Why Scientists Need to Read Poetry - A Science-y Explanation

A Study on the Necessity of Poetry Reading in the Scientific Community

Ana Rosu¹, Cata Lina², Asus Laptop³, Microsoft Word⁴, and Elizabeth Majerus¹

Poetry and science have long been considered to be on opposite poles of human thought – most people will rightfully claim that poetry encompasses the emotional and artistic, while science exists in a cold world of logic and technicality. The not so friendly attitudes between scientists and poets further the divide between the fields. To encourage a more interdisciplinary approach between the fields, we have conducted a study testing the potential cognitive and emotional benefits that scientists may derive from reading poetry. We concluded that, despite scientists’ insistence that “it was a waste of their time,” poetry improved their rhetorical skills, helping them write more organized and precise papers. Further, reading poetry caused a noticeable increase in scientists’ emotional health: when they read poetry, less scientists reported feelings of stress and insecurity in their everyday experiences.

Introduction

Several studies on the potential benefits of reading poetry have been conducted within the last decade. At the University of Exeter, researchers conducted fMRI scans on people as they read poetry. They found that subjects reading emotionally charged poetry activated the same region of the brain that responds to music (Figure 1) (1). In another study at Liverpool University, scientists found that subjects’ brain activity was significantly increased when reading Shakespeare and Wordsworth compared to more modern texts. The temporary challenge that readers experienced actually ended up permanently shifting their brains into a “higher gear,” getting them to pursue further reading (2). Sherry-Ann Brown, a resident at Mayo Clinic, has also published a review on how reading poetry can improve science education at the elementary, undergraduate, and graduate levels. She concluded that learning skills of analogy, analysis, and attentiveness from poetry helped students more effectively solve scientific and medical problems (3).

            However, despite the many investigations that have been conducted on poetry and science education, no studies have looked at the effects poetry may have on scientists involved in research, not education. Our aim is to review the benefits reading poetry may have on the careers and work of scientists conducting research.

Materials and Methods

Investigating the Analytical Benefits of Reading Poetry

Using data from phonebooks, 100 scientists were randomly selected from the physics, chemistry, and biology departments of High-Lab University. Fifty of the scientists remained in a control group, the other fifty were required to dedicate five to ten minutes a day reading poetry by Whitman, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, or Milton. Each scientist was required to read a paper from their respective field before and after the eight-week experimental period (one paper was chosen for the biological department, another for the chemical department, and another for the physics department). After being given an hour to read the paper, scientists were given a quiz that tested their understanding of the concepts, experimental methods, and results discussed in the paper.

Investigating the Rhetorical Benefits of Reading Poetry

The papers of the same 100 scientists from the prior experiment were reviewed before and after the eight weeks experimental period. In a double-blind procedure, writing experts reviewed and rated the clarity of language and structure of each scientist’s most recent article on a scale of 1 to 10.

Investigating the Emotional Benefits of Reading Poetry

Before and after the eight-week experimental period, the randomly selected sample of 100 scientists completed a questionnaire that asked them to assess how stressed, unhappy, and unfulfilled they felt on a scale of 1-10.

Results and Discussion

Reading Poetry Allowed More Effective Analysis

After eight weeks, the group of scientists that read poetry by Whitman, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, and Milton had a mean growth of 1.6 points in quiz scores. In comparison, the control group only improved their quiz scores by 0.3 points.

Further investigation is needed to figure out how reading poetry caused such comparatively large improvements in analysis scores. We suspect that the scientists in the poetry-reading group experienced a similar phenomenon as those in the Liverpool University study mentioned above. More specifically, we hypothesize that reading older poetry strengthened the regions of their brain responsible for analysis, allowing the scientists to interpret papers in their fields more effectively.

Reading Poetry Improved Writing

The scientists in the control group had a decrease of 0.05 in ratings, while the scientists in the experimental group had a 0.4 increase in ratings. Interestingly, the increase in the analysis skills of the scientists who read poetry for eight weeks is not paralleled by an equally strong increase in rhetorical skills.

Reading Poetry Reduced Stress

There was no noticeable growth or decrease in the ratings that scientists gave for happiness and insecurity, suggesting that reading poetry was limited in improving their emotional stability. 


Conclusion
Ultimately, we were able to conclude that poetry did have a noticeable positive effect on scientists, despite their reluctance to read it. Reading poetry led to a noticeable increase in analysis skills; its impact on scientists' writing skills and emotional wellbeing remains debatable. Further large-scale studies on the subject remain to be done. 

A poem with no e’s—Emma Hummel

Procrastination

By *mma Humm*l

Starting off, I thought it was obvious,

Straightforward, basic, child’s play.

I could do almost anything. 

So I put it off a day,

Which turned into two, 

Which turned into six,

And now my last day is almost up

I sigh as I look out a window in my car

So much fog and humidity—NO—

No distractions. 

I must finish this blog post. 

Ugh. I’m worn out. 

A snack and a drink would assist with this. And possibly a short nap...

You know what?

I’ll just do it tomorrow. 

Good night. 

Writing a poem without having the letter e in it turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. In the beginning, I had a plan for what I wanted to do. Unfortunately, by the time I began writing the poem, I had forgotten what that idea had been. From that, I got the idea of writing about doing homework the day of the due date, which I do for a lot of homework. The really big problem I had with writing the poem would have been how I had to change the vocab and my word choice when they would have the letter e in them. One idea that I put a little time into, I had to delete when I became aware that it included the letter e. An outcome of me looking for a word that didn’t have an e involved me including a lot of vocab that I normally wouldn’t and looking up a word with an identical meaning, but without an e. Even tough it became harder than I expected when I picked the problem, it turned out to be a lot of fun. 

Poetry in The Harlem Reniassance

"Nightlife" by Archibald Motley Jr.

Origins

The Harlem Renaissance was a black cultural movement born in New York. There are an abundance of Harlem Renaissance poets and poems and taking a look into the poetry from this time and why this movement came about can help give insight into the history of the time. The Harlem Renaissance took place in the time between World War One and The Great Depression, a time during the “roaring twenties” where America was booming economically and culturally. This time of economic prosperity resulted in many black people in the south taking advantage of the job prospects in more urban areas. Subsequently, there was a large migration of black Americans moving to big cities, disproportionately moving to the Harlem area of Manhattan, thus the namesake of the Harlem Renaissance. In these urban areas, along with the economic opportunity, there was generally more racial tolerance than in the southern communities. The urban space created a tight-knit cultural hub that allowed for the sharing of ideas and this resulted in heightened cultural expression and innovation in many forms of art and culture such as jazz, literature, and of course poetry.

The Harlem Renaissance drew from many cultural influences. One big cultural influence on Harlem Renaissance poetry that was developed by black people around the same was blues music. Many elements of the beat and lyricism of blues can be seen in Harlem Renaissance poetry. As well, in the words of these poems there are many ideas of African American pride, identity, and struggle from the time.

When looking at the writing and poetry from the Harlem Renaissance it is easy to see the experience of black people living in this culture in the descriptive and vibrant poetry written. ETA by Melivin Tolson is a great example of poems that give insight into how it would feel to be a part of The Harlem Renaissance. These poems preserve moments, descriptions of real people and places and experiences weaved into the fiction of the poem. Writings preserve slang and vernacular speech in a way that things such as photographs or formal essays cannot. These poems share the lifeblood, the struggles, and the real authentic experience of The Harlem Renaissance. Yet, this makes it difficult to tell what is real and what is fiction in these poems. Poetry is not a perfect record, and while it can be extremely helpful in giving insight it should be taken with a grain of salt.

-Kate Snyder

Effects

The poetry that came out of the Harlem Renaissance permeates many facets of today’s culture. Academically speaking, the works of Langston Hughes, specifically his poem entitled “Dreams,” has become a staple of poetry classes throughout the United States. Claude McKay wrote poignant criticisms of the racist state of America in the 1920s with his poem “If We Must Die.”

Of course, poetry in the Harlem Renaissance evolved alongside one of the most influential music genres in the United States, Jazz. Both Jazz and Harlem Renaissance poetry embodied a rhythmic nature and, thus, the music influenced by jazz was also indirectly influenced by the poetry created in the same era. More directly, the cultural complexities of poetry heavily influenced rap. As a matter of fact, rap stands for “Rhythm and Poetry,” so it is unsurprising that the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance played an integral role in the development of the genre of music.

Poetry of the Harlem Renaissance and modern rap as we know it share something important in common: they both deal with complex cultural issues, grappling the struggles of the African-American condition.The Harlem Renaissance would also set the tone for important eras of African-American efforts to ameliorate the oppressive condition in which they reside, such as the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter Movement.  In a way, the Harlem Renaissance was one of the first mainstream efforts by African-Americans to celebrate their heritage and fight for their freedoms as citizens, and poetry played an extremely important role in the pursuit of that.

-Anupam Sharma

I can’t fit this poem in this box. What do I do?(A.H.)

Biggest to Smallest: Box 1, Box 2, Box 3

Order for: “Poet”

1212 Springfield Ave. Urbana, Illinois, 61801

One Poem*

*See attached note

"Poem in a box"
by Alex Higgs

I’m sorry this poem is too big to fit in one box

We had to take it apart and put it in many

Each one contains a little something new

There is no correct way to put it together

Yet if you need instruction just listen here

The first box contains buildings and landscapes

It has the dirt of mother nature,

The metal of mankind’s hardships,

water from the mighty oceans,

and the cool breeze of autumn.

The second box holds all the colors of the world

From the sweet yellow of a bumble bee

To the majestic purple of the prettiest sunset

It has colors that turn the darkest days to the brightest

And if need be, the brightest to the darkest…

Please be careful with the last box, for it is the most fragile

This box contains the heart of the poem

All the emotions: Sadness, Happiness

Anger, and most important of all Love

This is what keeps the poem breathing

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­