Reaction to ‘A Fistful of Foraminifera’
Norman MacLeod

Though not an avid reader of poetry, I nonetheless consider myself familiar with the poetic experience through my work on foraminiferal systematics. Through the years I’ve found very few people who can look at the wonderful diversity of shell shapes, colours, textures, and ornaments constructed by these minute creatures and not be moved. Perhaps it was this shared sense of the poetic side of natural history that caused Sarah Maguire and I to establish a rapport almost immediately. Prior to our meeting Sarah mailed me a copy of her book The Florist’s at Midnight. Reading through her poems I learned that, aside from writing verse I could relate to, she was familiar with the scientific names of various plant species too. A poet who was comfortable with binomial nomenclature, and had an eye for natural history, even in urban settings. I was impressed.

Our lunchtime discussion ranged widely. Because the subject matter of palaeontology is so vast I brought several objects to show Sarah: a brachiopod shell, a bivalve, a trilobite, and even an arrowhead (representing a human trace fossil). The object that really captured her interest, however, was a small Victorian magnifying bottle into which I’d placed a sample of foraminifera. The bottle’s magnification was low. You could just barely recognize the ‘sand’ as being composed of tiny shells. But that was enough. I don’t think Sarah had ever seen shells like these. So small, delicate and perfect, yet so unimaginably old. After lunch we strolled down to The Natural History Museum to take a look at other specimens through a proper microscope. There, surrounded by late twentieth century imaging technology we looked a collections of dust from the bottoms of ancient, far-off oceans lovingly mounted in quaint paper & glass slides by my nineteenth-century predecessors. There—along with a few current colleagues of indeterminate vintage who happened to be working in the library that afternoon—I introduced Sarah to a thousand or so of my youngest (Pleistocene!) and closest, old foraminiferal friends. She was intrigued.

I think the poem that resulted from those (and a few subsequent) conversations turned out well. Much better than I'd dared hope. The similarities between scientific and artistic creation have been discussed often. Both stem from an innate need to communicate and form groups that’s characteristic of our species. But the similarity in our emotional responses to nature is something I have not seen discussed as widely. All scientists—at least, all systematists—respond on an emotional level to their objects of study. Long training in the analytical style of scientific writing squeezes the ability to communicate this emotion, lyricism, and passion out of most of their writing. Contrary to scientists’ public image, however, that doesn't mean we don't feel these things. Indeed, I believe it’s precisely those feelings that makes us scientists. For me, Sarah’s poem really brings this aspect of my science out. The effect is immeasurably heightened by the tidbits of scientific fact she’s sprinkled liberally throughout the text. By touching on the aesthetics of foraminiferal shell morphology, their lives, and the way they've become bound up with the lives and history of humans—who are, for the most part, as ignorant of foraminifera as foraminifera are of them—Sarah has captured an important aspect of palaeontology’s appeal. It’s as much a glimpse into the palaeontologist’s world as a description of its objects. But then, that’s what I was always told good poetry was supposed to do.