Description
Book SynopsisScientists and engineers are the great explorers of our age. Inspired by the work of leading research scientists, by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, space telescopes which allow us to see our Sun in wavelengths far beyond human vision, and by the Cassini mission’s astonishing photos of Saturn’s moons, poet Katrina Porteous translates to the non-scientist contemporary questions about the nature of physical reality and our understanding of it. Edge contains three poem sequences, Field, Sun and the title sequence, which extend Porteous’ previous work on nature, place and time beyond the human scale. They take the reader from the micro quantum worlds underlying the whole universe, to the macro workings of our local star, the potential for primitive life elsewhere in the solar system on moons such as Enceladus, and finally to the development of complex consciousness on our own planet. As scientific inquiry reveals the beauty and poetry of the universe, Edge celebrates the almost-miraculous local circumstances which enable us to begin to understand it. All three pieces were commissioned for performance in Life Science Centre Planetarium, Newcastle between 2013 and 2016, with computer music by Peter Zinovieff. Sun was part of NUSTEM’s Imagining the Sun project for schools and the wider public (Northumbria University 2016). The title sequence, Edge, was broadcast as a Poetry Please Special on BBC Radio 4. Edge is Katrina Porteous's third poetry book from Bloodaxe, her first to draw upon her long involvement in scientific projects, following two earlier collections, The Lost Music (1996) and Two Countries (2014), concerned with the landscapes and communities of North-East England.
Trade ReviewThis meditation on chaos and cosmos ends with our own planet glimpsed from the Earth’s moon… The experiment is brave, original and intriguing. -- Martin Hoyle * Financial Times, on Edge *
An extraordinary new poem… The verbal flow, like the effect of the moon, is tidal, with words crashing in and then gently sliding away again. -- Jane Anderson * Pick of the Week, Radio Times, on Edge *
Really brings alive the nature of the Sun to new audiences in new ways. -- Professor John Woodward * Northumbria University, on Sun *
Table of Contents9 Introduction I 26 Volcanoes of Io FIELD 29 Field i 30 Quiet i & ii 32 Gravity i & ii 34 Electromagnetism i & ii 36 Higgs i & ii 38 Quantum i & ii 41 Dark 42 Field ii II 44 Various Uncertainties i 45 Aurora 46 Observatory SUN 48 Real 49 Dynamo 50 Hydrostatic Equilibrium 51 Rotation Patterns 52 Sunquake 53 Sunspots 54 Many 55 Flare 56 Stolen Light 57 Corona 58 Spicules 59 Null Point 60 Magnetic Reconnection 61 The Sun makes a noise! 62 Fraunhofer Lines 63 Window 64 Frequencies III 67 Various Uncertainties ii 68 Speakable and Unspeakable EDGE 70 First Rising Tide 72 Io, first postcard i & ii 74 Io, Jupiter’s Moon 75 Enceladus, first postcard i & ii 77 Enceladus, Saturn’s Moon 78 Titan, first postcard i & ii 81 Space Telescope 82 First High Tide 83 Io, first falling tide i, II & iIi 86 First Falling Tide 87 Enceladus, first falling tide 89 Second Rising Tide 90 Io, second rising tide i & ii 93 Titan, second rising tide 95 Highest Tide 96 Moon CODA 102 Wake 103 An Education 104 Intertidal 111 Notes
