasible.

One pathway available is called acidic cleavage: the ether breaks apart in acidic conditions.    

“The process provides / 
Alcohol and halide…”

Lines three and four of the limerick are not comprehensive: the fate of an ether in acidic conditions would depend on whether the alkyl groups surrounding the oxygen are more amenable to substitution or elimination reactions.  

However, in one simple case, an ether (R-O-R’) could react with acid to form an alkyl halide (RX) and an alcohol (R’-OH): as shown here:
R-O-R’ + HX → RX + HO-R’ 

[This would be an essential reversal of what is probably the most famous reaction involving ethers: the Williamson ether synthesis, named for Alexander Williamson (1824-1904), who developed it in 1850. Here, an alcohol is deprotonated in basic conditions; the resulting alkoxide ion reacts with an alkyl halide to form an ether.] 

“Two products formed out of the ether.”

The idea for this poem began with the idiom “out of the ether.”  I was intrigued to see whether I could reach that phrase via a reasonable chemistry discussion, and this generally seemed to work. 

“A radical initiation /
Begins with bond-breaking notation. /  
Ensuing, next steps /
Allow varied prospects. /
(Some cases, polymerizations.)” 

The 28 April 2025 NaPoWriMo limerick addressed aspects of the “radical reaction,” a distinct type of organic chemistry mechanism that involves its own notation and vocabulary.

“A radical initiation / 
Begins with bond-breaking notation.” 

Most of the mechanisms learned in an organic chemistry course involve arrows used for “electron pushing”: representing the movement of an electron pair.  These arrows are double-headed; they begin at the area of electron density and indicate where the electron pair will go, in a given elementary step.   

Radicals are species with unpaired (single) electrons, and so their movement is represented with a single-headed arrow, sometimes called a fishhook arrow.  

The first step of a radical reaction is called the initiation step.  It requires the input of heat or light, and in so doing, involves the breaking of a covalent bond in a stable molecule to yield two radicals.       

“Ensuing, next steps /
Allow varied prospects.”

Once a radical forms, it can go on to several possible next steps (“next steps / [a]llow varied prospects”).  

Most of these are collectively referred to as propagation steps, wherein Radical A reacts with a neutral molecule to break a bond in the Neutral Molecule B, forming a new Radical C.  (Meanwhile, Radical A has added an atom to form a new Neutral Molecule D.)  

Rarer is the termination step, where two radicals add together: their two single, unpaired electrons combine to form a new covalent bond in a new, stable molecule.  

“(Some cases, polymerizations.)”

In certain cases, where the propagation steps involve obvious repetition (where the same new group is added over and over, resulting in a longer and longer chain), the overall reaction would also be classified as a type of polymerization.  

Multiple types of polymerizations can occur; only some of them involve radicals.  (The combination of several monomers yields a polymer; it’s feasible for these monomers to be neutral molecules or radicals, depending on the type of polymerization process in question.)    

“The route deemed saponification, /
Historical soap generation: /    
Now, path hydrolyzing /
Is ester-incising /
Through basic-solution causation.”    

The 26 April 2025 Bluesky limerick highlighted an organic chemistry mechanism called saponification.  It is a return to chemistry-summarizing form, after a stretch of more interdisciplinary weeks.  

“The route deemed saponification, /
Historical soap generation…”

This specific reaction pathway known as “saponification” takes its etymology from a long history overlapping with that of the word “soap.”  

Esters are a type of functional group (a characteristic pattern of atoms that governs a specific behavior) seen in organic molecules.  Esters can form from the combination of alcohols and acids, as noted in one of last year’s essays. 

Triglycerides, common types of lipids, are a class of esters specifically formed from the esterification reactions of glycerol. Saponification reactions of triglycerides have been historical routes to soap.  

“Now, path hydrolyzing /
Is ester-incising…”

Saponification involves the hydrolysis of triglycerides: in other words, water molecules cut apart the esters (“incising” them).  

Without going deeply into a mechanism on this post, this textbook link shows the reaction for a simple ester, while this textbook link shows the reaction for a triglyceride specifically (about halfway down the page), for anyone interested.      

“Through basic-solution causation.”  

The general case of ester hydrolysis can happen under either acidic or basic conditions, but the specific case of saponification occurs in basic solution.    

***

This type of poem translation tends to be quite wordy or quite succinct, depending on how in-depth my explanation of the mechanism gets in the blog post itself.  In this case, in honor of the subject matter, I’ll aim to keep it short and simply end the essay with… a clean break.  (While a groan-worthy pun, it works slightly better as conclusion than as title!)

“Wait, what?” having past-tense dismissèd  /
(Giving up on the stories unlisted), /
These posts can revisit– /
To questions exhibit– /
A chem-course path now reminiscèd.  

This is not a precisely timed anniversary post, for this website. At the same time, I strongly associate the earliest posts with an eventful March 2020, so it’s been on my mind recently.  It’s difficult to believe it’s been six years since then. This is a non-NaPoWriMo poem that addresses a big-picture theme, so I’ll give it more words than I typically do.       

“‘Wait, what?’ having past-tense dismissèd / 
(Giving up on the stories unlisted)…”  

In her foreword to The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015, guest editor Rebecca Skloot comments insightfully on the importance of the “Wait, what?” encounter: the moment when someone hears an unexpected piece of information, then takes the time to follow up (“wait…”) and clarify (“…what?”).  Skloot states that, in her role as a science journalist, such pauses can lead to insights that are immensely valuable.  (Famously, the research process that led to Skloot’s award-winning book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks arose from a question she began asking in high school.)       

Something I’ve discussed in the past is the challenging way in which science curricula introduce such moments but move past them seemingly intentionally– certainly, at a minimum, resolutely! The courses have plenty of moments that invite queries of “what,” but they have little time to “wait…” in the first place. 

My go-to example is always the statement that the metric system was introduced in the midst of the French Revolution: a tangential comment in many intro STEM books’ first chapter.  That’s a fascinating point that would benefit from discussion. However, by the next paragraph (if not the next sentence), students are tasked with learning and applying all the metric prefixes.  What’s more, those applications are the objectives that will show up on the end-of-chapter assessments and exams.  

In terms of my own experience, I note an unintentional challenge of dismissing the stories and histories behind each concept (“giving up on the stories unlisted”).    

“These posts will revisit– /
To questions exhibit– /
A chem-course path now reminiscèd.”  

Having seen this effect now from both sides of the teaching lectern, I understand how it happens.  Intro STEM courses are also classified as service courses, which by definition need to cover a wide range of concepts and techniques for a wide range of post-graduate pathways.  I do think, though, that it’s worth directly acknowledging that the scientific stories that go unacknowledged in purely content-based STEM courses are quite compelling.    

I retroactively consider the stepwise path with which I’ve approached my interest in the overlap of science and writing.  I saw developing fluency in the “language” in which the questions were expressed as a prerequisite step for writing more creatively about the content.  Moreover, knowing myself, it’s difficult to imagine how I would’ve found a more concerted route, as a student. 

I’ve thus felt fortunate over the past six years to have a space where I can revisit some of those questions (i.e., the “chem-course path now reminiscèd”). I likewise look forward to the road ahead.  

Defying the process-themed label; /
Support in the times far from stable: /
A semblance is seen /
Of a structured routine. /
We turn the next card on the table.  

As I reach a slightly calmer week with Spring Break, I’ve been thinking again about the excellent essay from The Hedgehog Review that I referenced a few months ago.  It’s worth requoting the eloquent conclusion that stood out to me in August and has been coming to mind throughout this 2025-26 academic year:    

“Part of a teacher’s job– certainly in the humanities, but even in professional fields like business– is to help students break out of their prisons, at least for an hour, so they can see and enhance the beauty of their own minds.  It is to help them learn, together, to defend how they want to live, precisely because they, too, unlike a machine, will one day die. I will sacrifice some length of my days to add depth to another person’s experience of the rest of theirs.  Many did this for me.  The work is slow.  Its results often go unseen for years.  But it is no gimmick.”  

Jonathan Malesic, in “ChatGPT Is a Gimmick,” in The Hedgehog Review

Throughout the year, I’ve been reflecting on the parallel structure of a science class meeting, knowing that our default course is not a discussion-based seminar but a content-driven lecture or lab. In other words, thinking of this “zeroth,” inherent ability of a humanities course to engage students in genuine and meaningful discussion, is there a comparably fundamental goal in a content-heavy science class?

Modeling how to approach calculations; working through derivations; trouble-shooting an experiment– these are narrower skill sets that defy the intentionally larger discussions that Malesic references. While I enjoy the sense of zooming out to talk about the role of science within society or the historical context of a discovery, it’s more common in my experience that such broader discussions happen in office hours, via research mentoring, or even with random questions in the hallway. 

That said, the specific approaches and techniques we teach in a science curriculum are likewise intended to be foundational, so the question has been on my mind for a while. I finally landed on a parallel that took its initial shape via a limerick, and I’ll expand it more generally here.   

“Defying the process-themed label…“

One answer that had come to mind as the broader goal for a lecture-based science course was learning the scientific method (the “process-themed label”).  However, as I thought about it more, it seemed that that’s aspirational… but not at all universal.  For instance, what I’m typically doing in a chemistry lecture course is introducing calculations and content that students will contextualize in parallel labs, which themselves are established over years to effectively fit into appropriately timed modules and be reasonably user-friendly.  It’s via independent research, rather than introductory courses, that most students would truly engage with the scientific method for the first time.        

“Support in the times far from stable: /
A semblance is seen /
Of a structured routine…”

What I eventually landed on as a more suitable parallel was, interestingly, inspired by a quote that I encountered around the same time as I had read Malesic’s original essay, last fall.   

When astronaut Jim Lovell passed away in August 2025, his obituary in The Washington Post had quoted writer Jeffrey Kluger, who had collaborated with Lovell on the book Lost Moon, about the Apollo 13 mission that Lovell commanded.  Kruger remembered talking with Lovell about the ordeal: “He said, ‘My feeling was that it was like playing a game of solitaire.  As long as you have one more card to turn over on the way home, you’re alive.’ He told me that his whole goal was to just keep turning cards over until he got them home.” 

This in turn had strongly reminded me of two moments in fiction.  

In the end of the movie The Martian, based on the wonderful book by Andy Weir, protagonist Mark Watney discusses his ordeal of being stranded on Mars and collaborating with scientists on Earth and on a spacecraft in between, to ultimately return home.   Some of Mark’s final lines in the movie (directed by Ridley Scott, with screenwriting by Drew Goddard) echo some of the same points that Lovell made: “At some point, everything’s going to go south on you, and you’re going to say, ‘This is it. This is how I end.’  Now you can either accept that, or you can get to work. That’s all it is. You just begin. You do the math. You solve one problem and you solve the next one, and then the next. And if you solve enough problems, you get to come home.”

More broadly (although still, intriguingly, referencing an outer-space-themed setting), I think yet again of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, as Meg fights to defy the villain IT’s influence and escape the planet Camazotz.  In an early battle, she reclaims her own sense of self first by remembering a portion of the periodic table of the elements, then by working through increasingly complex math problems: “For a moment she was able to concentrate.  Rack your brains yourself, Meg.  Don’t let IT rack them.”  

All of these immensely challenging circumstances involve taking one concrete step, which will reveal the next one to take, then taking that next one. In them, I hear echoes of the problem-solving-focused routine that I and (I imagine) many other professors in STEM regularly practice in teaching.  The goal is, in part, that each student will build up a toolbox of concepts and techniques, across the curriculum, to take into their post-graduation path.  The “semblance of structure” can itself be constructive, helping to break real-world challenges down to component, underlying principles that can be addressed, each in turn.

Jim Lovell’s eloquent discussion of solitaire stood out particularly to me for two reasons: first, of course, his was the example based in reality; second, I have also seen solitaire referenced in other STEM settings as a model for scientific problem-solving. His quote ultimately was my inspiration for the poem’s final line.    

“We turn the next card on the table.”  

The specific moments cited above are well known precisely because they portray far, FAR greater magnitudes of difficulty than anyone will practically encounter (again, two of the three are fictional!).  That said, I certainly have many memories of going into the research lab– and now, into the teaching classroom, or simply through my daily experiences– under “normally” challenging circumstances.

In those cases, I understand the sense of letting routine and expertise take over in working through one step of a calibration or calculation, then the next, consistently aiming to simply take it one step at a time, and to “turn the next card on the table.”  It can be immensely reassuring, and I hope that my students will likewise benefit through their own lifetimes. The broader goal of considering a difficult situation, aiming to translate it into a logical set of problem-solving steps, is one that resonates for my science teaching.

And since I’m now past any semblance of my typical word limit, I’ll close here, although I imagine I will keep returning to this outstanding and thought-provoking essay in the years ahead.  

“All’s well that ends well, in comprising /
Five acts and a plot galvanizing./  
The world’s for the staging, /
With narratives paging /
Through dramas’ iambic feet, rising.”  

The 23 April 2025 Bluesky limerick, like many NaPoWriMo April 23 celebrations before it, was a poem in honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday; Shakespeare lived from 1564-1616.  

“All’s well that ends well, in comprising /
Five acts and a plot galvanizing..”

Shakespeare’s dramas famously depend on a five-act structure, and his plots are among the most well-known in history.  I borrowed one of his titles, All’s Well That Ends Well, to introduce this year’s limerick.  

I had not realized this until drafting this essay, but “galvanizing” aligns well with a chemistry-themed post, since it can apply to a specific chemical process, of coating iron with zinc to avoid deterioration.  I had initially used the descriptor while thinking of its more common meaning (of stimulating or motivating).  Both definitions trace their derivations to the work of Italian scientist Luigi Galvani (1737-1798).  I suppose both senses of the word apply reasonably well here, as Shakespeare’s plots are both inspiring and long-lived!               

“The world’s for the staging, /
With narratives paging /
Through dramas’ iambic feet, rising.”       

The latter part of the limerick alludes to another play, borrowing Jaques’s famous line, “All the world’s a stage,” from As You Like It, and the final line notes that the narratives of Shakespeare’s plays are told through iambic pentameter.  

I had initially aimed for a pun with “foot-falling” at the close, but as I read more about the meter, I learned that the iamb was classified as “rising,” due to the way the stressed syllable follows the unstressed syllable (e.g., be-FORE).  This worked as well, in structuring the five lines of the poem to aim for a more accurate closing.         

“On Earth Day, note worthy intention /
Of science’s close-paid attention: /
See patterns emerging /
From threads’ new-converging, /
Revealing enriching dimensions.”

The 22 April 2025 Bluesky limerick was posted for Earth Day and commemorated a quote from renowned scientist and author Robin Wall Kimmerer, from her wonderful 2003 book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses.  (Kimmerer is best known for her 2013 book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Teaching, Scientific Knowledge, and the Wisdom of Plants, which is also superb.)  

Below is the specific quote that inspired this poem and post:  

“Slowing down and coming close, we see patterns emerge and expand out of the tangled tapestry threads. The threads are simultaneously distinct from the whole, and part of the whole… Knowing the fractal geometry of an individual snowflake makes the winter landscape even more of a marvel. Knowing the mosses enriches our knowing of the world.”

From Gathering Moss, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

“On Earth Day, note worthy intention /
Of science’s close-paid attention…”

One of my favorite chapters in Gathering Moss is entitled “Learning to See.”  The essay directly examines some of the points I found most bewilderingly unaddressed in my own training as a scientist, in terms of the different way that language was functioning in the science coursework I took, compared to my previous experience and non-science classes. 

Kimmerer notes how scientific vocabulary can sharpen the precision with which a scientist can observe and communicate: “With words at your disposal, you can see more clearly.  Finding the words is another step in learning to see.”  She also discusses how her perspective as an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation informs her knowledge of the natural world: “In indigenous ways of knowing, all beings are recognized as non-human persons, and all have their own names… Words and names are the ways we humans build relationship, not only with each other, but also with plants.”   

“See patterns emerging /
From threads’ new-converging, /
Revealing enriching dimensions.”

In the specific focus of this poem, the shifting between the particulate, macroscopic, and symbolic lenses common within chemistry courses seemed to resonate well with Kimmerer’s eloquent discussion of both how larger patterns arise from the “new-converging” combination of discrete threads and how precise vocabulary can help us better understand these juxtapositions. 

More broadly, close observation is also a common topic in my general education science courses.  Most students enrolled in these classes will not need chemistry content for their future career paths, but observation and attention can be universally beneficial.

“A morning’s song from bird-soprano,
In tree-set melodic crescendo;
The view, reminiscent 
Of project long-distant,
Past print in a type of cyano.”

The 20 April 2025 limerick highlighted a memorable spring morning sight, linking it to a past “chemistry in art” project.  

“A morning’s song from bird-soprano, /
In tree-set melodic crescendo…”

Part of what I enjoy about the April poetry routine is that it also corresponds with a return to regular morning walks, after winter’s unpredictability.  Spring weather is always a help.  (I’m writing this particular post in the wake of a massive snowstorm and scheduling it for next month; I imagine the relief in 2026 will be particularly pronounced!)  

Last year, I took this photo during an early Sunday hike; I heard the bird’s song and then found it in the midst of a flowering tree.  

“The view, reminiscent /
Of project long-distant, /
Past print in a type of cyano.”

The scene last April had reminded me of one of my earliest (“long-distant”) cyanotype attempts, used to illustrate a much-earlier April poem, translated in a much-earlier April post. 

I had used a simple stencil with commercially available photosensitive paper, which is a far cry from what actual cyanotype artists do. However, it was still a striking image. I particularly enjoyed how the visual effects reversed between the cyanotype (where the bird was lighter than the background) and the April 2025 photo (where the bird was silhouetted against the sky).        

With the last line, I had originally written “Past print in a tint of cyano,” to achieve the internal rhyme. I ultimately decided that, for something standing on its own on Bluesky, it made sense to more directly cite the technique.  

Cyanotypes were pioneered by Sir John Herschel (whose scientific accomplishments are many!) and popularized by Anna Atkins, among others, during the 1800s.