Space and Art at Chabot

Now playing at Oakland's Chabot Space and Science Center is a program called "Inspired by Space." This breathtaking planetarium show explores the relationship between art and space exploration, focusing on how they inform and expand one another.

The show discusses constellations and their relationship to discovery, how imagination fuels scientific discovery, and how real space imagery serves dual roles as information and inspiration.  Part of the COSMOS 360 series, the shows occur Friday and Saturday evenings at 6:30 pm and 8:30 pm. Visit this link for showtimes, and go here for more information on the COSMOS 360 series and future speakers. Chabot also features multiple exhibits on space travel, the sun, and other interesting space-related topics.

The best part about Chabot Space and Science Center, however, is their telescopes. The telescopes themselves are open to the public for free on Friday and Saturday evenings, and provide amazing, breathtaking views otherwise unavailable to the layman. The most surreal experience is looking through a telescope lens and seeing Saturn and its rings, which are clearly visible this time of year. The view is amazing.

Be sure to arrive right at sundown or just a little after, however. Later in the evening there is a risk of humidity closing the larger telescopes.

Check it out if you're in the area!

Oakland Local & the Campanil!

Poetry for Scientists has been featured in an article in the Oakland Social section of the online paper Oakland Local, entitled "Revenge of the Nerds." The article begins with a discussion of the modern nerd who, as article author Bonnie Chan states, "pursues literature alongside neuroscience, or the nerd who has a deep interest in social phenomena and a vast understanding of systems, thus producing a potential to draw connections and metaphors between scientific theory and human behavior."  Her description of the modern nerd, a moniker which had never occurred to me to apply to any of my fellow Poetry for Scientists members or myself, is incredibly in line with our vision of ourselves: delivering the complicated, technical jargon of research and theory in a metaphorical, creative form.

To read the article, please click here.

Poetry for Scientists was also featured in an article in the Mills College newspaper The Campanil by Annie O'Hare. You can read this article on page five of the paperless edition of Spring 2013 Issue 22 here.

Convergence

On April 26th, 2013, members of Poetry for Scientists faced arguably the most difficult facet of our club: that particular vulnerability in poetry which springs up from reading one's work aloud, in a quiet yet crowded room where most faces may or may not be the faces of strangers. A Tendency to Oscillate, Poetry for Scientists' first event, was by all accounts a success. We had a fantastic turnout (thank you so much everyone who attended and supported our event), and while many among us were intimidated by the prospect of exposing our passions and carefully chosen words, everyone's pieces were fantastic. They truly embodied the spirit we've aimed for in their educational, scientific value and the juxtaposition of this factual aspect with the very real, and very poignant human voice that is so often lost in traditional textbooks and research papers.

Poetry for Scientists has grown quickly from an idea to a fully functioning, supportive, creative, and intellectual space that is safe for both creation and education. We are so proud of one another, and so grateful to every person who has taken the time to hear our work, read our zine, or check out this blog. It has been an incredible semester, our very first semester, and we look excitedly forward to the next, where we hope to expand our work, our membership, and our passions.

Thank you,

Erika Refsland