Lines of lyrical lucidity and true confessions of experiments gone awry: what else would a scientific haiku contest bring?
Last week, the AGU Hydrology Section Student Subcommittee challenged scientists traveling to the Fall Meeting this December to explain their research in a single haiku. The format of a haiku—a poem split between three lines, with the first line having five syllables, the second seven, and the third five—dares poets to be brief, descriptive, and profound.
Are you heading to @theAGU Fall Meeting? Tweet a haiku about your research with the tags #HaikuYourResearch and #AGU18 and the haikus with the most likes + retweets will win a prize!! Contest ends Nov 5th! pic.twitter.com/pFuGt9RGd5
— AGU Water Students (@AGU_H3S) October 3, 2018
Since the competition was unveiled last week, submissions have been pouring in via the Twitter hashtag #HaikuYourResearch. The contest is still ongoing, and the competition is fierce. Think you have what it takes?
To inspire your inner poet, we grabbed a few haikus for your reading pleasure. So fix a cup of tea, and sit back and enjoy the sweet simplicity of scientific minimalism. Then, go write your own poem!
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But Soft, What Light Through Yonder Cloud Breaks?
Clouds come high and low
Ice crystals and liquid drops
Reflecting sunlight #HaikuYourResearch #AGU18— Bastiaan van Diedenhoven (@CloudsBastiaan) October 5, 2018
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Rhyming “Mass Spectrometry” Is Impressive
Forams of the sea
Past is key to the present
Mass spectrometry#HaikuYourResearch— Jennifer Hertzberg (@PaleoForams) October 4, 2018
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Nothing Survives the Robot Army
Our robot army
Captured months of flux data.
R can’t handle it.#AGU18 #HaikuYourResearch pic.twitter.com/QMydhfEc0V— Holly Andrews (@HMAndrewsEco) October 5, 2018
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You Do Matter, Manganese! Don’t Let Anyone Tell You Otherwise
Arsenic Uptake
Irrigation scheme matters!
Manganese does, too.#HaikuYourResearch #AGU18 pic.twitter.com/zfJaleE7lJ— Lena Abu-Ali (@LenaAbuAli1) October 4, 2018
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Can “Sounds of Dirt” Please Be a Band Name?
#HaikuYourResearch #AGU2018
Sounds bounce off of dirt
Like bats, we can see the sounds
Seismic for the win— Derek Gibson (@dkgibson02) October 4, 2018
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#RealTalk
ICPMS
Please do not break down today
I must graduate#HaikuYourResearch— Ryan Glaubke (@OcnOgrphr) October 4, 2018
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Cute Mammals to the Rescue!
Vanishing wetlands
Wilderness scarred by drought, fire
Beavers save the day#AGU2018 #AGU18 #HaikuYourResearch pic.twitter.com/lg2qIofvUv— Emily Fairfax (@EmilyFairfax) October 4, 2018
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We’re Glad Yellow Was Not Included…
Colour of snow
White, blue, brown, red even black
Melt is quicker than expected#HaikuYourResearch #AGU18 #NationalPoetryDay
— Veronica Chan (@c_gaga) October 5, 2018
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“Think About Direction; Wonder Why You Haven’t Before”*
In the Earth’s crust sit
magnetic minerals that
mess with your compass#HaikuYourResearch #AGU18— Brian (@magnetman42) October 5, 2018
*This link is for you, millennials!
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The Symphonies of Space
Songs we can’t hear play
on magnetic violins
for twirling protons. #HaikuYourResearch #AGU18 #SpaceWeather pic.twitter.com/rLtTo5tCn7— Dr. Kristine Sigsbee (@Sputnik6400) October 9, 2018
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Devonian-ly Puzzling
The magnetic field
During the Devonian
What was it doing?#HaikuYourResearch #AGU2018— Annique van der Boon (@Anniquevdb) October 5, 2018
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I Guess You Could Say the Lasers See the Trees for the Forest?
Laser all the trees.
See how they make up the woods.
Does it matter? Yes!#HaikuYourResearch— jeff -kins(@atkinsjeff) October 6, 2018
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Ye, Plume of Old, Hark!
O plume, reveal
Thyself! By your data and
Your earthly precepts#HaikuYourResearch #AGU18https://t.co/WwlLv44MFj— Jeremy Bennett (@driftingtides) October 5, 2018
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It’s OK, We Like Talking to Rocks Too
I speak with old rocks
full of past climate’s secrets
Sometimes, they share them! #HaikuYourResearch #AGU18 #Paleoclimate pic.twitter.com/eRXynxeeJO— Fatima Husain (@FatimagulHusain) October 5, 2018
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Of course, these are just a sliver of the competition’s entries—there are oh so many more haikus tagged with #HaikuYourResearch on Twitter. Retweet or like the poems that catch your fancy to weigh in on the competition!
And if the spirit moves you, tweet your own haiku tagged with #HaikuYourResearch to give your studies the 17-syllable spotlight!
—Jenessa Duncombe (@jenessaduncombe), News Writing and Production Intern
Citation:
Duncombe, J. (2018), Can you express your science in 17 syllables?, Eos, 99, https://doi.org/10.1029/2018EO107847. Published on 16 October 2018.
Text © 2018. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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