POETRY WORKSHOP
SCIENCE MATTERS
Alison Chisholm is impressed by a poem that pays tribute to a genius
You may have glanced through this poem and immediately recognised a couple of its phrases; and this was the intention of poet Vincent Johnson of Montpellier, South of France. You are unlikely to have recognised, though, that it’s a two-for-the-price-of-one homework exercise. As a member of two British poetry groups that meet via Zoom, Vincent took the opportunity to write on a theme of science for one group, and in the form of a persona poem for the other. So this look at Sir Isaac Newton, narrated in the poet’s interpretation of his voice, satisfied on both counts. Poetic licence allows the writer to speak about his ‘own’ death and speculate on how he succumbed.
Although the Age of Enlightenment is thought of in terms of the eighteenth century, Newton (1642-1727) and John Locke (1632-1704) are identified as the true fathers of the movement. The dates are important in a consideration of Vincent’s poem. He has used some quirks of seventeenth-century poetry to give an appropriate voice to Newton.