astropoetry
idea for a science, art, and literature magazine
dust poems
Insomnia by Elizabeth Bishop
The moon in the bureau mirror
looks out a million miles
(and perhaps with pride, at herself,
but she never, never smiles)
far and away beyond sleep, or
perhaps she’s a daytime sleeper.
By the Universe deserted,
she’d tell it to go to hell,
and she’d find a body of water,
or a mirror, on which to dwell.
So wrap up care in a cobweb
and drop it down the well
into the world inverted
where left is always right,
where the shadows are really the body,
where we stay awake all night,
where the heavens are shallow as the
sea is now deep, and you love me.
star art
Galaxy Patched Jeans
black hole thoughts
The Feminine Mystique in Astronomy
How else could I relate to this woman in a medieval painting? She’s obviously a scientist, holding her tiny model of the Universe. She has this veil falling from her “princess’ hat”—the veil falls, and just covers her eyes. This small detail, the veil, stops me as I start thinking about Astronomie the woman. Her purpose (and my purpose) is to envision the heavens. Then why are her eyes covered? Read more.
Picturing the Universe With Lightbulbs
The Rose Center of Earth and Space at the American Museum of Natural History is a familiar place to me. My dad would always bring me there as a kid, so visiting that exhibit—with the spiral stairs that follow the 13-billion-year history of the Universe, the light-up panels that illuminate the nature of galaxies, and finally the spectacular Hayden sphere—was almost like returning to a playground. Read more.
more black hole thoughts
more star art
more dust poems
Shalini Kurinchi-Vendhan © Made with WordPress.
Shalini Kurinchi-Vendhan 