More of a commentary than a review...Sarah Watkinson's new collection is a must read!
Photovoltaic (Sarah Watkinson)
Graft Poetry 2021
RRP (UK): £9
Sarah Watkinson is one of my poetry mentors. My journey as a poet began when Sarah phoned me in 2017 to discuss the expansion of SciPo (the science & poetry initiative supported by TORCH and St Hilda’s College at the University of Oxford). We synchronised and resolved to broaden the reach of science-related poetry from that day forward. I look back now and marvel at how developed this field has become.
Sarah’s talent is to convey science imaginatively by drawing on her own experiences in life and academia. She has invested in her craft and the glorious results are there for all to see in this book.
‘The First Green Human: The Observer Interviews Clorinda (With apologies to Elizabeth Day)’ poem really tickled me and shows her grasp on the communication of science. Here, we are introduced to a plant-like woman who stretches out viridian on the lawn. She speaks about photosynthesis, the process that plants use to convert light energy into chemical energy.
‘Think of my back as a solar panel. One everybody will be like me.’
‘Photovoltaic’ also touches on chemistry and this is a discipline that Sarah knows far more about than she lets on. In her poem ‘A poem about aliphatic hydrocarbons,’ paraffins are described as
‘firm-strung daisy chains of atoms.’
Using poetry to explain the chemical world is a passion of mine. Sarah is an expert in the careful construction of teachings in this field. We have all made daisy chains and real-life pictures like this can help us to visualise molecular backbones. In similar fashion, one of my university tutors used to refer to aromatic structures (arrays of benzene rings) as chicken wire.
I thank Sarah for educating me about the effects of comfrey in one of the book’s poems (entitled ‘A Cocktail’). I know this shrub contains compounds such as rosmarinic acid and is associated with several health benefits, but I did not know about all its risks. Here is an extract:
‘I Google it and find the leaves are lethal
with alkaloids that save the plant from weevils
but poison every part of vertebrates.’
A mixture of styles and forms have been used in this collection. The villanelle is a device that I have loved ever since reading Jess Mookerjee’s ‘Hungry Ghosts.’ In ‘Six Villanelles,’ Sarah highlights a topic that I loved at university (thermodynamics):
‘What’s entropy, to spiders in the murk?’
I hope that this book helps to make such a subject more popular. I dream of a wider admiration for physical chemistry!
Taken together, this work reinforces my view that Sarah is the leading poet for engaging with scientific concepts. Sarah’s flair and skill come to the fore in ‘Photovoltaic.’ Who knew that science could be such fun?
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Stephen Paul Wren
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