The Drake Equation

A poetry collection by educator & scientist Dr. Brad Hoge.

The claim that eschewing knowledge allows us to better appreciate beauty is a troubling yet common refrain in modern poetry, the idea that we have lost our innocence and connection to the beauty of nature as we have become more sophisticated and dependent on scientific inquiry. Though there is some value in the motivation for the preceding claim, my poetry explores the expansion of opportunity for wonder from new discoveries and the power of modern natural metaphor.

While traditional natural metaphor has been used to describe our connection to the natural world, the natural world itself as discovered through scientific exploration now provides a greater range of metaphor for interpretation of experience and the search for meaning. And if one considers the challenge of defining reality itself, it is certainly natural metaphor that will help us navigate our acceptance of new worlds and multiple universes. Just as nature tells stories, so do my poems. Stories of particles dancing into order, of rocks crumbling and forming, cycles of stars exploding, and children fulfilling promises. All of humanity's stories woven together to create the fabric on which the universe becomes meaningful.

My poetry is driven by the details of reality, the unfolding of explanation for natural phenomena and by a search for meaning, not mystical, but satisfying to the human mind. Whether emergent property or not, it is human consciousness that imposes meaning onto the quantum fabric of reality. And this is where my poetry finds joy and peace. The opportunity to predict what, is beyond science, but still within the realm of reality. Not available to experiment, but not reliant on mystical thinking. Exploration of the unknown without restraint of theory, but without giving up on reason. The imposition of reason into discourse by questioning whether it is the Higgs boson that provides substance to our universe, or the thoughts and ideas that convert matter and energy into art.