Cross-Pollinations (The Credo Series): The Marriage of Science and Poetry

by Gary Paul Nabhan

Overview

In this book, Nabhan describes the circumstances of several of important--even breakthrough--discoveries that came about through the cross-pollination of science and the arts. His stories mix the personal and scientific in an engaging way. When he found out in high school that he is color blind, an amazing teacher chided him to use his so-called problem to explore varieties of perception. Years later, Nabhan organized teams of color-blind and color-normal scientists to survey a plant thought to be endangered. The color-blind scientists' results changed the views of that ecosystem. Nabhan tells about ancient songs of the O'odham people that contain an understanding of plant ecology that science has only recently caught up to. In perhaps the most stirring chapter, he describes how one of the native women he knows pleaded with him to put his knowledge to use to help find the reason for persistent diabetes among native peoples. Nabhan describes how the structure of an Amy Clampitt poem gave him the inspiration for a research model that led to an understanding of native plants and the metabolism of sugar. The last chapter is a rousing account of the creation of the Ironwood Forest National Monument in the Sonoran Desert.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781571312709
Publisher:	Milkweed Editions
Publication date:	02/09/2004
Series:	The Credo Series
Pages:	107
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.32(d)

Table of Contents

	Cross-Pollinations: An Overture	3
	Blending Field Science and the Arts: Insights from the Cereusly Color-Blind	15
	Why Poetry Needs Science: Decoding the Songs That Can Help Us Heal	27
	Why Science Needs Poetry: Fitting New Metaphors to Nature When Old Cliches Fail	45
	How Metaphors Can Serve to Conserve: Staving Off the Extinction of Relationships, Saving the Tree of Life	59
	Gary Paul Nabhan: A Portrait	75
	Selected Bibliography of Gary Paul Nabhan's Work	95