Chun Yu, Ph.D., is an award-winning bilingual (English and Chinese) poet, graphic novelist, scientist, artist, and translator. She is the author of the multi-award winning memoir in verse Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution (Simon & Schuster) and a historical graphic novel in progress (Macmillan). She is a Pushcart Prize nominee (2021 & 2022) and an awardee of China’s Xu Zhimo Micro Poem Competition (2022). She is a Library Laureate 2023 of the San Francisco Public Library. She is a YBCA 100 awardee (2020) for creative changemakers. Her work is taught in world history and culture classes. She has won grants from San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach, Poets & Writers, and Sankofa Fund. Chun holds a B.S. and M.S. from Peking University and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University. She was a post-doctoral fellow in a Harvard-MIT joint program. Her websites: www.chunyu.org, Two Languages/One Community, and Chinese American Stories.

1. What kind of parallelism would you make between the literary and the scientific?

As a scientist turned poet, I always believe that poetry at its best is scientific and science at its best is poetic.

Both literature and science seek to understand ourselves, the world we live in, and our place within it. Both require creativity, imagination, and storytelling to explore and communicate what is discovered in the process and both rely on precise and clear language to convey meanings and emotions or to describe methods and findings.

Literary works delve into the complexities of human emotion and relationships, exploring themes such as love, loss, identity, and justice. Meanwhile, science has helped us to understand the biological, psychological, and sociological aspects of human life and behavior, including spirituality and religion. For example, science has shed light on the neurological basis of spiritual experiences, showing that certain areas of the brain are activated during meditation and dopamine release can be increased by religious practice, leading to the sense of calm and joy.

As the two fields continue to evolve, they will increasingly intersect and provide insights into the human condition, deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, and hopefully, help us to make better decisions for our own lives and how we interact with the natural world we are part of.

2. Many scientists, such as Lucretius (On the Nature of Things) and Erasmus Darwin (The Temple of Nature), have written poetry. As both a scientist and a poet, are there any specific themes in science that inspire you to write?

Since ancient times, the sense of wonder, curiosity, and the quest for knowledge have driven both the scientist and poet within us. This is evidenced by works such as Lucretius’ “On the Nature of Things” and Erasmus Darwin’s “The Temple of Nature”. In ancient China, the “First Great Poet” Qu Yuan (340-278 BCE) wrote “Tian Wen” (Questions to Heaven), an epic long poem that asks a series of questions about the cosmos, natural phenomena, and the mysteries of life. This piece laid the foundation for and inspired future generations of Chinese philosophers, poets, and scientists to this day.

As a child growing up in the countryside of China, I was captivated by the beauty and intricacies of the natural world, watching the ever-changing seasons and observing the moon and stars as they rotated, changed position, and altered in shape and brightness each night. Later, as I delved into science studies, mysterious doors seemed to open up, leading me down paths of understanding. Philosophical and existential questions followed in the years that followed, and the quest continues.

Studying and researching in chemistry motivated me to explore themes such as the nature of reality, the limits of human knowledge, and the relationship between science, the environment, society, politics, and the ethical and moral implications of scientific research. Continuing with my poetry and writing, I also aspire to further explore the mysteries and mechanisms of the human mind, and their connection to spirituality – the correlations and interactions between the soul, spirit, and our human bodies. In my poems, The Game of Bonding (Indelible, current issue), The Soul (Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies, Vol. 17 No. 1 (2022)), and Alchemy (Poetry Northwest, 2023), I explore such themes.

3. Poets and scientists both focus on details, and there is a fascinating relationship between science and metaphor. The doctrine of signatures (developed and spread by alchemists Paracelsus and Boehme) states that herbs and crops resembling various parts of the body can be used to treat ailments of those body parts (broccoli for the lungs, beans for the kidneys, etc.). In other words, it was believed that nature left its wisdom in marks and signatures—in this lies the earliest origins of science as metaphor, which is quite fascinating because it showed us that scientists and apothecaries who developed medicine thought like poets. To what extent do you find metaphor in science? Does metaphor also teach us self-healing and wisdom?

“God is in the details”— attentions to detail are essential to both poets and scientists. Often, the smallest elements can have the most profound impact on the outcome of a poem or a scientific project and make the biggest impact on their audience or research. In the lab or in a poem, we can spend countless hours on the details in our research or craft, in search for a moment of discovery or a revelation which sometimes suddenly sets everything right.

Metaphors are often what make good literature, especially in poetry. They help create mental connections between different concepts, making it easier for readers to understand complex ideas and relate them to their own experiences.

Similarly, metaphors are essential in science. They can help scientists better understand complex scientific concepts. By comparing intricate scientific concepts to more familiar and relatable concepts, scientists can gain new insights into their research and discover new connections and relationships between different fields of study. Metaphors can also help explain complex scientific concepts to a wider audience. To give some examples: In science, metaphors such as “the genetic code” have been used to explain how DNA encodes genetic information. The metaphor compares the DNA molecule to a code that contains instructions for building and maintaining living organisms. This metaphor has helped scientists better understand the structure and function of DNA and has led to many breakthroughs in genetics and biotechnology. Metaphors such as “the brain works like a computer” and “the cell is like a factory” make science more accessible and understandable to the general public.

In Chinese medicine and cuisine, like in other cultures, the doctrine of signatures has been practiced since ancient times. For example, walnuts and celery, which resemble shapes of the human brain and bones, are believed to help these organs stay healthy. While the idea that plants resembling different organs can be used to treat ailments of those body parts in addition to their general health benefits as nutritious food has yet to be scientifically verified, the concept of nature leaving its wisdom in marks and signatures could on the other hand be seen as a metaphor that speaks to the interconnectedness of the natural world.

In terms of self-healing and wisdom, metaphors can be a powerful tool for personal growth and understanding. For example, the metaphor of the tree of life, the oneness of everything, or a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly can be a powerful symbol of connections to the world and personal transformation and growth, which I have written about in my own poems.

4. The theme of science is increasingly appearing in the arts now, such as astrophotography, visual art, and even the culinary arts–here is “scientific cooking” such as molecular gastronomy. Do you think we also have “molecular poetry”?

With the advancements in science and technology, our ability to view the world and universe has expanded tremendously, allowing us to see both the microscopic and macroscopic aspects that were once invisible to the naked eye. Alongside these developments, new forms of art have emerged, such as astrophotographic, microscopic, and 3D printing arts. Scientific illustration and data visualization have also rapidly transformed.

Having studied in the field of polymer chemistry and biomaterials, I believe that chemistry is essentially like cooking, but at the molecular level. During my graduate studies at Peking University, my advisor, Professor Xinde Feng, who was an early founding scientist of polymer chemistry in China, often invited his students to dine at his home. He was a master chef and during one such dinner, he imparted this wisdom to us, “You might forget some of the chemistry I taught you, but you shall always remember this: If you are a great chemist, you must be a great cook. But the other way around is not guaranteed.” I never forgot his delicious food or his words. What’s even more fascinating is that Professor Feng was not only a great chemist and chef but also a poet. As a chemist and a poet myself, who also love cooking, how I wish to have another chance to converse with him, about chemistry, cooking, and the term “molecular poetry” that this Q&A brings up.

While there may not be a specific genre of poetry called “molecular poetry,” it is certainly possible for science and poetry to intersect in creative and unexpected ways, sometimes, even on the molecular level. After years of studying and researching chemistry, I wrote the poem “The Game of Bonding – a story of plastics.” The poem explores the concept and consequences of bonding, particularly covalent bonding, which is a type of chemical bond that prevents synthesized polymers from degrading. As a result, some polymers, commonly known as plastics, continue to accumulate in the environment after serving their purposes, creating one of the most devastating environmental problems of our time.

The metaphor of molecular bonds in the poem also symbolizes the bonds between our ideas, desires, explorations, and the consequences they entail, the bonds between humans and nature – the interconnections among all beings and things.

Through this poem, I hope to honor the lessons that Professor Feng and many other teachers have taught me, in chemistry and life, in cooking and poetry. And perhaps they would even agree with me that, in a way, this poem could be considered “molecular poetry.”

5. There is an experimental aspect to the scientific method. Do you also find that in poetry too?

Experimentation is a crucial part of the scientific method, where hypotheses are rigorously tested through carefully designed experiments and observations. However, often without hypotheses, every poem is an experiment, just like life itself. There is truly no set way or fixed formula to write a poem, especially if you are writing free verse. A poem can start with a feeling, an idea, an image, or a combination of them all. How it unfolds and develops is a mystery, a creative and experimental process — an adventure to capture something profound, universal, hopefully in new and unexpected ways.