Dr Sam Illingworth has a PhD in atmospheric physics, a long-standing love of the arts, and a passion for using poetry to make science more democratic.
Science and poetry might seem like strange bedfellows, but to Dr Sam Illingworth, poetry is a way to bring diverse groups together to discuss some of the world’s most complex social challenges, such as climate change and sustainability.
The lyrics of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen first drew Illingworth, now an associate professor in academic practice at Edinburgh Napier University in the UK, to poetry. He recalls his “very middle class” teenage poet self, with aspirations of being the next Byron or Shelley, and laughs. “Thankfully, I did not go on to die from syphilis,” he jokes.
As a university student, Illingworth was drawn to the theatre. He began acting and writing plays, and became president of his university theatre society. After completing his PhD in atmospheric physics at the University of Leicester in 2010, he received a scholarship to work in Japan under the tutelage of renowned theatre director Yukio Ninagawa for two years.
During this time, he devised and delivered a course for the Tokyo Institute of Technology using theatrical technique such as improv to help postgraduate students improve their communication skills. This culminated in a cultural exchange with Tsinghua University in Beijing, with both sets of students using theatre to explore the commonalities of their work and experiences.
On his return to the UK in 2012, Dr Illingworth used this learning to create a similar undergraduate unit at the University of Manchester, where he spent 18 months as a postdoctoral research assistant. Illingworth used theatrical techniques to help students improve their communication skills through the consideration of audience, narrative and self.
“That experience was a real eye-opener for me, because it made me realise that I was really interested in diversifying and democratising science,” Illingworth told The Brilliant.
Illingworth landed a tenured lectureship in science communication at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he was program leader for the Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and the Master of Science in Science Communication. He also completed a master’s degree in higher education at the same university. His dissertation looked at how collaborative poetry groups could be used to build student engagement.
It was at this point that Illingworth decided to bring his love of poetry and passion for science communication together. “It just happened spontaneously”, he says. “I thought writing a blog of science poems would be fun… and it just grew from there. I hadn’t written any science poems before then at all.”
Since then, his Poetry of Science blog and podcast has covered 150 scientific research topics, from the decline of animal rights in the UK to the importance of ancient trees in the forest ecosystem and the impact of COVID-19 on young adults. Illingworth says there are now as many as 70,000 views a month of his blog and his work is regularly picked up by mainstream news outlets.
The podcast follows an unusual format – each one features a poem on the topic in a recently published scientific journal article, written and read by Illingworth, followed by a layperson-friendly summary of the science. Illingworth then reads the poem again, allowing the listener to understand it in a new way. Then he reads another poet’s work (some modern, some historic) on a related topic.
Ultimately, Illingworth wants to move away from purely disseminating information towards more participatory approaches, such as poetry-writing workshops and communal games. Carbon City Zero, for example, is a game that allows participants to conceptualise their own sustainable city, with more sustainable transport, ways to reduce waste and less toxic industrial production. Illingworth says that the creative solutions developed by participants were of such impressive calibre that they could show world leaders “how it’s done”.
In 2021, Illingworth and his colleague Dr Paul Wake, a ‘reader’ (senior academic) in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University, developed a process for others to design and play their own group science games.
Communication, collaboration, participation
The disconnect between scientists and the public is a huge issue, Illingworth says, citing vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic as one example. He’s found that workshops and communal games can be a safe space for listening and dialogue. Scientists and non-scientists need to talk to each other much more, he says, and these formats create a unique sense of shared vulnerability.
With a strong focus on inclusion, Illingworth and his colleagues in the UK have run writing workshops in marginalised communities with underserved audiences, such as refugees, asylum seekers and people living with disabilities and mental-health challenges. Addressing global, interdisciplinary problems such as climate change demands the involvement of diverse thinkers, he says.
“If the people coming up with the solutions all look like me – white, cisgendered males – we’re going to only get solutions that work for that group, not for the broader, real world,” says Illingworth. “Working in these communities has been profound for me and the learning has been humbling.”
Since 2016, Illingworth has authored eight books, which aim to show how science and poetry can and do work well together. In his most recent book, A Sonnet to Science, he showcases six ground-breaking scientists who also wrote poetry – including the world’s first programmer, mathematician Ada Lovelace, and Nobel Prize-winning malaria researcher Ronald Ross – and the role it played in their lives and research.
He is chief executive editor of the Geoscience Communication journal, and founder of an online journal called Consilience, which features artworks and poems about science.
Unlike most arts publications, Consilience is run on a peer review model. Each poem or artwork goes out to two independent reviewers, who make suggestions and then pass it on to an editor, who collaborates with the poet or artist to refine their work. Contributors can say no to suggested improvements, but most artists really enjoy the collaborative process, says Illingworth.
“Our purpose is to build a community and allow contributors and volunteers to move away from the pigeonholes that society wants to put us in like, ‘I’m a scientist,’ ‘I’m a poet,’ ‘I’m a dancer,’ rather than, ‘I’m a human being with infinite potential, who has lots of different interests,’” he says.
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Article by Blair Palese
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