Scientific Thought and Poetic Craft: Seeking New Imagery and Vision to Involve the American Scholar

One of my favorite "contemporary" poems was written by Robert Oppenheimer while he was still a student of French Romantic Poetry, as documented by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin in American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The energy and insight of the poem leap out of the formalistic structures of its time in the same way his later work in physics does. In fact, the vision from the poem is strongly and hauntingly echoed in the physical science and setting of The Trinity Project:

Crossing

It was evening when we came to the riverwith a low moon over the desertthat we had lost in the mountains, forgotten,what with the cold and the sweatingand the ranges barring the sky.And when we found it again,in the dry hills down by the river,half withered, we hadthe hot winds against us.

There were two palms by the landing;the yuccas were flowering; there wasa light on the far shore, and tamarisks.We waited a long time in silence.Then we heard the oars creakingand afterwards, I remember,the boatman called to us.We did not look back at the mountains.

—J. Robert Oppenheimer

The poem might almost be taken as a sketchbook idea for his later work. It is a vision built from discipline, experience and thought, where creative insight expands beyond the creaking oars of the aesthetic and technological craft that carries us across our time in space.

Poetry of whatever form or school can be broken down into two significant areas of study, the combination of which establishes a poet's voice. One area of study is that of "craft," which might be briefly defined as the study of how a poet lays out his or her words on paper in such a way as to communicate the intended feeling or understanding in the mind of the reader. Within craft, one can further break the work down into more precise matters, such as line length, meter, imagery, symbolism or others.

The second area of study that is required, however, is "vision." Of the two, vision is the more important and the harder to teach. It encompasses the sense of being that the poet possesses, along with his formal or informal philosophy as to the significance or lack thereof of any image, symbol or metaphor as it relates to that philosophy. A significant poet's vision is vast, and may contradict itself, but its cohesion provides the material with which readers can dissect and analyze the poet's work. Vision generally involves the poet's understanding of art and the humanities, of existence and perception, of nature and human achievement—although these are often implied by context and juxtaposition of images rather than stated. Craft follows vision in poetry, just as form follows function in architecture, or in evolution.

Together, a poet's use of both vision and craft forms what we usually think of as a poet's voice. The different voices that define a generation or a literary era are generally recognizable as being from that era by other writers, as well as by historians and scholars. A significant part of what makes them recognizable as being from one era or another is the furnishings with which the poet provides imagery and metaphor. What kind of social settings are described, for example, or what pastimes, or what technology? Technology is important because it represents what is newly perceivable or achievable due to an increase in general human knowledge. It significantly shapes or impacts the society and people living at that time. Thus, the technological framework of the 1920s could be used to provide a dissolute setting for "The Waste Land," or alternatively for the hearty exuberance of Sandberg's "Chicago." It could also be used as counterpoint for contrasting pastoral egalitarianism. In any of these examples, the technological framework opens doors to and illuminates the understandings of its time. And it provides a uniquely contemporary canvas or milieu for discussing new ideas and their...