Poetweets: Science Communications in Verse

CURWOOD: This is our final program in April, and we cant forget that its poetry month as well as a time to celebrate the Earth. We recently came across a novel poetic form that must be a sign of the times Poetweets. Theyre the fevered dream of the Brazil Contemporary Art Center in Sao Paolo, you can find them in both Portuguese and English and they consist of a rather random selection of those 140 character messages arranged in sonnet and indriso verse forms. The 14-line sonnet is familiar, and the indriso is a modern 13-line style made popular by the Spanish poet Isidro Iturat. Now, you might not expect that people we follow are exceptionally poetic, but here, for example, is a sampling of tweets from New Scientist arranged as an indriso titled Cleared Land.

Poetweet can create different forms of poetry from tweets. (Photo: screenshot)

Cleared land, by New Scientist (@newscientist)

Was repaired in a face transplant
Dinner? How nice. Yes please!
Be eaten, we’ll open the restaurant

It raises serious questions
– how sound is the science?
Right for a UN deal on emissions?

You’ll respond to a placebo pill

Why humans dehumanise others.

The Energy Department’s twitter feed (Photo: screenshot)

CURWOOD: And here are some random tweets from the US Energy Department crafted into a sonnet called Careers.

On science. Use to participate.
In communities across America.
Of and other before you decorate
They had to say: #MadeInAmerica

Part of the equation.
Welding. #AdvancedManufacturing
Are important for our mission.
Your thoughts and questions using

Costs continue to fall
Were doing to keep the grid safe
In DC? join us on the Mall!

For them — making the agile.
History of Daylight Saving here
Do? Find out in our first profile

CURWOOD: Finally, all these tweets came, but not in this order, from National Geographic.

Off Jupiter and the moon meets Mars
Of the Day: Lighting the Night
Have been rare collisions of stars:

First-ever mandatory water cuts:
Reactions to ISIS beheadings:
Is a lesson in patience and guts:

Historic water restrictions:

A crucial step in our own survival

CURWOOD: Our readers were Naomi Arenberg, Emmett Fitzgerald, and Jenni Doering.