A couple of weeks ago, Irish poet-physicist Iggy McGovern read here in the DC area and introduced readers to his new poetry collection The Eyes of Isaac Newton (Dedalus Press, 2017). McGovern's poems involve a wide variety of scientific topics: vision and color, genetics, quantum theory, and so on -- peopled with scientists and poets -- an amazing variety of topics and verses, scientifically accurate yet accessible to a non-scientist reader.
McGovern's poems sometimes turn to humor and below I feature three examples of his clerihew.
From Wikpedia (edited): A clerihew is a whimsical, four-line biographical poem --
the first line gives the name of the poem's subject, usually a famous person who at whom fun will be poked.
The rhyme scheme is AABB, and the rhymes are often forced. The line length and metre are irregular.
Because none of McGovern's clerihew feature women, I insert one of my own,
about unheralded 20th century codebreaker Elizabeth Smith,
Elizabeth Smith,
poet, technologist,
code breaker, Nazi exposer--
and, alas, no one knows her.
And, from Iggy McGovern:
Albert Einstein
liked to opine:
"It's not very nice
Of God to play dice."
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