ICE BLIND: a poetry reading

Abstract:

In December 2010, the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers Program sent poet Katharine Coles to visit Palmer Station, a U.S. science facility in Antarctica. The poems that came out of this journey engage the extremity of the landscape and the travel required to get to Palmer Station (which can be reached only by ship across the Drake Passage), as well as the scientific projects being undertaken by oceanographers, biologists, atmospheric scientists, mathematicians, and others at Palmer and beyond. Coles writes not only about the unfamiliarity of the place - and the need to learn how to see a landscape in which reflection, refraction, and mirage play such a large role - but also about encountering and fitting in with an intellectual culture different from her own. The result is a book-length meditation on perception, analysis, and description, all undertaken in the breathtaking beauty of perhaps the most climactically extreme place on earth.

Katharine is Professor of English at the University of Utah, and is currently engaged in a project with members of the Oxford e-Research Centre to develop new forms of visualization of poetry. This poetry reading will be a new type of event for the OeRC, and we hope that it will bring together scientists, artists and literary scholars to reflect on interdisciplinary differences and connections. Wine and snacks will be served, and there will be an opportunity for questions and discussion.