Summer of Poetry Chapter 1: Reading a Poem

Dear members,

Join NYC Women in STEM for a Summer of Poetry: a series of events centered on reading and discussing poetry. If you've familiar to the format of these events, please scroll to the bottom for this week's reading.

Why poetry?
Rebecca Elson, James Clerk Maxwell and Ada Lovelace all explored what it means to be a scientist and human being through poetry. Immunologist Miroslav Holub argued that science and poetry enjoy an "uneasy relationship"; he wrote poems despite observing that, "Scientists tend to be suspicious of poets; they feel that poets are, somehow, irresponsible." That makes me wonder how many women in STEM out there hide their poetry underneath their keyboards, multimeters or microscopes.

I hope that these events will help us open our minds to a different way of knowing. If you've always wanted to read more poetry but you didn't know where to start, or you couldn't summon the motivation, this is the place for you.

What's on our reading list?
Every two weeks we read and discuss 3-5 poems, a selection from both canonical and contemporary works.

We will closely follow "An introduction to Poetry" by X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia, a classic undergraduate textbook.

We don't require participants to own a copy of the textbook, but if you are new to poetry and would like to dig a little deeper, we recommend you to get a copy and follow along chapter by chapter.

Used copies can be found online at reasonable prices ( see e.g. https://www.abebooks.com/ or https://www.thriftbooks.com/ ); I got a twelfth edition copy for $5.

Where and when?
We meet biweekly in Central Park until we run out of summer. If it rains heavily, we might have to postpone the event, so please enable emails from this group and keep an eye out for updates.

Who may join?
Our group is open to all women, regardless of their professional background or knowledge of poetry.

Anything else?
We will reserve the last half hour of our meeting for participants to read and promote their own work; bring a poem you've written recently or in a past life and read it to us!

Optional: after we have nourished our minds, we may go to a restaurant/pub to nourish our bodies too.

These events are completely free of charge, but we do accept cash/Zelle/Venmo donations; your contribution helps us pay for the meetup and website fees. Any extra funds will be fed back into the group (e.g. snacks & drinks, networking events, and promoting the community).

This Week's Reading

• Piano, by D. H. Lawrence
• Aunt Jennifer's Tigers, by Adrienne Rich
• Out, Out---, by Robert Frost
• Ask Me, by William Stafford

Optional: Chapter I: Reading a Poem, "An Introduction to Poetry", by X. J. Kennedy & Dana Gioia

Please read the poems in preparation for the event.

Best,
Your NYC Women in STEM organizers