Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
“Poetry & Science: A Shared Exploration” event on October 16, 2013. C.P. Snow complained of a world in which the “two cultures” of science and the humanities have grown increasingly separate. This two-part evening offers another story, in which four neuroscientists discuss research in language, cognition, emotion, and the ways that our brain structure may affect the language of poems. Followed by four poets reading work that delves into the sciences with curiosity, range, and the imagination. Co-hosted by Litquake and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center’s Hellman Visiting Artist Program, in which Jane Hirshfield is the 2013 Poet in Residence.
• Dr. Bruce L. Miller directs the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. He is a behavioral neurologist with a special interest in brain and behavior relationships, language, and the biology of disease.
• Dr. Marilu Gorno-Tempini obtained her medical degree and clinical training in Neurology and her doctorate in Imaging Neuroscience. In her research she combines neuropsychological and imaging techniques to characterize the language deficits in dyslexia and dementia.
• Dr. Virginia Sturm is an Assistant Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Her research centers on emotion and social behavior in patients with neurodegenerative disease.
• Educated at Oxford, Pireeni Sundaralingam has held research posts at MIT and UCLA, and has received national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares and The Progressive, among other journals.
• Jane Hirshfield is Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a UCSF Hellman Visiting Artist. Her work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and Best American Poetry. Her most recent book is Come, Thief.
• Forrest Gander is a writer and translator with degrees in Geology and English Literature. His book Core Samples from the World was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
• David Watts, a poet and UCSF physician, has published seven books of poetry, two books of short stories, and numerous essays exploring the necessity of humanism in medicine.
• Kay Ryan, United States Poet Laureate from 2008-2010, is most recently the author of The Best of It, which received the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Among her other honors is a MacArthur Award.
Poems Read:
Kay Ryan:
Train-track Figure
The Pharaohs
A Hundred Bolts of Satin
Forgetting
Lacquer Artist
Doubt
The Mock Ruin
Why We Must Struggle
Swept Up Whole
Learning
New Rooms
NatureStudy: Spots
David Watts:
Words (Watts)
the petunia at the end of the garden (ellis)
The Body of my Brother (Watts)
missing Bill (ellis)
Fragment at the Beginning of Something. . . (Watts)
ancestors (ellis)
lunch (ellis)
The Delicate Sprigs of Love (Watts)
the dead (ellis)
Jane Hirshfield:
"Alzheimer's" and "The Pear" from COME, THIEF
"Optimism" from GIVEN SUGAR, GIVEN SALT
"My Skeleton"
"My Proteins"
Forrest Gander:
"Field Guide to Southern Virginia" from Science & Steepleflower
"The Carboniferous and Ecopoetics" from Redstart
“Poetry & Science: A Shared Exploration” event on October 16, 2013. C.P. Snow complained of a world in which the “two cultures” of science and the humanities have grown increasingly separate. This two-part evening offers another story, in which four neuroscientists discuss research in language, cognition, emotion, and the ways that our brain structure may affect the language of poems. Followed by four poets reading work that delves into the sciences with curiosity, range, and the imagination. Co-hosted by Litquake and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center’s Hellman Visiting Artist Program, in which Jane Hirshfield is the 2013 Poet in Residence.
• Dr. Bruce L. Miller directs the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. He is a behavioral neurologist with a special interest in brain and behavior relationships, language, and the biology of disease.
• Dr. Marilu Gorno-Tempini obtained her medical degree and clinical training in Neurology and her doctorate in Imaging Neuroscience. In her research she combines neuropsychological and imaging techniques to characterize the language deficits in dyslexia and dementia.
• Dr. Virginia Sturm is an Assistant Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. Her research centers on emotion and social behavior in patients with neurodegenerative disease.
• Educated at Oxford, Pireeni Sundaralingam has held research posts at MIT and UCLA, and has received national fellowships in both cognitive science and poetry. Her poems have appeared in Ploughshares and The Progressive, among other journals.
• Jane Hirshfield is Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a UCSF Hellman Visiting Artist. Her work appears regularly in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and Best American Poetry. Her most recent book is Come, Thief.
• Forrest Gander is a writer and translator with degrees in Geology and English Literature. His book Core Samples from the World was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
• David Watts, a poet and UCSF physician, has published seven books of poetry, two books of short stories, and numerous essays exploring the necessity of humanism in medicine.
• Kay Ryan, United States Poet Laureate from 2008-2010, is most recently the author of The Best of It, which received the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Among her other honors is a MacArthur Award.
Poems Read:
Kay Ryan:
Train-track Figure
The Pharaohs
A Hundred Bolts of Satin
Forgetting
Lacquer Artist
Doubt
The Mock Ruin
Why We Must Struggle
Swept Up Whole
Learning
New Rooms
NatureStudy: Spots
David Watts:
Words (Watts)
the petunia at the end of the garden (ellis)
The Body of my Brother (Watts)
missing Bill (ellis)
Fragment at the Beginning of Something. . . (Watts)
ancestors (ellis)
lunch (ellis)
The Delicate Sprigs of Love (Watts)
the dead (ellis)
Jane Hirshfield:
"Alzheimer's" and "The Pear" from COME, THIEF
"Optimism" from GIVEN SUGAR, GIVEN SALT
"My Skeleton"
"My Proteins"
Forrest Gander:
"Field Guide to Southern Virginia" from Science & Steepleflower
"The Carboniferous and Ecopoetics" from Redstart
