How contributions to Challenging the Divide were brought about.

 Dr Michael Deves, owner of Lythrum Press, and I prepared the accompanying letter for scientists around Australia. Emeritus Professor Frank Fenner had contributed to a previous book, A Broader Vision: Voices of Vocational Education in South Australia 1897 - 2001. He gave support to this project.

Dear  ….

Erica Jolly and I are engaged in a project to connect poetry and science. She is convinced that the either/or approach to learning, that one is either ‘a poet’ or ‘a scientist’, has meant that many who might be interested in a career in one of the sciences have been discouraged early in their lives by what has been the ‘great divide’. As a Deputy Principal Curriculum at one of South Australia’s most innovative schools, Marion High School, she discovered just how entrenched that division was in the minds of those teaching what were designated the ‘hard’ subjects. Despite that, her efforts to connect learning across subjects were supported by Alan Pepper, then Senior in Physics and a pre-eminent Physics teacher in South Australia. Schools early told girls in particular that physics and chemistry might be ‘too hard’. The whole segregation of subjects has meant the quality of education has been less for those on both sides of what C.P. Snow called ‘the great chasm’. That attitude developed into a belief that still has an effect on decisions in the homes.

While her background is in the humanities, for five years she has been working with U3A groups exploring connections between poetry and science, poets and scientists of all kinds from the seventeenth century to now. In this project she has had the support of Professor Frank Fenner, who contributed to a previous project she undertook. Professor Tim Flannery, the [then] Director of the South Australian Museum, considers it a worthy project and is giving his moral support. At this time he can do no more.

While she has limited funds, she is not asking for money. I have agreed to work with her and publish a limited edition of her book and CD. [A copy of her article on Poetry and Science in Education for the Poets’ Union accompanies this request.] For this experimental publication she is seeking the support of scientists in different disciplines. Behind the ‘sciences’ are the human beings who are the scientists. That humanity means they have emotions as well as intellect. She is asking that you reveal that humanity for teachers and students in the following ways.

In no more than one or two pages tell this audience where you find the poetry in the work you do. If you like particular poems refer to them. She would like to have a chapter that allows scientists in different disciplines to reveal that aspect of their work. In Chemistry Imagined Roald Hoffmann, Nobel prize-winning chemist, emphasizes there is an important place for both. . . .

Michael Deves

Lythrum Press

PS. the CD has become this website.

Michael Deves' e-mail address is now  mdeves@internode.on.net