Specific locations often evoke sensibilities within us and inspire poetry. For poetic inspiration, you might envision a lush meadow, the Grand Canyon, a snowy mountain or even the bustling streets of Boston. The Arctic may be one of these places.
On Tuesday, Nov. 19, the Women in Science Initiative, sponsored by the Brandeis Women's and Gender Studies Program, hosted an event titled "Arctic Inspired: Science and Poetry from the Far North."
The event featured Prof. Elizabeth Bradfield (ENG), a naturalist and the 2012 to 2014 visiting Jacob Ziskind visiting Poet-in-Residence. The event was held in the Epstein Building.
Bradfield began the session by explaining the naturalist qualities in her poetry and how her poems based on the Arctic slightly differ from her other works. "My poetry often intersects with the natural world," she said. "But rarely have I [created pieces with] a deliberte bridge to show the connections between the two."
Bradfield then recited the prelude to Approaching Ice, her poetry collection published in 2010, before she displayed various photographs of the Arctic. The subjects of the photographs varied, ranging from lush landscapes of the Arctic to its flora and fauna.
"It is so rich up there. The number of species isn't vast, but [the Arctic] teems with life. It's phenomenally rich," Bradfield said.
The presentation also focused on the microscopic life of the Arctic: plankton. According to Bradfield, 235 plankton species are shared between the North and South poles, due to a process called thermohaline circulation-a part of the large-scale ocean circulation. In relation to this, she presented another poem, "Arctos/Antarkticos."
A part of the poem is as follows, "Back before the myths were spoken/all land was lumped/on one side of the globe/like an aching tooth, there was ocean/over both poles. Then the slow spread/of earth's humors: Asia, India/Australia,/all the soft-voweled continents drifting."
The next topic was about introduced exotics-species that do not originate from the region-such as the king crab. "It does so well that it pushes out other stuff," Bradfield said. As a contrast, she also noted noninvasive species, such as the taraxacum brachyceras, or as we call them, dandelions.
A poem followed, titled "Nonnative Invasive." A quote from the poem is, "A swell of roadside by my house/yellows with them now, excessive petals/turning to excessive seed."
Bradfield then moved on to a topic that dealt with ice itself and the communities beneath the ice. "As ice grows older, it gets fresher," Bradfield said. "The salt gets pushed out, [creating] hyper-concentrated channels of brine." Worms, bacteria and little crustaceans live in the channels, and nutrients enter the water system.
"The garden of the Arctic is under the sea ice," she added before reciting a selection from "Notes on Ice in Bowditch."
Continuing on the note of small Arctic creatures, Bradfield moved on to discuss copepods-three milimeter long organisms high in calories. Whales feed on the copepods, and she addressed her observations of the whale-feeding with the poem, "Historic Numbers of Right Whales Skim Feeding off Cape Cod."
Part of the poem goes, "Poor plankton, adrift/in flailing clouds, poor blushing copepods/with delicate antennae, watermelon scent-/you don't stand a chance."
The next topic was birds. Bradfield started by mentioning Psyjunaetur, an Icelandic festival in which children would capture confused, lost puffins and release them to the sea; the puffins will forage, they'll feed, travel and eventually return to breed. The poem corresponding with this topic was, fittingly, "Psyjunaetur."
The last six lines of the poem are "They ruffle and launch from rock cleft toward/what glow they see, the streetlamps, where children wait/with outstretched boxes, catching them, nesting/them, carrying their slight palanquins to the sought shore,/learning from this tenderness, years later, when the birds/return, how delicious are the things we've freed."
Next, she touched on the subject of Eider ducks' eggs and nests, reciting the poem, "Midwinter: The Poet Imagines MacMillan Eating Frozen Eider Eggs in Labrador."
"In spring, what treasure to find eggs snug in breast-down laid for them on tundra. I filled/my dory to the gunwales, couldn't move for eggs, rowing like a woman stiff/in her joints, ginger with her bones. And now, November, my hatchet/through the hard, specked elliptical, my appetite for this land/that ate my father and so, cold seasons later, my mother," ended the poem.
For the closing topic, Bradfield played a recording of two Inuit women playing a throat singing game. The game consists of two women-men do not play this game-holding each other by the elbows and singing with back-and-forth exchanges, and the women to laugh first loses. According to Bradfield, the singing sounds "almost inhuman."
Then Bradfield recited her last poem, "Southern Music" before answering questions from the audience.
Bradfield has always been interested in natural history and poetry. "Over the years, my passion for both [natural history and poetry] has developed into a public conversation-working as a naturalist, publishing poems," she wrote in an email to the Justice. At Brandeis, Bradfield finds that she can pursue both interests.
She said, "I came to Brandeis because of the wonderful opportunity to teach poetry here and still maintain a tie to my life as a naturalist."
In fact, she looks forward to spending more time at Brandeis.
"I just had my poet-in-residence contract extended," she noted. "I'll be at Brandeis next year, too, which I'm thrilled about!"