The Universe in Verse 2017: Full Show – in The Marginalian
BY MARIA POPOVA
On April 24, 2017, I joined forces with the Academy of American Poets and astrophysicist Janna Levin to host The Universe in Verse at Brooklyn’s Pioneer Works — an evening of poetry celebrating great scientists and scientific discoveries, and a protest against the silencing of science and the defunding of the arts, with all proceeds benefiting the Academy of American Poets and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
To our astonishment and delight, this seemingly esoteric idea drew an ardent audience of 850 — our maximum capacity — who lined up around the block to hear readings by Amanda Palmer, Rosanne Cash, Janna Levin, Elizabeth Alexander, Diane Ackerman, Billy Hayes, Sarah Jones, Tracy K. Smith, Jad Abumrad of Radiolab, Sam Beam of Iron & Wine, Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York, and myself.
We celebrated pillars of science like Marie Curie, Euclid, Caroline Herschel, Oliver Sacks, the Harvard Computers, neutrinos, and the number pi, and read treasures like Adrienne Rich’s ode to women in astronomy, Campbell McGrath’s tribute to Jane Goodall, and the magnificent feminist poem about science Neil Gaiman wrote especially for the occasion. SCROLL DOWN TO SEE THE VIDEO
NB This article was sent to me by my friend, Nita Walker from Asheville, NC Thank you!
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