Arthur J. Stewart

'The Hallelujah Series' is a splendid book of poems encircling and questioning the role of place in our lives-the role of place in this beautiful world, in this rough and tough yet delicate island home. Art Stewart's seventh volume of science-inspired poems invoke imagery providing a crisp, stained-glass view of life and place in these peculiar times of science, love, despair, and hope. He delivers simple but poignant messages, poem after poem, with precision and wonder, over scales large and small, in a delightfully accessable style: "The delicate web / astonishes us with dew and how it arcs / from gravity and how it bends in breeze, // astonishes us / with its chemical simplicity / its structural form and by the fact it was / pinned in darkness overnight." And hallelujah to that: yes, hallelujah, the word that has spawned "great swaths of music: imagine / waves of praise all ye, Yah, / rising, hill after distant hill, ascending / in a massive chorus, an offering / to flowers, fields, mountains." These poems remind us, over and over, of the importance of life as we rush about, from day to day, from place to place, knowing, but not certain how to live.

"Science is like a fine Swiss cheese," he says. From a quirky, down-to-earth, hard-work beginning to a serene, humble end, in Elements of Chance scientist-poet Art Stewart explores the principle of cause and effect, a cornerstone of science. He offers facts--but not just the facts. Come along In these poems you are invited to appreciate both the facts and the connections and spaces between the facts."A moving synthesis of poetry, biology, science, and life. The deep beauty and excitement of the natural living world, so fresh in the original writings of Loren Eiseley and Lewis Thomas, is born again in these remarkable poems. Read them and let them carry you into the beauty and mystery that is nature." - Allan Combs, Professor and Director, California Institute for Consciousness Studies, The California Institute of Integral Studies, author of Thomas Berry Dreamer of the Earth, The Radiance of Being, and more"A beautiful new way to illustrate the oneness of art and science. Arthur Stewart's poetry is a pleasure walk through the garden that empowers us--balance, synchronicity, organization, animals, paintings, technology, books, and the very special, the Monet. This book is strongly recommended to all students of science." - Adrian Bejan, J.A. Jones Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Duke University, author of The Physics of Life: The Evolution of Everything"Things seem not to end in these poems. We get a picture of a mind considering its own mortality, yes--including a tooth filling or the evasive moves of a lizard--but it's a lyrical reflection and in "Bunny Hour" he catalogues a kind of contentment Coleridge expresses in "Frost at Midnight." The intimacy here, the changing focus of inward and outward eye, reveal a poet in full control of his poetic materials and confident in a worldview he invites us to enjoy with him." - Robert Chianese, Professor, columnist for American Scientist and author of Illuminations: Poems Inspired by Science"Ever the limnologist, Stewart's world is the world of water. His poems grounded. His hands wet. Whether he is driving, slow rowing, data gathering or gazing, water images pervade--ripples, eddies, gyres, water lilies, the "dark air-water interface" and the Sargasso Sea. As Stewart faces uncertainty, causality and chance, he never loses his humanity or his sense of humor." - Nancy Gorrell, author of Writing Poetry through the Eyes of Science: A Teacher's Guide to Scientific Literacy and Poetic Response

The central theme of Arthur Stewart's fourth collection of poems is to remind scientists, and poets, that ambiguity is the lifeblood and basis of both science and poetry.