QUESTIONS: Poetry in the Scientific Process and Elsewhere
Brandon Cesmat, M.F.A.
CPITS, San Diego Chapter

"Poets are scientists of the senses."—Octavio Paz

One of the first steps in creating a thesis is to wonder about something and phrase that wonder as a question, such as, "Why does an apple fall down to the ground instead of up into the sky?" or "Are bats really blind?"

After a scientist has wondered and put his or her wonder into words, the scientist has a hypothesis.

Poets are like scientists. Just as scientists observe things happening and wonder about them, so do poets. As the Mexican poet Octavio Paz says, poetry requires the use of the senses. Poets observe the world by using the senses of sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.

Sometimes poets raise questions that are difficult or impossible to answer. When the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was an old man of 80, he published a book of nothing but questions. In fact he titled the book Preguntas, which translates to "questions." Read some of his preguntas on the other side of this sheet.

See how Neruda uses the senses. He sees things like rubies and pomegranates. He hears someone "shout with glee/when the color blue was born"; he feels the bite of "fleas and literary sergeants"; he even uses the sense of taste when he asks, "Did salt’s teeth come/from a bitter mouth?"

Neruda also sees the similarity between things that don’t seem to be related at first. For example, in "Pregunta XII," Neruda relates skirts to roses. How are they alike? He seems to be using the similarity to say something more, something about beauty perhaps.

1. List four to eight things you have wondered about, things that can be observed with the senses: the texture of meringue on lemon meringue pie, the rattle of a snare drum, the scent of wet cement, where rattlesnakes go when it rains.
2. See if any of the things remind you of something else. For example, wet cement reminds me of the scent a sandy creek during a flood, so I might write something like "Does rain-glazed cement/give up the breath of creek sand?"
3. Write a poem of 6-12 lines using as many things from your list as you need and asking at least two questions.
4. Take no more than 20 minutes to come up with the words and write the first draft.

THE OBJECTIVE

Both poetry and science depend on people asking questions. The writer and doctor Anton Chekov wrote that asking the right question is the most important thing. By using Neruda’s Preguntas as models, students will add to their poems questions that use concrete details and make metaphorical observations.

STUDENT EXAMPLES