Since publication, the works of Charles Darwin have inspired poets and artists. One of these writers, Kelley Swain, discussed the creation of her poetry book, Darwin’s Microscope (Flambard Press, 2009), from reading Darwin, to studying whales in Baja, Mexico, to dissecting cats, to observing the migration of monarch butterflies on the coast of New England.
Kelley completed an Honours undergrad degree in English/Creative Writing—but was also able to take science courses including evolution, animal behaviour, environmental studies, anthropology, geology, and zoology. These studies, coupled with her graduate work and writing on cetology at the Munson Institute for Maritime Studies, and her ongoing involvement with the Cambridge Science and Literature Reading Group, contributed toward the literary and scientific material for her book.
After briefly exploring the role and responsibility of the ‘science poet,’ and explaining some reactions she has encountered to her own work, Kelley gave a reading from Darwin’s Microscope.
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