I recently came across a post by Rachel David: “Science communication in unconventional forms – experiments in Found Poetry.” It reminded me of my poetry writing days in high school and college including undergraduate poetry courses that gave me insight into playing with style and form. Found poetry uses words and phrases from pre-written text to serve as a sort of amniotic fluid, helping to nourish the birth of something new. David gives insight into applying this process to scientific papers.

So, I am using this as both a jumping off point and permission to engage creatively with some of the papers I’ve found while helping to revise a scientific manuscript I submitted collaboratively with a team of researchers I completed some past research with. This first attempt keeps with the environmental focus of the paper I chose, and benefited greatly from the rich word choice in the writing:

State of the Game

Average citizens – visitors of
A world in general,
A world in particular.
That world: A broadcast of
wildlife, of botanical exhibitions,
and beautiful aesthetic discovery.

Environmental context underpins
a curiosity of rapid human endeavors,
notorious behavioral intentions
and byproducts of ideas.
Some lead to growing ruin,
a world polluted,
an endangered future.

What are the catalysts,
the vital ingredients
to protect this authentic identity of nature,
to construct new outcomes,
to rethink moral orientations?

Are empathy, emotional involvement the
salient keys to designing these better instruments?
Of insight,
Of action,
Of change?
What enduring free-choices will support
our delicate natural heritage,
So it will not just be
What we attend to in our memory?

Derived from: Ballantyne, Roy & Packer, Jan. (2005). Promoting environmentally sustainable attitudes and behaviour through free-choice learning experiences: What is the state of the game?. Environ Educ Res. 11. 10.1080/13504620500081145.