Kelly: Nonet for the Environment

All of the smoke that you release

From the abysse of your insides

Promise this will help me move

But makes me slowly die

I have to evolve

To rise on top

To breath again

Air clean

Live

Poems with rhyme requirements scare me. I always thought I would lose the context over the specifications. So, when asked to write my first ever poem, let alone a science related one, I was kind of petrified.’ 

A nonet is simple. It is a poem with nine lines, each line gradually losing a syllable: the first line has nine syllables, the second eight and so on, until the last line of one single syllable. This framework  gives you structure, something a scientist like myself needs, but at the same time gives you the ability to explore and the freedom to break the rhyming rules. Also, a commodity scientists long for, breaking the set rules.

Natasa: three haikus for waste

plastic

White sand and

piles of algae from yesterday’s storm – 

in red and blue. 

weekend trip

I stuff an extra scarf in my backpack 

and the extra oranges 

in the dustbin. 

gift exchange

A warm bundle of berry seeds

and nutrients: 

a bear just pooped here. 

Haikus originally come from Japan. To me, they always looked like random short sentences broken into three lines. As I found out in the workshop, though, they have quite a set of rules (or characteristics), compared to their size: 

1. They have 17 syllables or less 
2. They are about nature (human nature counts, too!) 
3. They include a reference to the season 
4. They are a snapshot written in present tense 
5. They include a cutting word, a juxtaposition

It was lots of fun to play with the rules; to see how the imagination spills around these boundaries, and what shapes it takes. 

Chrysovalantou : Ολικά και ελάχιστα 

… and here is the third experiment, without form restriction, inspired by the Principle of Minimum Energy and the mathematical optimization.

Ο τόπος.

Βήματα δεξιά-αριστερά

Οι διευθύνσεις όμως άπειρες

Και η συντομοτέρα πάντα 

Ευθεία.

Το σημείο.

Αυτό που σε ελαχιστοποιεί

που όσο και

Να προσπαθείς

πρέπει πάντα να υπολογίζεις καλά

το επόμενο βήμα

για να κάνεις τη δρασκελιά. 

Κι ας κάνεις λάθος.

Ο τόπος.

Το σημείο.

Το Ένα.

Τι να τα κάνεις όταν έχεις

Το Όλον

ονειρευτεί;

We hope we got you curious about experimenting with some poetry, too! You have the rules, and you have evidence that there is worse. Now, wear your cape of imagination too, and let the words flow on the paper!