Science Poems for January 2011: 18

Last April I posted a science sonnet a day in celebration of National Poetry Month (index with links here). This month I am posting a science poem a day, written in various traditional forms, in honor of Science Online 2011.

The "fifth annual international meeting on Science and the Web" ran from Jan. 13-16. Click on the logo below to access the conference page, which has links to posts, tweets, photos, and videos from the event.



As with the sonnets, my January poems take their cues from science-based articles. I also have two works in a special science poem section (vol. 33 #5/6) of Star*Line, journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. You can read my "Ciliate Sestina" here.

Also, two sonnets from last April's collection, "In Development" and "Manipulations," have made it into Open Laboratory 2010 Click on the badge below for links to the 50 essays, 6 poems, and 1 cartoon in the collection.


(Click here to see Andrea Kuszewski's gorgeous cover!)

Today's poem takes its cue from "Stanford Researchers Develop Video Games That Let You Interact With Microorganisms" (MedGadget, Jan. 14, 2011). Click on the article link to learn more about the research. To learn more about the traditional poetic structure used, click on the form name.

Paramecium at the Video Arcade
(Form: Minute)

I swim in liquid medium.
A whiff will come
that I'll discern,
and I will turn.

And then it's electricity
that nudges me,
as though I play
a game all day.

But I'm the piece that's on the board!
Some giant scored.
A child could win.
(It makes me spin!)

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